I have had insomnia since Sept 2018. At first I managed with melatonin… by Nov 2018 I was getting no sleep at all. By Jan 2019… the Remeron was starting to fail me. I started substituting with Klonopin, Ambien and Phenebut (cycling in hopes not to build tolerance) .
So as irony would have it, last night was my first sleep study… to prove to my sleep doctor that I got NO sleep without drugs. So for the first time since Sept 2018… I laid my head on a pillow having taken no sleep drugs or melatonin AT ALL. I laid down at 10:37pm… after the sleep tech glued so much shit to my face including an air tub attached to my nose to monitor breating, chest and stomach straps to monitor breathing… a pulse ox sensor taped to my finger and about 6 or so probes glued to my scalp through my hair. The breathing tube nearly gave me a panic attack but I was determined to make it through the night even if I just was going to lay there meditating for 6 hours.
Light out at 10:37pm… around 11pm… I feel somehing… almost like something washing over my brain … kind of like when I first started taking Remeron and it worked… I got really focused and started to feel myself fall into a deeper “dream state”… . and boom… door opens up. Some IT guy is standing over me with a flash light and is like… uh… the computer isnt reading any of the sensors. Apparently after I asked to be disconnected from the 2 main wires so I could take one last piss… the computer wouuldnt register any of the sensors. After a quick reboot… things were baack online.
So I laid there assuming I would just put in a very long 6 hour transcendental meditation session… soon after I got that wash over my brain again… I got into a light dream state… maybe for 5 or so minutes… then back to sort of zombie sleeping… I knew I was awake because I could hear the fans running on the IR cameras monitoring the bed. Eventually the wash over my brain came again… this time it was for a little longer. This went on from about 11pm to somewhere around 2am… thats when it happened. I had one of the most magnificent nightmares ever. I thought the bed started vibrating… then shaking violently… then spinningn and tilting… I was sort of paralyzed but in my dream I opened my eyes and the headboad of the bed had this crazy sort of lattice like an intricate fence… and I looked through it and I could see into the wall… there was a light there… it looked very much like the scene from Interstellar when the guy is looking through the bookshelf in space. The bed was still spinning and tilting… The nightmare went from a nightmare to being… “oh my god… I"m having a dream… asleep right now… and I was enjoying the madnes”. Soon after the realization… I woke up… not totally but sort of half awake… Awake enough to be so happy that I wanted to jump out of bed and do a dance. But I went back to my meditation… and tried again… I laid there for a while… seeemed like a long night… but then I fell asleep again… this time a must more restful stretch of sleep… not sure how long I was in that position… cause I had turned to my side… but when I sort of woke out of that section of sleep… I was much more relaxed…If felt like legit sleep… So I went back to my TM meditation…It seemed like I got all the sleep I was going to get… couldnt seem to get back into the groove… then all of a sudden… LIghts flip on and the sleep tech was like… its time to wake up.
I couldnt not believe it. I got up so excited. This is a major turning point for me. Insomnia is my worst side. I’m feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I’m not sure about… is that I took 1mg of Klonopin the night before to get a good night sleep just so I wouldnt be totally miserable in case I were to get no sleep last night I’m hoping that had no residual role in my ability to reach some sleep.
I walked out to the parking lot at 5:30am and feel GREAT. Like REAL energy… not drugged or sapped. I feel like I have a new lease on life… a second chance… like… with a ground breaking improvement like this… I could really beat this thing back to the point were I could write a recovery story some day.
I have never done a member story or did the survey. I will get to those. I crashed July 1st, 2018… Didnt realize what happened and didnt stop taking Fin until 8/4/2018 .
I will follow up in this post with “what” I have done. Nothing crazy… some water fasting… clean eating… but nothing super hard core. My MAIN focus is meditation. I think that is helping rewire the brain to a well enough degree where I am getting some movement towards totally natural sleep.
Oh… my fit bit says I got 1 hour deep sleep, 1 hour REM sleep and 4.5 hours light sleep. I look forward to getting the sleep analysis.
Have a great weekend all! I’m off to coach soccer practice!!!
