Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

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I didn't sleep enough this week because of school. It's the place where I sleep so well, wall or desk are enough and highlights makes me sleepy
Now it's 2:04 am. and I should be tired like I was on the day. But I'm not. My biological clock seems to work in another timezone

Anybody else with this?

Yeah, it's months that I go to sleep very late and wake up late. For example, now it's 3.05 and I shoul start going...

3:07 a.m.
But it is a vacation week so it is okay.

Yes, both myself and my boyfriend have this. And, we are both Aspies. Today, I woke up a 2:30 pm, having fallen asleep around 4:00 am. It's a HUGE pain, especially in the winter when the days are shorter. It also wreaks havoc with doctor appointments and such.

My sleep schedule is always screwed up somehow. The ONLY way I get to sleep at a decent time is to take something to knock me out basically for a few nights in a row. But I'm still always groggy the next day and could probably sleep through it if I wanted to bad enough.

I have SAD so that definitely contributes.

I would say it's due to the sleep meds, but I only do that a few nights when it really gets out of hand-like, when I'm not getting to sleep until 5 a.m. and have to be up with the kids at 6 a.m. So I'll take it a few nights, then when I readjust to getting tired earlier, I get to bed fairly easily as long as nothing distracts me and as long as I'm not THINKING the entire time!! ! lol. But, even on the nights I take nothing, I'm exhausted all day still.

Spring time isn't so bad-I am more awake during the day, and in summer I'm just too uncomfortable to sleep at all. But fall and winter-when it starts getting gloomy, it really nails me.

I used to have insomnia, thank god for drugs.

Yeah, before the semester started it was really bad. I was only sleeping every other night. I didn't have a job or anything... so no reason to get up. I have a stupid class schedule now, so it's still something of an issue. From what I've heard, this is actually fairly normal. Something about transitioning between nightingale and raven sleep cycles around the age of 20.

Ah, to be in my twenties again...

I can never sleep when I need to either. Recently I flew home to the UK for a while, and with the 5 hour time difference my messed up internal clock managed to go full circle to actually improve my sleeping patterns, rather than disturb them. For a while jetlag actually helped me sleep before 1 or 2am, but sadly it was only a week or so before insomnia screwed things up again. Sometimes I wonder how much sharper my mind could be if it could actually get the rest it needs.

One thing I read about recently is "sleep gates" - as you get tired, your brain starts preparing your body for sleep, and that drowsiness is the window in which it's possible to actually fall asleep. Miss that window, and you'll become fully awake again for at least an hour, until your body starts getting ready for the next sleep gate. I definitely feel those windows come and go - if I don't fall asleep when I'm at my most tired, there's just no hope for the next 2 hours or so.

I read about that, too. I need to just remember to start preparing for bed before I am actually sleepy, and then be in bed when the sleep gate happens. Instead, I stay at the computer, surfing the web, writing, etc. And fighting sleep. Worse, my boyfriend has been staying over late, and now we are both out of whack, sleep wise! Thanks for reminding me of that, Vance!

My sleep cycle is problematic. Sometimes it's normal or close enough for a few days, but then not often or for long. At the moment I am falling asleep around 9.00-11.00am, earlier in the week and late last week it was around 3-5.00am, earlier in the same week I was actually falling asleep around or within a couple of hours after midnight, but late in the week before I was falling asleep around 8.00-10.00pm and waking up anytime from just before midnight to around 2.00am. The week before I was falling asleep betwen 5.00pm and 8.30pm.....

If I don't intervene, my sleep goes in a cycle and over a period of months (or weeks, depending on how fast it cycles) I'll have visited all the time zones and be going through them again.

A few weeks ago I was working, so I was going to sleep at 2am and waking at 11am. Since I no longer have something to steady my sleep cycle, I've entered this endless rotation and I'm currently still awake at 5:40am and will probably fall asleep sometime in the next few hours. If I don't change anything, my sleep will slowly come later and later until eventually I'll get back to a normal bed time and it will start all over again. I think my body thinks days are longer than 24 hours.

It's easier when I have a set sleep and wake time, but I find that really difficult to do when I don't have an outside influence to force me to sleep/wake at a certain time. And even when I was working, I found it really difficult to keep the schedule on weekends but I knew that if I didn't then I would be back in this situation again. And it's hard for me to sleep when I'm not tired, so if I were to need to change my schedule suddenly back to normal right now I'd have to stay awake for an obscenely long period of time, which also doesn't really work well because then I tend to oversleep to make up for it... let's just say that my sleep cycle is a disaster and I fight with it all the time.

When I first read about DSPS I was pretty sure the shoe fit. In college I had a lot of trouble waking up for afternoon classes, I found it much harder to focus in morning or early afternoon classes compared to evening classes, and when I had to wake up early I never felt quite right, all despite the fact that I got at least 8-10 hours of sleep every night. Since I've started working though, and having to wake up at 6am every day, I think I'm starting to adjust. The first couple of months were very difficult and I still feel more alert in the evenings and at night than during the day, but it's not as bad as it used to be by a longshot. Also, for what it's worth, all three of the mental health professionals I spoke to about DSPS told me basically they don't believe it exists.

Is this not common in autistics, though.
Is there any research done to find some underlying cause?
That might be an interesting read.

Yup I have this. Whenever I do manage to hold a daytime routine, it just feels like I'm constantly jetlagged and i have to fight to keep it that way or it'll go back to a nighttime routine by itself.

Don't you just love when so- called mental health "professionals" decree that something exists? I find it infuriating! They just ought to suffer from it for awhile.

This DSPS really wrecked my health and my social life, back when I had a job. I was always tired. Worse, I now have CFIDS. So, while I can fall asleep, I can't stay asleep. Meaning that I wake in about 4 or 5 hours, groggy but unable to sleep deeply. So, no matter how much I sleep, I am basically still exhausted.