It's sometimes hard to know what's above or below the range of "normal", and yes, even "normal" has a range. And mania has a big range, as does depression. At least mine does.

I can certainly be slightly elevated in mood, but functioning in a way that appears just notably extra ambitious. I agree that it is hard to know what "extra ambitious normal" is vs. bipolar elevated to a small degree. I'll say this, though. I take a pretty sedating cocktail at night. I know that it can often temporarily extinguish my daytime "flame" for a while, but if I have an episode determined to push forward, the flame reignites again in the morning when the sedation eases and/or excitement picks up again.

When my hypomanias worsen, they do tend to affect my sleep a bit, but not necessarily in a significant way like my more severe manias. Or if they do, I'm generally advised to taken extra prn Seroquel at night, or my psychiatrist ups my daily evening dose, at least for a while.

I sometimes experience mood lability. What I mean by this is are days (maybe even one out of the blue), where my mood is clearly elevated or depressed, but I wake up the next day normal. In these cases, I didn't have an official episode because it didn't meet the length criteria for one. It was rather a blip in my mood that faded as quickly as it came. Maybe by 5 pm I'm back to normal again. Mood lability is common in bipolar disorder. It is differentiated from normal bad or good days by the extreme in symptoms.