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