Sleeping Issues

My poor dog, Daisy, woke me up at 4:30 this morning. She was licking my face and sort of whimpering. I was so out of it and couldn't figure out what she wanted. I checked the water bowl & food dish. That wasn't an issue, and she didn't want to go out. So, I went to lie down again. As I was lying there thinking, I started to recall my dreams. I must have been yelling in my sleep again.
I wake up just about every two hours every night from my dreams. Sometimes I have hypnogogic dreams where I actually hallucinate. I often can't tell the difference between the reality and the dreams...cause they are so real. I also suffer from night terrors. I can wake up from them several times in a night screaming in fear, punching things, kicking or jumping.
Docs have tried the Ambien type sleep meds, trazadone, prazosin and seroquel (which I hate). Nothing works, so I stopped taking them after using each one for months or even years.
Basically I hate sleeping because I end up feeling more exhausted when I do wake up.
It's absolutely frustrating, and I don't know what to do about it.

You just described my sleep issues to a tee. I too often wake up to later wonder if I actually did make that phone call or not. I started sleeping with out an alarm clock in the room and found that I do sleep through the night a lot better. It seems like when a clock was in the room I would wake up every 2-3 hours as well. I don't know why but no clock works for me.

No clock?! I am going to have to give that one a try. When you said that and I thought about not having one...I sort of panicked. Maybe it is interfering subcontiously.

For me, olanzipine (sp?) works great for getting me to sleep - its an antipsychotic used to help treat BPD amongst other disorders but its also great for calming me down when i get myself worked up. I don't know what the american name might be for it but you might also want to look into lorazepam or diazepam (again not sure of the american equivalents and whether you might have already tried them) However these are apparently very addictive so have a long chat with your T and see if something can be worked out. Disrupted sleep sucks, sending lots of hugs

o boy. i hope i dont get to night terrors. what you descrbied resembles my sleeping minus the night terrors. its only been going on for about 5 months. but i wake up and my jaw hurts from grinding my teeth and the whole right side of my face hurts too and my eyes are dry and everything's blurry and it feels like i slept for about 5 minutes. the only thing i can suggest is having your sleeping monitored at a center.you probably already did that tho =/

I have been to a sleep clinic. I go from a wake stage to an REM stage 17 times in an hour...hence exhaustion.
I grind my teeth too now...but mine came from using Abilify and it is permanent. It is called Tardive Dyskensia...involunary muscle movement. I so wish I could stop the movements; it is causing my front teeth to look bad cause of the grinding.