It takes me forever to fall asleep sometimes I'm up until 4 or 5am. And even then I can only fall asleep on the couch in my living room. Usually like an hour after I fall asleep I get up and go to bed. I have tried a lot to just lay down in my bed but it almost never works. Sometimes when I have to work until 12 or 1am I can fall asleep right away because I am really tired, but even then I wake up 6 or 7 times a night and stay awake for a little while before I can go back to sleep. Ive tried all kind of different things to help, like turning my phone off and anything that can wake me up, taking things that are supposed to be gentle sleep aids with out being a full out sleeping pill(but those only help a little bit and ill be sleepy all throughout the next day), making sure I don't drink any caffiene and such. It also needs to be completely dark and with everything as quiet as possible for me to sleep. And I have so many dreams! They're almost always bad or stressful dreams, lately I have also been dreaming things that make me wake up and pretty much twitch out haha. Like feeling that a big bug is crawling on me, someone is touching me, or once that a cat was attacking me.
Any advice on how I can fix any of these problems?
Thanks:)

I could have written that myself, minus the scary dreams part.

I average 4-5 hours of broken sleep a night. I've tried it all too. It gets dangerous I think because a lack of sleep affects me so much during the day. There have been times when I've pulled off the highway in the middle of the day, because I need a 10 min nap.

What works sometimes, is exercise. I bike and swim a lot in the summer, and the fresh air helps me to fall asleep, but not stay asleep unfortunately.

I have ruled out what you have also done with the caffine, sugar etc. I've asked my Doctor about it, and she wouldn't prescribe sleeping pills.

I really don't know what to suggest that you probably haven't already tried. I'm thinking that perhaps this is menopause related somehow, but I don't know your age.

For me, I just accept it and sleep when I can. Just wish for both of us, it was more!

I'm sorry that your experiancing these problems to! It's not that fun.
In your case it could be menopause but, I'm only 16 so I doubt that's it.
Bad dreams have always been a problem for me. A couple of years ago I had a dream where I was kid napped and killed, every night for two months! It was so fustrating. But I am constantly having dreams of this nature. So it's not really anything new and I've just accepted them

Have you thought about writing out your dreams?

Sometimes if you put them on paper, it helps to get past the fear of having had it, and puts your mind to rest that you won't have another one.

Face the fear in other words. Your sleeping may be interrupting a natural sleep cycle because you are anticipating having disturbing dreams.

I wish I had more to offer, and perhaps others will. At your age, it is even more important that you get enough sleep, and good quality sleep. Sounds like the dreams you are having are likely leaving you exhausted.

I actually have tried writing down the dreams I did it for about three weeks, and nothing changed so I dropped it. I also usually have a discussion with my mom every morning about my dreams. Thanks for the help though!

Smart girl. It's great your mom is there to listen. I've tried to talk to my husband about some of the dreams I have, and he runs down the driveway screaming.

Seriously though, I do hope this is something that will pass. And soon. Have you ever considered a sleep clinic for assessment?

I have known people who have gone through this process, and have benefited. Might be worth checking out. After my last post I thought about herbal remedies too. You can visit a qualified herbalist or holistic practitioner for good advice too.

If you do come across something that works, please post again. Hopefully you do and you get a good, uninterrupted sleep.

Your posts remind me of a friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with atypical narcolepsy. The diagnosis was made by a simple blood test.

It is easily overlooked by doctors as it is not the typical form of narcolepsy wherein people just drop on their feet and sleep for a few minutes, but rather have patterns of wakefulness during the night and are very sleepy during the day.