Sleep problems, delayed sleep phase, Aspergers ?

Post Reply New Topic

My natural time for going to sleep is approx. 3am, my normal waking time is 12-2pm.

I can manage a couple of days of normal sleep after staying awake overnight and all day.

Melatonin for a week didn't help, only had a couple of days where it even worked at all.

Is there any correlation between circadian rhythm disorders and aspergers/autism?

P.S. I have had to resort to not sleeping on nights before a university day to stop myself missing the 1st classes, it is hellish being so sleep deprived 1/2 the week and spending the rest sleeping.(university 3 or 4 days a week normally, I can sleep before the 2nd day in a row due to exhaustion.

Just thinking of this very topic. I think I've been awake for about 68 hours out of the last 72. My productivity dwindles down to almost nil. There is little rhyme or reason to my sleep patterns beyond I am more of a night person than day. I will usually get sleepy around 3 and 6 pm and might even nap for 20 minutes and be fully refreshed. Maybe mapping out your normal sleep cycle and influencing it artificial light can give you a more normal 24 hour cycle. Just wait until you have to hold down a regular job once you get done with school.

I have this. 3am is good cos noone is awake so you can almost completely control all surroundings vis light & sounds. Good for getting work done. I do it also because I also have a sleep phobia- I actually get frightened & freak out by the idea of losing conciousness. I prefer a long fade into hypnogogia rather than a drastic switch off. Bit of a problem when I have surgery done (I sleep deprive the night before so I'm asleep before I get anywhere near an anaethetist).
Oh and I am self employed AutoCAD designer so I get sleep when I need it, so don't assume you have to lose this behaviour essentially. I use to work as a lighting designer: rehearsals in the evening then overnight working the lamps. Lot of entertainment industry starts late finishes early, so to speak. I worked 8-4 for quite a few years and it was an utter pain in the arse and you never really learn to work like this, you end up being a zombie in the am and make up for it in the pm...
Have a look at Polyphasic sleep- one guy was getting 3 hours of sleep a day in half hour shots every four hours. Did it for a year and half and only stopped doing it because he got lonely padding around the house at night while his family slept. Probably did some permanent damage (and received a lot of castigating from lots of people who knew better) but who cares?
Curioser and curiouser...

I've always had sleep problems since I was a small child and always tired in the mornings when I should have been getting ready for school and even later I sometimes never slept at night and felt like a zombie the next day when I had to go to work when I had a job. I tend to feel more ready for some kind of work in the evenings/nightime when I should be sleeping. It is like having some kind of jet lag without travelling. I'm not sure my self whether this is Asperger syndrome in action.

it differs for me.
i have a sleep/wake cycle of ~30 hours, of which i sleep about 6, as opposed to 24-ish for humans.
this makes me highly fatigued if i cannot sleep at a natural time (going to bed can happen during lunch, naturally, if i allow it).
i am able to move natural sleep back and forth a few hours, and flip the cycle by 12 hours (so lunch sleep turns into midnight). which i normally do in weekends, to not interfere with work.
i augment this with short bursts of meditative sleep during toilet breaks, so noone really notices, except for my SO (for obvious reasons)

My sleepcyclus changes constantly.

I would have a few days where I sleep 8 hours a night, and then I'll stay awake for 48 hours.
It has been this way since my teenage years, It's even got worse when I went to live alone.

You could try Rozerem/Ramelteon.

This thread is over 4 years old, just saying.