Do you tell yourself you're just going to lightly sleep in order to relax into the sleep state?

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Lately I've been a little anxious about sleeping for a variety of reasons, the principal one being that I don't like to just simply lose control of myself. However, it occured to me that I should just lay down and tell myself I'm just laying down for the purpose of closing my eyes, and at the most to just lightly sleep in that state where one is still awake though the brain wanders and you're in something of a twilight state.

Has anybody else tried this in order to quell their uneasiness about sleeping?

[Trimac20]

I think I have the exact same thing! Sometimes I didn't like the idea of sleeping because I didn't like the idea of being unconscious, because it would be like I was dead. Oddly enough, it wasn't as bad when I was just taking a nap. I think there's also something about the whole ritual of going to bed, turning out the lights. I prefer not to sleep with no lights at all - it feels like a precursor to the blackness of being unconscious. Of course I'm not totally unconscious in sleep, but it's close enough. I've also had sleep paralysis a few times which is very scary.

I know what you mean by this 'semi-sleep' state. I don't know about you, but often I'm not sure if I've slept at all. I mean I probably have, but it just FEELS like I haven't slept the whole night. Another thing, when there's PRESSURE to sleep (or do anything) I just start getting all nervous and am often likely to not be able to do it. Like if I have to wake up early the next morning, it causes stress and can make my sleep fitful. I tend to always wake up early, regardless of how little sleep I got.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I think I have the exact same thing! Sometimes I didn't like the idea of sleeping because I didn't like the idea of being unconscious, because it would be like I was dead. Oddly enough, it wasn't as bad when I was just taking a nap. I think there's also something about the whole ritual of going to bed, turning out the lights. I prefer not to sleep with no lights at all - it feels like a precursor to the blackness of being unconscious. Of course I'm not totally unconscious in sleep, but it's close enough. I've also had sleep paralysis a few times which is very scary.

I know what you mean by this 'semi-sleep' state. I don't know about you, but often I'm not sure if I've slept at all. I mean I probably have, but it just FEELS like I haven't slept the whole night. Another thing, when there's PRESSURE to sleep (or do anything) I just start getting all nervous and am often likely to not be able to do it. Like if I have to wake up early the next morning, it causes stress and can make my sleep fitful. I tend to always wake up early, regardless of how little sleep I got.

Ahoy there...we must be in the same boat. I too do not really feel the same pressure to sleep when taking a nap, because it's like merely a practice sleep and it's okay if I don't do it just right.

I have scared myself awake when I used to sleep in a dark room because I could not see anything upon opening my eyes just a bit after deep(?) sleep and had to assure myself that I wasn't dead, which caused me to fully awaken and the adrenaline flow made it difficult to fall back asleep. I now sleep with a green porcelain C7 night light bulb burning. I chose green because it's a soothing color and it contains no blue light, which can confuse the brain's natural clock.

[Billy_J]

I've been cutting and splitting firewood for my woodstove for winter. Do something like that and I assure you there will be NO problem falling asleep!