I am on day 10 of TSM, and I have noticed an intense "weirding-out" of my sleep patterns (for lack of a better word).

The very first day or so, I had really weird insomnia and night mares. It wasn't insomnia that actually kept me awake all night. I just kind of felt like a zombie, have in and out of sleep with really raging thoughts/images like nightmares.

Then that all pretty quickly subsided, and now I just could sleep all freaking day. I go to bed around 11:30-12:30, and sleep until 8:00 am. I wake up feeling groggy as if I drank a 12 pack the night before, but I only had 3-4. So I go take a pee, then stumble back into bed, and am dead asleep in seconds. Then I wake up around 12:00 noon.

I have been sleeping anywhere from 9-12 hours per day/night since I started TSM. I also nap during the day. My mom drove me on a 3 hours car ride the other day, and I slept the whole way. I haven't slept in a car since I was 8 years old. And I normally sleep 6 maybe 7 hours per night.

I think that this might just be my body de-toxing from that amount of alcohol that I was drinking. I have tried to stop drinking before by just white-knuckling it cold turkey, and during those periods, I always slept and slept and slept, as if I hadn't slept in years.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Or am I just coincidentally catching mono or something?

I haven't had it to the extreme that you have but I definitely, without a doubt, started to sleep a lot more on NAL. Whereas oversleeping has never been a problem before, I've done it couple of times already. Embarrassing. But that, too, seems to be slowly returning to normal.

pisces7378

I too have had the most bizzare insomnia of my life...it's exactly how you described it alseep but not asleep. With very vivid images. I quit booze for 30+ days and did not have the insomnia like with Nal and I just quit cold turkey. I have been on naltrexone for a month and the insomnia is fading and NO WHERE close to when I started. It was crazy to say the least. But like I have said before I would rather suffer the side effects of naltrexone than the side effects of alcohol any day of the week. Besides, the biggest side effect of alcohol is death, and not a pleasant one, and from everything I have read naltrexone won't kill me.

I agree.

I had the very same "weird" sleep -- sleeping "but not really sleeping" with very vivid images and frequent nightmares. Like with all of my other naltrexone side effects, it was temporary and went away within a few weeks or so. I have not been sleeping any longer on naltrexone.

I had some of this to for a while. Just a thought: the brain does a lot of processing during sleep. The brain does a lot or re-processing during TSM. Put the two together and it makes for some strange things happening. I have not read (but maybe Lo0p has) up on what happens to the sleep on non-alcoholics when they take nal . . . all very interesting.

Yes,

Dreams vivid, odd, surreal.

I chalk some it up to getting better quality sleep in the sense that we're not as blacked out as when we were pre TSM. Passed out sleep will not produce dreams and as well, we have poor quality sleep. The REM stage returns when we drink less or not at all, so you probably are catching up on some much needed sleep.

I had a dream the other night that featured a 1000 pound woman with an elongated neck trying to stand up straight but struggling. Quite sad and freaky all at the same time. Freud are you available?

BEst to you and good luck and happy holidayd, Jim

Yes, weird dreams and sleep especially in the first weeks. Thankfully, it subsides. Jim Clark, did you email/PM me awhile back in the last couple of weeks, I guess?? It came in to my personal email account and not here. I read it then deleted thinking I would respond here.

Was it you? And sorry I did not respond sooner as I lost the correspondence. Then this site went down,etctetctetc -

If you'll resend, I'll try again too. Merry Xmas Eve to all here!