Autism and sleep.

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For those with ASD, what are your sleeping patterns like?

What sleeping patterns are generally associated with ASDs?

Before I got ill and was put on (sedating) antipsychotic medication, I got four hours of sleep a day and was rarely tired. My mind was constantly buzzing with thoughts, theories and ideas to research about. So I spent half the night reading/researching/studying. Now I'm on these meds and I have to drink sugary coca cola in order to stay up late (which I enjoy), and it is harder to wake up at 5-6am (which I like doing too).

I like the peacefulness of the night and that acts as a catalyst to thinking processes.

I sleep a lot. I need a good 9-10 hours to feel properly rested. Or a nap in the afternoons. But I am really small, so that might be why. I also need to eat more often than most people (5-6 small meals a day rather than 3)

My natural sleep cycle has me going to bed around dawn, but real life gets in the way.

Actually, I think my natural sleep cycle is that of a 26 or 28 hour day. If you remove the need to interact with people, my schedule slides a few hours later each day until I'm going to bed just in time to avoid the sun. I think if I could remove the sun as a factor, I'd continue slowly migrating around the clock until I lose a day ever week or two.

Basically like this XKCD strip.

Mine's 6 to 8 hours at best. Its oddly specific as I feel tired enough at around 3-4AM usually get the 6-8 hours sleep. If I'm up earlier or have a more busy day, I don't get tired any earlier either the same pattern. Even if I'm up early say 8AM, I don't get tired enough still until 3-4 AM!

well you could move really far north. my sleep cycle is like that I feel like I have endless energy at night.

Need about 10 hours, if my head doesnt get enough rest, it feels like ive been out drinking when i wake up.

If i dont get enough sleep, it makes it so much harder to get outside my apartment and do stuff.

My sleep schedule is horrible. Usually I fall asleep somewhere around dawn and wake up and go back to sleep several times between then and 1-3pm, at which point I give up and stay awake. It helps that I work nights and my typical work day starts around 5 or 6 pm, depending on the time of year. I have had periods of sleep problems all of my life. However, there have been times when my sleep was normal. It all depends on my level of anxiety and depression and what is on my mind. Right now, anxiety is kicking my arse, so it's hard for me to sleep.

I get 8 hours sleep a night if I dont get much sleep, I sleep during the day most of the day. I tend to have a afternoon nap if I have been out most of the morning socializing I find I get exchausted and Im well known even at a local shopping centre to find a nice couch or chair to sit on and fall asleep even in the cinema while watching a movie with the sound loud I fall asleep snoring these days instead of being sick like I used too. I have come to the conclusion its just old age.

I have severe sleep apnea and I don't know how I survived as long as I did without a cpap machine, but even with a cpap getting a good nights sleep sleep is a challenge every night, and if I fall asleep with out it the next day I am completely wiped out. I think that i average about 5-6 hours of sleep per night, its about all I can handle with the mask.

My daily rhythm is all screwed up like this too......so I have energy late at night but can't sleep until very late and then sleep into the day. I also have insomnia and my sleep is erratic.......a lot of times I'll just be up all night because I couldn't "turn down my thoughts" relax and go to sleep, I'm just too excited and can't stop daydreaming or too nervous and can't stop thinking about X.......

I don't think a specific pattern of sleep has been documented in people with ASD's -but one study showed that 60-80% of people with ASD's have "sleeping problems". Maybe the problems can be different for different people but a lot of us just have some trouble with sleep? It was only a secondary source that I read this in- a compilation of "current knowledge of PDD's" and it was in a scholarly journal. I read it two years ago and it was a recent article then ( beginning of 2011).

I have problems falling and staying asleep until about 3-5am. Then i dont wake up until a strong bright light is shone directy into my eyes. Unless somebody wakes me up, i sleep for 18-30 hours.

I have troubles with sleeping.

I rarely have troubles falling asleep, I can have trouble staying asleep, but my biggest issue is that I wake up tired every morning.

I do not have sleep apnea.

Potentially what is happening is that because my information processing is not very efficient, I believe I need more sleep to process the backlog of information that is yet to be processed from the day. On top of that, since my information processing is not very efficient, I believe it takes longer whilst asleep to process the information. So it is a double whammy.

The more simulation my mind has received from a day, the more sleep I need to process it all. If I have too many days in a row like this, it becomes awful and I wake up tired with a brain fog and feel like I haven't slept at all!

I always hear music in my head that gets progressively louder until I fall asleep.

I don't like to sleep. I like to be awake to pursue my special interests as much as possible. The crow outside my window agrees that I should get up at the dawn of dawn eberryday to pursue my special interests as much as possible. The wee hours train whistle is my nightly lullaby.

I went through a period of about ten years where I averaged about two hours sleep a night most of the time. About the only exceptions were if I had to take an antihistamine for my allergies.

What bothered me most about sleeping only two hours a night was that I very rarely dreamed during that ten years and for the most part I really enjoy my dreams.

When I was in school, about 4 hours a night, with another 4 of insomnia. I was tired every day. Now I have a 25 hour day. 18 hours of wake, 7 hours of sleep. Except when I have to go somewhere or I'm too involved in something to sleep, when I can skip sleeping for a day or three.