Question
I'm a 25 year old male, and I've had sleep problems for as long as I can remember. I sleepwalked, and would sometimes hallucinate things like spiders in front of me. They never happened very often, so I never thought it would be serious until recently. About 2 weeks ago, I woke up in mid process of turning my iPod off, and then back on again. I didn't think much about it at first, because I have always done weird things in my sleep, and I was extremely stressed when I fell asleep. These things always happen when I'm stressed... but then when I searched it out on the Internet, I realized people who have seizures also do things like that. I always thought they just convulse, or bite their tongues, and so forth.
Now that I keep thinking about this possibly being a seizure, I've had a hard time sleeping. I wake up within the first 10 minutes of sleep, not knowing if I've fallen asleep or what. I actually did the thing to my iPod twice last night, and didn't realize it until this morning when I saw that I had turned it off at two points in the night. I've never bitten my tongue, or had headaches, or anything like that... so my question is actually does this seem more like sleepwalking, or a seizure? I know you can't answer it without any kind of tests, but I have no health insurance, so I cannot go to a doctor. I was just curious if my symptoms sound like a seizure, or more like sleepwalking. Thank you for your response.
Answer
What you could be experiencing is automatic behavior, where one is so tired they do things in a robot manner but in the opposite way.For example cutting ones steak but grabbing the knife by the blade. This is also a symptom of narcolepsy which is the uncontrollable urge to fall asleep at inappropriate times, which dont sound like you. The part about spiders in front of you are also hypnangogic hallucinations which is normal phenomenon if it happens once in awhile but your daytime wakefulness is not affected. If this persist I would go to a sleep center your local hospital can refer you also to a sleep clinic where they would not charge you. 3 hours before bedtime stay away from tea, coffee, caffeine, caramel colored soda like coke, and pepsi and ginger ale and chocolate all this make for restless sleep. ALSO 15 MINUTES BEFORE BEDTIME DRINK A GLASS of warm milk. Milk when heated contains tryptophan a natural amino acid sleep inducer. For now I would relax this dont sound like a seizure but im no doctor if it persists then you need to see a neurologist.However right now you might think of it as natural phenomenon . If it persist a sleep center can prescribe you meds to hold back the dreaming antidepressants, but eventually we all have to dream.
