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Ask HN: What's happening to me at night?
It started a few months ago. You know those dreams where you are falling down.. and just before you hit the ground you jerk and wakeup, or sit up really fast? Well it started happening to me at night.. but multiple times. In the morning I don't remember the dreams.. or if I even had one. All I know is that at some point in the night I jerked or sat up awake.
Then it got worse.. I would wake up.. and my bed would be shifted. My pillows on the ground. and sometimes the bed frame itself shifted.
Then it seemed to calm down.. but not for long.
One day I strangely wake up.. don't know why but I woke up and sat on the side of my bed. The light was one.. I don't remember turning it on. I take the blanket with my hand it take it off of my legs.. that's when I notice the blanket had blood on it where I touched it.. I looked at my hand and noticed that there was a slice of skin missing from the tip of my thumb to the meet. That's when the pain hit me.
I put my legs on the ground and felt wetness. I looked down to find a cup I had on my air purifier had fallen over broken and spilled. The air purifier was also on the ground. I stumbled to my computer desk and noticed that it along with my keyboard was also wet.. another cup, full of tea had spilled all over my desk. My 2 monitors which were on the desk were also fallen over. The monitor on my computer on the floor had fallen over as well.
I walked to the bathroom to soak my thumb and noticed it hurt to walk. I looked down to find my foot bruised and cut one one place.
The creepy part is.. I don't know what the heck had gone down that night.
Fast forward a month. Everything seems fine. Until today.
I woke up.. bed was moved/sheets were moved. I went into the shower and started washing my hair.. then I noticed that it hurt to rub my hair. I looked at my hand and noticed that in the middle inside of every finger there was a cut and a bit swollen. Like I had gripped something extremely hard. And there was skin missing and a bruise on my foot. That's when I remembered something from last night.
My dad wakes up at 5 to go to work and he came into my room to see what was going on. I remember him walking in and me being on my knees at my bed pushing the bed. I remember me saying something about pushing it back because it had moved.. but i don't remember how I had gotten there on my knees in the first place. It was like my dad arriving had given me some conciseness of what I was doing.
In the morning.. my dad informed me that he had gone into my room because he heard me screaming "Don't touch me!" and found me on the floor. Creepy, I know. but i don't remember any dreams or saying that.
When he told my mom... she said that about a month ago she had gone into my room at night because she heard me talking.. it sounded to her like I was trying to argue a point.. but couldn't understand what I was saying.
I'm hear to ask if anyone has any idea what could be going on with me.
My mother had an idea.. she thinks it may be the unhealthy amount of coffee I have begun digesting.. day .. and night... causing some sort of brain chemical imbalance. This made sense to me because I started drinking more coffee about when this all started. So what I'm going to try is to reduce the amount of coffee I drink a day and not drink any at night and see what happens.
Any other ideas?
- michael_dorfman 16y agoMy idea is that you ought to see a doctor, preferably a sleep specialist, instead of asking random strangers on the internet for advise or a diagnosis.
- nudge 16y agoToo much caffeine will definitely do weird things to your sleep patterns. Cut down to just one or two cups a day at most (none at all would be best), and none at all after 4pm. Wait at least a week to adjust to the different sleep schedule that will come from taking in less caffeine. If the problem continues, see a doctor. HN is not qualified to give medical advice, except medical advice of the form "Go see a doctor."
- MeMeMe 16y agoThat's what I'll try. I'm not sure my body will like it if I stop completely. I'll try 1/day.
- pkaler 16y agoPut a camera in your room and find out what is actually going on. Make a decision after that.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kls 16y agoThe pons sends signals to the thalamus and to the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for most thought processes. It also sends signals to turn off motor neurons in the spinal cord, causing temporary paralysis and so preventing us from acting upon our dreams http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-90598/What-happens-body-youre-asleep.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-90598/What-happens... Something is affecting this part of your sleep cycle. I have dealt with this for years and finally found that if I go to sleep hungry my stomach signals short circuits the process and the brain never send the signals to my spinal cord to shut my muscles down. The weird part is because the spin is sending signals back to the brain, the brain does not recognize anything you do as unusual so you can be screaming and not wake yourself up. Generally the only thing that will wake you is someone asking you a logical question (like your dad did) which activates other parts of your brain and induces at least semi-consciousness. I have woke up, sitting at stop lights in my car 5 miles from my home. It is a scary and dangerous disorder. Sleep walkers have a propensity to turn extremely violent when physically touched. A good portion of sleep walkers experience symptoms when under stress or agitation so generally your mental state while asleep is aggressive in nature. There have been cases of sleep walkers attacking and killing people. This is a very serious condition. You need to tell everyone in the house to never touch you after they have seen you go to bed and to always address you before approaching you after seeing you go to bed. Even in the morning at a time when you would be waking up. Tell them to speak softly and calmly to you and to always maintain at least 15 feet between you and them, while they ask you logical questions. They should ask you items like, what are you doing? where are we at? what is 5 + 5? why is that elephant standing on that zebra? They should go in that order, the more illogical ones will cause you mind to work harder to parse, but can cause aggravation if asked first? You are a real threat to yourself and others you need to find a sleep pathologist ASAP.