“For as long as I can remember, it’s hard for me to fall asleep, I don’t sleep well, I wake up reluctantly. This torments me a lot. What should I do?”
Olesya, 36 years old
Read more:
- Sleep and time perception
Ekaterina Mikhailova, psychotherapist:
“You very clearly describe your state before falling asleep: an inexplicable fear in a half-sleep, not related to stress or anything else from daytime life. And it’s also hard for you to wake up, as if there is something in a sleepy state, which is why you shouldn’t leave it. You are looking for psychological meaning in these sensations. Olesya, it is difficult to answer your question in absentia, and yet. Psychologists sometimes ask patients with incomprehensible symptoms the following question: “If not for this, what would have changed in your life?” And just imagine: some answer that without these terrible dizzinesses they would have done this and that (yes, the symptom has seized and does not go away). Others often do not understand at all what they are talking about: if not for these dizziness? Well, I would feel better! The first answer suggests that dizziness protects a person from something or gives him the right not to do something. Most likely, he unconsciously “created” this symptom himself. And answers of the second type mean that there is a reason to take care of health, to conduct a second examination. You write that unpleasant falling asleep and waking up are not connected with the outside world. Perhaps you should not look for some hidden meaning in your difficulties. And it’s worth just consulting with a good neurologist – maybe the truth will be found in the position of the body in a dream and other simple things.