I wrote previously about how I only seem to get 4.5 to 5 hours a night of good sleep before an uncomfortable period of intermittent waking/sleeping. This is, to a large part, a result of my having developing tolerance to my sleeping pills. I've been taking Zopiclone for a few years now - that's Lunesta in the U.S. When I started, I got a good 7 hours of sleep straight. I knew that if I had enough hours in bed, I was going to feel refreshed in the morning. But  now all I get is that lousy 5 hours max on a single pill. When I wake up, it's a crap shot if I'll fall back asleep or not. In the last few days, I crapped out and as a result my days have been like walking through a fog.

Now, if I take another half a pill at 5 in the morning or whenever I wake up, that usually does the job. But I'm concerned about developing tolerance to that routine too. Plus my Zopiclone prescription is only for one a day and my doctor has already hinted that if I'm needing more pills, not less, then maybe he'll stop it all together, which totally terrifies me because then I'll be back where I was before all this, not sleeping at all.

This is getting to be a real bummer. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to cope with or even reverse sleeping pill tolerance?

My sleep has been not terrible this last week thanks to a change my doctor made in my latest cocktail of sleeping, anti-depression and anti-anxiety pills. I've been able to fall asleep OK, but then I wake up about 4:00 AM and start a period of intermittent sleeping followed by waking followed by sleeping. This goes on for several hours, such that it seems I'm awake the whole time but I know I must be sleeping too. Because if I get into bed around midnight and can stay in bed until about 9:30 AM, I feel refreshed, like I've gotten a full night's sleep. My guess is I'm sleeping to waking ratio during these hours is about 50/50.

Obviously, this isn't the most productive way to start the day. I'm lucky that I work at home and I can flex my hours however I want. But if I had to get to a job - or when we go on vacation - it can be tough for me to get the sleep I need when I need so many hours in bed.

What's particularly weird, though, is the dreams I have during this sleeping-waking period! They all seem to be stressful someone's-coming-to-kill-me or I'm in a scary place and I want to get out or I'm with someone who's making me jittery. Imagine 4-5 hours of unpleasant quasi-nightmarish dreams and you've got my experience.

My doctor says he thinks I've still got left over anxiety and/or depression in the early morning hours after the half-life of my latest pills have worn off. He's suggested I pop another pill to see if that relieves the bad dream symptoms. I'll let you know.

Anyone else have this kind of semi-wakeful bad dream experience? I'll post later on how it's going.

-- Brian