Nocturnal?

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Maybe it's Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, maybe it's not, but anyone else usually awake at the nighttime hours more than the daytime hours?
In my case, this started when I was around 14/15. I usually stay up until 3-7am (usually 5am), and sleep in until at least 1pm most days whenever I don't have to get up for anything. Occasionally, I don't sleep for a day, but then sleepiness puts me to rest for a few hours around the afternoon the next day. It nearly feels like that my body clock is a little off and lasts a little longer than 24 hours, but that probably isn't the case.

I've tried and tried to put an end to this, but it just doesn't happen.... except twice. I did that by purposely pulling an all-nighter, getting no sleep, then going to bed early the next night. This worked twice before, but then throughout the next few weeks, I find myself going to bed later and later until it reaches around 5am again. I tried doing this again for the past two weeks, but it won't work this time.

Oh well? I mean, I don't mind this in a way, but it means that I sleep through most of the day, where I've only been up for 8 hours, and everyone's already gone to bed. It makes me feel bad about myself. The other reason (unless I find a night shift pahahaasifI'deverfindwork) is because of society's expectations and jobs, although that isn't a concern... (for now).
Then there was also the fact that I would sleep through school. (lol)

So yeah. Anyone else?

Oh yes, I do this one myself.

As I type this it is now 11:40 PM here, and this is the early-ish part of my day still, having gotten up at about 5:30, and I wont hit the sack for... er.... probably another 9 hours.

As you said, I too have tried to get at least SOMEWHAT onto an earlier schedule, but.... yeah, doesnt happen.

I'm somewhat like this (although I rarely sleep past 11:00 AM (even if I only went to sleep an hour before). My body just doesn't seem to think sleep is a priority; I'm lucky if I even get to sleep every day/night because it (my body) prefers to just keep going until I literally pass out from exhaustion (once it's charged, it doesn't want to stop until the battery is completely drained). It's not uncommon for me to go 24+ hours without sleep at least once a week; most times I just attempt to exhaust myself during the light hours so I can manage 3-5 hours of sleep during the dark hours. I have a regular schedule of walking Buggie (my dog) 1-3 miles (one walk at dawn and another at dusk) as well as constantly looking for something repair or tamper with around the house.

(When I did manage to get some temp work, I loved working third shift and I know it would be the most easy for me to work but if I'm ever lucky enough to get work again, I'll have to settle for whatever I can get, which will most likely be first or perhaps second shift.) I really don't know what else to do; I did try melatonin but I have to take insane amounts of it to even affect me (most people only need 5 mg, I needed 25 mg.) and that still didn't always work and always left me feeling groggy for an hour or so after I woke up. The only thing that has ever worked for me has, unfortunately, been forcing exhaustion upon myself. Nothing else works. :l

I do this too, and have for close to twenty years now. It's especially bad when I go through periods of intense depression since I neither wish to fall asleep nor be awake and I get stuck in this sort of limbo. I seem not to have normal circadian rhythms either as any time of day feels the same as any other. There is no difference between when I wake, when I fall asleep and the middle of the day.

Same i can't seem to sleep until its after 5:00AM. This also used to work for me. Doesn't work any more though.

Last edited by JDizz on 08 Oct 2012, 11:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Eeyup. I did this as a young child, and then after HS, even moreso.

Well, at 1:15 AM I took 4 mg of melatonin and turned the light off, with only the nightlight on. I really should be keeping the light low for SEVERAL HOURS before I go to bed, but without a dimmer switch here my choice is between the nightlight and full light. I also have the computer's brightness turned down as low as possible, although that is somewhat interfering with typing as I sometimes look at the keyboard when I type. I will try to sleep at about 2. I'll consider it a victory if I'm up before 11:00 AM with 6 hours of sleep or more.

I could be the batman LOL . It's 07:31 in the morning going to bed now then ill get up in about 10 hours or so when its evening. It's odd why some of us do this. There must be a reason. It never goes later than this for me.

Yeah. I have it under better control now that I am taking meds. They seem to have regulated my sleep schedule to some extent. No longer being unable to sleep until 5 am, get up at 7am to go to work. ugh.

It's better now. Going to sleep around 1am on average. My anti-depressant (citalopram) gives me nightly crazy and extra vivid dreams. To combat that side effect my p-doc has me taking a different sort of anti-depressant (amitriptyline, a tricyclic) in the evenings. That has helped with the dreams and also has a sedative effect that has kept my sleep schedule stable. No more non-24 hour insanity like I dealt with a few years back.

People often ask me why I keep the hours I do. It is easiest to just tell them it is quieter to work at night. The real reason is that the telephone doesn't ring much at all at night.

Even with the ringer on the telephone turned down as far as I can get it, it is still too loud.

I already have extremely vivid dreams(nightmares/night terrors), as well as frequently having sleep paralysis (although, luckily it's also not uncommon for me to lucid dream) without taking anything. I don't even want to imagine the horrors my sleep would encompass if I took medicine that had it as a side effect (I loathe taking medications anyway and I've tried multiple medicines to curb the dreams but they never work). My people keep telling me I should have a sleep study done, but as I've tried telling them many times before; that takes money, something in which I don't currently have the luxury of possessing. I'm not sure I'll ever even be able to sleep like a normal person. -_-

OK, I'm reading this thread at 11:57 on a monday night. I am terrible about this. I have been known to stay up all night, and TRY to work it back aroung to "normal" hours. not very successfully, I might add. ERic75, --- EXACTLY. I often wonder if it's an avoidant thing, or really a nocturnal thing, or both,... or .... I can't explain it, but it's been a lifelong 'problem'. I often wonder how much better I would have been at school if I could have showed up at NOON instead of morning. oh well

2nite I jumped on my bike after 10pm and went into the city. I'm now in an all night cafe full of tourists on holiday and other nocturnal freaks like me

I enjoy being out of step with the mainstream. Most people are nine to fivers social striver's, and need their beauty sleep. If I was born one of them, I would happily get up early every day to help raise my family

Animals tend to sleep a lot during the daytime.... down at the duck pond, in the middle of the night, its surprising what waterfowl are up to, when they should be sleeping

its crazy how rush hour works..... everyone gets on the motorway at the same time, which means it takes them 4-8 times as long to get to work or get home....

Now thats crazy in my book. Everyone sleeping and working at the same times

Yes, I go to bed after sun-up and wake up right when the sun goes down. I've been pretty consistently avoiding the sun for the past several weeks so my eyes feel a bit messed up. I do it because I get so caught up in researching something that I just stay up all night. I can't stand the thought of waking up in the middle of the night and I can't get to bed much earlier, so my sleep schedule just stays the same.

You mentioned you sometimes feel like your body isn't on a 24-hour clock... I've gotten that feeling, but then realized that my body wants to actually go to sleep and wake up after 7 hours or so if I go to sleep at night. As it is now, I get moody or tiredish but don't really feel like sleeping... And I also sleep over 9 hours at..er..daytime.

A couple months ago, I read about a non-modern african tribe... Apparently even many of them sleep during the day and stay up at night or just sleep any odd hours. So, maybe it's kind of normal?

In order to reset your body clock (something I learned on a BBC doc)... You need to go, I think, 18 hours without eating. So, don't eat 10 hours before you go to bed, go to sleep at NIGHT, and then wake up 8 hours or so later in the morning. Eat breakfast...
Supposedly works.

What doesn't work for me: skipping sleep in order to change the sleeping habit. My internal clock is already set to make me stay up late so I ultimately end up getting to bed even later after a couple days.

Yes, I go pretty much nocturnal if left to my own devices.

Some years I am better than others but it has been like this since I was a teenager (or possibly before). I have a full time job and, although the boss is reasonably laid back about start times, I feel really embarrassed that everyone else comes in for about 8AM and I seem to breeze in at 10:15 having been up all night. There have been days where I have just been too tired to come in at all and had to call in sick. I really wish I could sleep normal hours but whenever I try I end up having to get up as I will just be lying bed with the light off next to my sleeping wife for like an hour with thousands of thoughts rushing through my brain. I even tried sleeping tablets - after 20 minutes I feel them making me drowsy but my brain is still processing stuff at 100mph so an hour later the effects have worn off and I'm just back where I started and end up just getting up to at least make use of the time.

Sucks.

Yep, I am nocturnal. I have been for most of my life. My most common sleep schedule is sleeping from 4 am to roughly 12-1 pm. Just like the OP, I can reset my schedule for a day by pulling an all-nighter. I actually have a diagnosis of Delayed sleep phase syndrome, but I don't think this is an actually illness. It is a product of a society intolerant of difference. The only way it could be considered a syndrome is because unlike other people, I can't force myself to adjust to the opposite schedule like a person who works a night shift does.

I'll never get up at 6-7am and go to bed at 11pm.