Posted by Bev on June 01, 1998 at 21:21:00:

In Reply to: Awake...but still dreaming? Help! posted by annie on May 17, 1998 at 18:56:11:

I believe your experience is what is referred to as hynagogic hallucinations, sometimes explained as dreaming while awake. I have and still suffer from it. Like you, having worked at a restaurant, I actually went to my desk to wait on customers, and finally reasoned it out that it was 3am and that the owner would take care of them. Sometimes it takes me thirty minutes to come back to a sense of reality, but the dreams seem almost more real, more intense than life itself. Have you read about narcolepsy? This is one of the symptoms. Do you suffer from daytime sleepiness as a result? The main thing is to be aware that other people have similar experiences and that you are not crazy or alone. People that have not experienced it, and doctors that do not know about sleep disorders cannot imagine what its like and have a hard time taking it serious. Klonipin, or clonazepam worked wonders for me for a while, and I began to get a sense of what restful sleep was like, but I became tolerant to it too quickly. If you decide that it is disrupting your life enough, I recommend you seek a neurologist that specializes in sleep disorders. I wish you the best. This forum has been of extreme help to me in finding specific answers, but also finding that others have gone through some of what I have experienced too.

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