Posted by Cygnus on June 17, 2008 at 15:19:12:Once my girlfriend gets behind on sleep she cannot catch up because of this problem. Basically this sensation of falling or dreaming while awake keeps her from ever getting into r.e.m. sleep. Once this begins it takes about 5 to 10 days and nights of no sleep to make her exhausted enough to sleep through the hallucinations. Today is her second day and basically she is totally at the mercy of this problem. It can happen to her as often as 5 times in a min. She will start a sentence and before it's finished her words change into interacting with the dream. Many times a jerk will come from coming out of it. Her shins are a mass of bruises from the coffee table. Also she may pick up a glass to drink from but by the time it's half way to her face she falls into one of these waking dreams and a second later jerks out of it and spills her drink. This happened allot during the day. When I go to work I make sure the doors can't be opened easily, block the stairs and turn off the stove's breaker.