Brain throwing a party before bed - not pleasant

I don't know how else to describe this. Maybe it's just what others call 'tired but wired'?

This started about a year ago. I would go to bed and once the light was out it became apparent just how frantic everything in my brain was. It's like my brain is bouncing around in my head. There is no stillness, no one train of thought. Just continual hoping from one thought to the next. Sometimes I seem to see patterns behind my eyelids (closed eye visuals?), swirling, movement of areas of light/dark. I've also had some visions that seem to be related to my thoughts - like I might see a face or an object pop up briefly. This sounds scary, and it's not pleasant, but these are not vivid hallucinations. Finally, I've also experienced the sensation that my eyes want to move, and that I'm having to consciously keep my eyelids closed. Oh the irony. Luckily, I've not experienced any profound insomnia and usually fall asleep within 20–30 mins.

I have no history of anxiety or anything like that. I assume it is just another symptom of exhaustion.

Can anyone relate?

 

Yes. I take Tizanadine for sleep. Two 4mg pills at 8 PM and Two 4 mg pills when I awaken between 12-3 AM. It isn't perfect and sometimes I will still break through but overall I can sleep.

I don't have all of your symptoms that you relate but those I quoted I do have.

 

These days it's mainly provoked by doing to much that day. Even if i was not able ot stay awake on the sofa as soon as I go to bed to sleep, no chance.

At around 3-4 hours I normally give up, sometimes getting up for a little food, sometimes for something to knock me out, depending on mood, what I need to do the next day, how pissed off or shattered I am.

Sometimes I just don't bother going back to bed, like last night, but that's a risky move. It has consequences.

 

I've experienced something similar once or twice, though, for me, it seemed to be more of a dream. Basically, my mind was just jumping from one unrelated image/thought to another every second or so. In my case, this first happened the evening I tried taking L-tryptophan for the first (and only) time to try improve my sleep. The inability to settle on any one image was disturbing and all the more so because I could not wake myself to get out of the "dream." It was like being forced to watch a TV where the channel is changing every second, and there's an infinite number of channels.

I believe it happened to me one other time, many years later, but, in that case, I could not blame it on taking L-tryptophan.

 

yeah, this sounds like we could be experiencing the same thing although I stress that this was not dreaming as I was fully awake. Too awake, almost. it's like you can't control your train of thought and the associated mind imagery that goes along with it.

 

This used to be really bad for me, it was like an old fashioned film reel exploding in my head. Explosive flashes of unrelated images firing at what felt like the front of my brain. I could almost hear the camera shutter noise.

Very difficult to explain, but i’d also get this huge thumb shaped ‘something’ pop into my thought images, and it would get closer and larger until it blacked out everything else. This was usually when i couldn’t tolerate it anymore. Then a few moments later, the flashing images would start again.

I use doxylamine succinate to sleep now, but that only works as long as i don’t try to go to bed at a normal time and stay with my 2am plus bedtime.

I think that during the early years, i was incapable of thought during the day, nothing at all, i couldn’t even finish a sentence in my head nevermind try to say it.

It was a dead void of nothing, no spark of thought activity, nothing.

Then at night, it was like a pressure valve was opened in my brain, and all the pent up, collected normal random thoughts that i should have had during the course of the day came flooding out at the same time all fighting for center stage at the same time.

They were all random and unrelated just as they would have been throughout the course of the day, if i’d been allowed to access them at the time.

So while i wasn’t witnessing the thoughts during brain dead daytime hours, they were still happening but couldn’t be released into my conscious awareness. As soon as i tried to sleep at night, the damn wall inside my brain would collapse under pressure and the wave of thoughts gushed out.

That’s my view of it anyway Very greatful this doesn’t happen now.

 

I realize that you're not talking about dreaming, but when I googled "rapid images dreaming" the first thing that came up was a forum for lucid dreamers where some people were reporting this kind of thing. http://ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37401

It's interesting that the first post is by someone with M.E.

I have experienced some episodes of rapidly changing thoughts while still awake and trying to get to sleep. For me this is likely to result in insomnia, because the changing thoughts won't let up.

 

No, this sounds pretty similar. I also have tinnitus. Now seven years of no silence :-( . I have no doubt the tinnitus and the vision issues I have, and perhaps these episodes before sleep, are all connected.

 

Very grateful to read this as I have a sort of similar thing; it's like starting to dream before I fall asleep. I mostly get it when dozing off during the day for a brief nap. Seems to be worse earlier in the day when I haven't eaten enough.

I also get intermittent tinninus.

 

Is what you have "racing thoughts" perhaps? If so anecdotally N-acetyl-cysteine can help.

 

I'm not sure if it is really. I have actually been on NAC recently. Too short a period to see if it has changed anything. These episodes are sporadic anyway.

 

Did you take it just before bed?

I've seen suggestions that racing thoughts might be related to too much NMDA receptor activation and/or too little GABA receptor activation. The "wired" state of ME/CFS I think may also involve this.

 

I have this since... I was born? I have always assumed this was part of my peculiar migraineur brain. Do you remember a Michael Jackson video clip Black and White, where people's faces kept changing one into another? What I see with my eyes closed (and even with my eyes open, during a migraine attack) is far more interesting because it is multi-coloured like a kaleidoscopic hologram. Sorry, I'm Brazilian and my English is not good enough for this sort of description.

When I wake up in the middle of a dream, I can see the dream images disappearing and turning into multi-coloured spike-like things (I will try to draw and post it) falling like raindrops. I remember seeing this from my early childhood. When it happens, I wake less refreshed than usual. It usually is accompanied by a more severe tinnitus.

 

I'm back going through these horrible brain symptoms that come about for a few days every few weeks or so. I just hate it. Another thing I forgot to mention was 'brain surges' lasting a few seconds and coming about periodically when in bed trying to fall asleep. I think I've seen these elsewhere described as adrenaline rushes, although I don't think it is that. It does feel sort of 'hormonal/chemical' though. These only occur when I'm going through these periods with what I call tired but wired symptoms. Urrgghh.