Hi all. I’m interested to know how many of us have a serious sleep issue. So far I haven’t found much of a unifying thread between aphantasics, other than that we’re very familiar with what the back of our eyelids look like! But one common thing I have heard over the years is a sleep issue.
I have chronic insomnia. Interested to hear back from others.
Hello,
I’m a 40y with full aphantasia, and I don’t have any issues falling asleep. I have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and use a CPAP, but I’ve never had any trouble falling asleep.
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i don’t have sleep issues, but i’m very sensitive to sound and am a very light sleeper. i’m considering building a sound proof room to sleep in.
Same. For most of my life I needed absolute silence and darkness (got an excellent velcto blackout curtain now). But what I’ve found helpful the last few years is to have some sort of ‘droning’ sound in the room, it really helps my brain to have something continuous and boring to focus on instead of whatever intrusive sounds are going on outside.
I work with audio, and made my own custom rain track… no thunder / lightning, no other noises, just a continuous rain-on-roof loop for 1.5 hrs. Can upload to dropbox if you want to give it a go.
that’s great that you were able to find workarounds. i always have my sound machine on too, but it’s not enough. at one point i used anc headphones, but they gave me tinnitus and now i can’t wear earplugs. i wish i could turn off the sound of the world lol
Just coming back to share something new I’ve discovered… brown noise!
White noise makes my tinnitus go nuts. Brown noise is so much calmer, relaxing, I almost start hearing other sounds in it. I generated 1.5 hrs, saved it as an mp3, and I play it from my phone speaker at night. I used a free program called Audacity to do it.
I can sleep just fine, but my dreams are strange. Visual impressions are always blurry and unstable and lack detail. It seems that even my sub concsious can not create realistic pictures in my mind.
Damn, finding out there’s rungs to this ladder. I can’t visualise for shit but my dreams are very, very vivid and realistic. When running away from something I have those classic dreamlegs that don’t seem to work properly; but when I have to fight in a dream it’s all systems go, and had a few dreams where striking was very effective and almost Matrix-like.
Would love to learn how to lucid dream, I’ve had a couple of clear lucid moments of “hey, this is MY dream, I do what I want”. But one of the keys to lucid dreaming is remembering it in the first place… and with that comes remembering all the horrible, traumatic dreams that our subconscious keeps from us for good reason.
I have aphantasia and am plagued with sleep issues. Doesn’t matter when I go to bed…I’m lucky to get 5 hours. I tell all my friends and celebrate when it’s part 7. I wish I was joking lol
I have aphantasia, though I haven’t always. I remember as a kid in middle school taking a test and then being able to “see” the page the answer was on. Not sure when it all went dark, but it was sometime during childhood. I only mention all of this because my experience may be atypical.
I have basically no problems with sleep. In fact, I fall asleep extremely quickly and sleep like a rock. I seem to need less sleep than other people and so typically sleep 4-5 hours per night.
Funny, i have one vivid memory of visualizing something as a child as well, i was taking karate, and the teacher was facing us and we were supposed to mirror what he was doing and i vividly remember seeing a 3D model of him in my head turned around, i remember being so excited cause I’ve never had mental images like that, so i told my family and they treated it like a complete non issue.
I have to be exhausted to sleep, which is why I stay up past 1am most nights. I also like things that burn my brain out in the evening.
I guess it’s not unusual for my best nights’ sleep to be after an unusually busy day, or a lot of exercise / labour (pretty rare…)
When I shut my eyes it’s like a curtain coming down, but I have an active imagination and my brain will churn over things. No idea how much of that correlates with aphantasia.
I guess it’s not unusual for my best nights’ sleep to be after an unusually busy day, or a lot of exercise / labour
Honestly I’ve tried everything you can think of, along with things you’ve prob never heard of… can do everything right (exercise, fresh air, sunlight, healthy diet, sleep hygeine, only red light before bed) and still find myself unable to sleep. Melatonin is very helpful but the NHS makes it all but impossible to get on prescription, it’s insanely-expensive to buy online. Sometimes I travel to Finland where I can buy it at the supermarket and smuggle some back. Technically it’s a controlled medicine but I’ve never had it taken or even looked at.
I have to be exhausted to sleep, which is why I stay up past 1am most nights.
Exactly the same. Haven’t got as many responses as hoped but I’m making a note and so far seems to be a common factor.
That sounds very tough. I don’t have that level of insomnia, though I try to read or play a board game after about 10pm, avoid the news, etc. That’s usually enough.
The main thing for me is anxiety, which kills any chance of sleep - including anxiety about not being able to sleep. I was on Mirtazapine during a bad period and while it did knock me out, I felt real drowsiness in the morning so it didn’t feel worth it. I’ve heard melatonin is much better.
Melatonin definitely does have a bit of a ‘drag’ in the mornings (at least, does for me), but you’re right it’s nowhere near the level of “urrrggghhhh” I felt after sleep tablets. Also don’t seem to wake up with ye olde ‘Ghandi’s flip-flops taste’ mouth with melatonin.
And yeah anxiety about falling asleep preventing falling asleep is horribly ironic isn’t it!
