In situations where dissociative survivors feel like they don’t lose time, it can be helpful to ask a lot of questions about how they experience life, time, recall, etc. There are a wide variety of reasons why systems get so tightly shut down from switching, (or from the appearance of switching), so it really depends on what else is going on.
There could be other ways that the insiders are coming out, and for reasons that would take a lot of exploration, the inside parts could be hiding themselves from the host personalities.
Sleeping can mask a lot of switching.
Switching during your sleep is one way of losing time when you don’t know that you are losing time.
This is not sleep-walking. Certain parts of the dissociative system are sleeping deep inside, but the body of the dissociative person is actually awake and at least one part of the system is completely aware of what is happening. It may be that one layer of the system is awake while other layers of the system believe they are sleeping.
While some parts sleep, other parts are awake and actively involved with activities.
If you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, how many hours of the day do you sleep?
Even though you assume you are sleeping, are you really asleep?
Sometimes dissociative survivors will tell me they sleep long hours everyday or they take frequent naps. With careful examination of that sleeping time, it is not unusual for the hosts to adamantly believe they are sleeping, while other parts of the system wake up, get up, and go about their own activities. When the insiders are finished with their tasks, they lay back down, go back to sleep. A few minutes (or hours) later, the host wakes back up, with absolutely no awareness that other parts were out and active during what felt like “sleep time”.
- The host can feel like they were just dreaming.
- Or they may wonder why they aren’t feeling rested after such a long sleep.
- Or certain inside parts truly blocked the loss of time from the other parts of the system.
- Or the host parts “thought” they were resting, and would say, yes, they were doing that, but when they actually think about it, they don’t remember actually doing it.
This type of sleep-hidden switching can also happen for DID survivors sleep in shorter chunks of time as well.
If someone is “always tired”, it is easy enough to hide the additional hours of waking by the normal feeling of “I’m always tired”.
Sometimes, dissociative survivors just don’t think about how much time they are losing – it is a normal way of life, and calling attention to the time loss is what’s new and different. As far as they are concerned, they have always been dissociative, and they have always switched, they have always had missing chunks, they have always had to scramble or cover for missing information, and they have always slept weird hours. To think of life as a continuous state is completely foreign.
For treatment purposes, it is important for dissociative survivors to ask their systems why switching to other parts would need to be hidden and disguised through sleep.
- Why are these parts hiding so much from you?
- What are they doing?
- Are they going anywhere?
- What keeps them from doing whatever they need to do without having to make you “sleepy”?
- Why do you need to be asleep for them to be out?
- Is this a re-enactment from history or do they have their own lives going out completely outside of your awareness?
- What do they know that you don’t know?
- Who do they know that you don’t know?
Getting to know the parts on the other side of the dissociative sleep wall is important.
Trying to build a connection and establish some version of communication with these insiders is essential for your healing.
This is important work!
I wish you the best in your healing journey, with lots ‘n lots of genuine sleep and rest.
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2021 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
It’s scary
Haven’t slept since 1988
Omg.. lots to say. Ummm.. first let’s just start with the share with your therapist part.
For us.. it is discarded. Like it doesn’t make a bit of difference what we experience or don’t. There isn’t any follow up even with your expert advice, Kathy! We haven’t had a therapist to YET care about such things.
Even one who said she was a DID specialist. She was offended that we even suggested her reading this.
We just don’t get the help we need.
As for the sleep issues.. umm yes! For us it is almost like a dream. We hear others speak aloud talking. It can be unnerving. At the same time we have also gotten some pretty important messages sent that way.
Our bridges are helping. It seems to be a long road for us.
We would hope one day we could just get some rest. Most of the time we are tired. The husband says we get up a lot so.. don’t know.
Thank you for the article though….
Explains a lot, and thanks for talkinwg about hearing others, with different ideas while you’re awake. Sleeping while they talk or at times it’s like I see their dreams, can be rough. Plus side, last week our youngest, Ty , needed to go to the bathroom. You know it was so simaler to doing that drill with my daughters that it wasn’t that weird . Driving is getting to be the biggest battle.
We stopt sleeping in janery when are gramma die
We need to sleep so bad
Are body be so tierd all the time
Jadie and shiloh and danny and claire and missy be awak all nite. Them never sleep any more.we hear them talking and crying and talking and movieng around. Sinse its summer now some times we can take naps on the couch and that do help some we can sleep some during the day when it be light out but still not at night
Sleeping in therapy? YES. I breathe super deep and even hold my breath at the deepest point for hours/days… forever if I could, to force myself to FEEL what I dissociate from (even during sex when I was working thru that topic). I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but when energy goes super deep, we reach our soul place and can either fall asleep or go into a trance. I think it’s also how hypnotism works. I’m a naturally deep dark soul, unafraid to explore my internal extreme traumas (I’ve been discovering that now that i’m in groups with others; I just dive in, where they let it process more naturally, as it comes up). I like to see how breath and energy affect it all.
My mpd/did bf could never sleep. So I would breathe downward breaths, strong and deep right next to him, and we’d both be asleep in about 5 or 10 minutes, and slept in sync the entire night. He was amazed, as he usually roams around half the night unable to sleep. It seems at the very bottom of the breath there is a one-ness with all people, including my living “crowd” of un-known numbers (40+?). When I stay there, it makes decisions easier. (Lifeless programs seem to be a totally separate piece of the equation.)
Tho I feel hypocritical a bit writing this, as I’m so tired of it right now. I’m tired of breathing. Tired of sorting. Just tired. And my host and protector are in a clash. One of those moments where I wish life was simple.before diving in again.
possible trigger alert…………..
I’ve had this, but I traced it to memories of being pulled from my bed after two hours of sleep and dragged to the basement by my step-father. (I caught him once in my teens coming sleepily looking for me like he’d done it a thousand times.)
I had a period of a few months when one of my perp “alters” would awaken me after two hours of sleep every night, and terrified me to pieces. I didnt know at the time about DID so it prob didn’t help, but it makes sense looking back. I was finally safe for the story to reveal itself through my “people”.
I am just beginning to work on my DID. Every time I try to work with a piece of me that is emotionally upset I ‘pass out/go to sleep’ even when I’m not tired. Does anybody have any suggestions to keep this from happening, so I can work through my trauma?
This continues to be a big problem for me/we (just noticed had posted her just over a year ago, pre diagnosis).
Sleep has always been a huge problem. Seems that we’re in a permanent state of exhaustion and I really envy people who can go to bed, go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later, feeling refreshed.
Don’t think that’s ever happened for us. *I* feel tired and go to bed, meanwhile some child parts equate darkness with terror (where will they wake up?, etc) and it’s when certain memories tend to take over.
We’ve tried to work out ways around this; like planning ‘bed time’ and having a healthy sleep routine but to no avail.
It’s frightening, some of the things that have gone on when *I* have gone to sleep and woke up/came out of a dissociative fog in some pretty scary places (metaphorical and otherwise).
Our communication is very slowly improving but this is one issue we’ve made no progress at all with.
It does help some to be reminded we’re not alone, like it feels at times.
Thank you again Kathy for sharing this with us.
Woah, I just read the bug comments. ..so that’s a common thing? I was going to go to a Dr to ask if my eyes were screwed up. I love this blog.
YEAH! I’m SO thankful for weekends because it’s the only time I can really catch up on sleep. I know people are awake when I’m not. I went to bed around 11 last night and woke up at nearly 3 PM this afternoon. ..good thing I had nothing going on! You’ve given me some excellent food for thought. I think we’ll all just go chew on it a while.
Reblogged this on Discussing Dissociation and commented:
Sleep is one of the most highly searched topics on Discussing Dissociation. Keeping that in mind, I will write more about sleep issues soon. In the meantime, I hope this article is a good starting place.
Warmly,
Kathy
I didn’t know where to put this…. but I think i fell asleep in therapy today. I could feel my self slumping and nodding. We were dealing with some heavy stuff – I wonder why i had that reaction? was it dissociation? has anyone else fallen asleep in therapy when things have got intense? –
I`ve read this blog on/off for quite some time, but never had the courage to post.
This happens to me a lot. I go to bed, go to sleep and `come to` in all sorts of situations. Sometimes I`ve self injured, other times, I`m `hiding`under the bathroom sink, other times I `come to` outside, usually in the early hours. There have been times that I`ve been *with* (abusive?)people, too.
It must be a couple of months since I agreed to write up a contract with my therapist. It basically says that I/we won`t go out after a certain time of night unless all are in agreement and understand where we`re going. This contract is taped up throughout my home. It hasn`t been signed, just got nothing in the way of feedback. Even it being scored out or torn up would be preferable to the nothing….
Tbh, I`m not even sure I am dissociative, or if I am, that I have `parts`. Losing time has always happened with me and I thought it was normal. It`s only in the last couple of years I`ve been open to discussing it in therapy. My `parts` that I`m sort of aware of communicate with each other to some extent (I think) but not with me.
Not sure how much sense this makes. Quite likely not a lot.
I’m riding in late on this one. When we were @ uni I lived with an Indian family whose lifestyle meant they were up very late, everynight they would be up until 3 or 4am atleast. I would go to bed around 10.30pm, 11pm and think I slept through. However, according to them I would get up in the middle of the night and go and watch films with them, socialise with them and generally just “be a human being” with them. I tried to insist I was sleep walking but they insisted no you were awake….and it turns out it happened regularly. I tried to laugh it off around them but inside i freaked.
On another occasion my housemate told me I was up watching television and she had a brief conversation with me – again no recollection.
On another occasion my mum said I went downstairs, when I was living @ home. She had a whole conversation with me about Strawberry Coulis of all things. and I ate the last of the strawberries. The next morning I wanted strawberries for breakfast and couldnt understand why there weren’t any!
I still have no idea who it was. We tend to be fairly co-conscious, yeah yeah, who are we trying to kid? but no-one ever admits it was them.
Unnerving!
omg claire an rachel – us too!!! not so hard by day (but still some) but by night it is real bad – i sooooooo tired, and the other host is too, but we can’t get them all inside to shut up! stay awake nearly all night. Like, I wait till the body is yawning and eyes are drooping – run to bed to catch the sleep wave – and chit chat jabber full awake all night long until like 3 or 5 am. alarm goes off at 9am. 0_o
so we wanna know too!!!
i want to no how do we take a nap or fall aslep wehn evrebody inside do be talkeng to much
and wehn them dont want to go to slep cos there scard or upset
i dont no how
and we dint slep last nite much so i want to take a nap.
but i put my head down and there be to much talkeng and upset inside they dont gona go to slep and it be to switchy
i can colm down outside just me
but them dont them kep talkeng
do anebudy no how to do that?
from claire
and rachel to i am tired and i want to sleep to
Thanks Kiycat,KK for the hugs and nice thoughts! My four cats and two dogs say Happy bowmeow!
Not so patiently waiting for a new post… *drums fingers* Looking forward to more insight from you, Kathy!
Lifemultiplied….
LOL – thanks for the vote of confidence and interest in my writings!
I’m working on a new post right at this very minute. I hope to have it up later today.
Sorry for the delay, but more posts are on the way. 🙂
Kathy
Passing… I hope everyone is fine.
i wake up in the night behind or under things. in the morning my room in usually shifted around and a real mess. lately i have been having bad dreams i am dreaming but awake at the same time. sometimes these dreams happen when i am reallly up and awake during the day and i can still see and feel the dream.
in the mornings sometimes i find that i have burnt my legs with the iron again but i dint see myself doing it. that has been happening lately too. i am sure there is more going on but i dont know how to help.
csunbean – safe hugs if u want them.
ya we done some work wth those an is hard an scarey sometimes. i got to draw picturs and seen whre the icks are -are the places on the earth body that i scared of. an in pain an the places that didn want to be here. it started with a nitemare wher i saw them!!! but then the mom say no it just a dream. but they were real! i thought.
an then kiya asked me where are the good or ok places in the earth bodee n i had a new symbol to put in the one area where is ok. the place n the forehead where the good energy is. and good thots. the bad thots are at the back.
we all want 2 be safe and u be safe 2.
kk
Kiyacat, OMG I am so so so glad somebody else out there does the bug thing. Not fun I know, but I was starting to think I had an organic disorder going on.I somttimes have the LOTS of bugs me thing too. I am going to think on the phobia thing. My phobia is NOT bugs or spiders but maybe somebody has this. Anyways, the wonderful thing about this blog is it made me feel a wee little bit saner today. YEAH! My T’s only comments on my bug awakenings were Lets try sleep drugs and spiders show Mother issues according to Freud! 🙁
Kathy thanks for your comments. I have been visting here for a while and never had you comment before. It was great.
Hi csunbean,
Thanks for visiting this blog so regularly and I do appreciate your comments! I’m glad you find my comments to be helpful – thanks for that. I was able to make more comment-replies in the earlier blog articles – then things got really busy… and well, hopefully, I’ll be able to continue posting more. But I do enjoy posting here – it’s good to interact with those of you that find this blog helpful and informative, etc.
And I’m glad to hear that today, Discussing Dissociation helped you to feel saner! That’s great! Because actually, if you can see that others have had some of the same experiences, you might not feel as out there and alone.
I do have one comment about the bug thing. I have spoken with many dissociative survivors who have mentioned seeing / feeling bugs near them. All too often, for them, that was part of a very unpleasant trauma memory. Also, I encourage you to ask the insider that wakes up and sees the spider to tell you more about what happens (happened) to her. That one, and others inside that are connected to her, will know what this situation is about specifically. Try talking to her when she is not waking up in the middle of the trigger-time. So for example, try talking to her during the day, or when you are in a place that is very different from the kinds of places that she thinks she is in. Speaking to her and reaching out to her when she is not triggered might create a bigger opportunity to understand what’s happening. And if she can’t say out of her own fear, ask who else sees what happens, and see if they can explain things to you. Finding a way to help that part of you to feel safer and less frightened will be important to your healing.
The people in your system will be able to explain the metaphor of the bugs. They’ll be able to tell you if there were real bugs at some point in time, or if it has been a symbol used on purpose for some reason. Just keep asking. And if the first reason is to prevent memory recall – then ask them to explain more about why your memory has to be blocked in the first place. It sounds like there is a lot of fear — work really hard to find ways to help everyone feel safe, and they’ll be able to say more about what is going on.
Good luck and I wish you the best –
Kathy
Great post. I’ve been reading your blog for some time, but my sign in name has not worked for a while (I used Shen before… not sure why it is no longer working).
Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy what you write.
Thanks Shen. 🙂
It’s good to hear from you again – I certainly recognize you, and how weird that your sign-in name isn’t working…. You have all that incredible art over on your site — I haven’t forgotten that!
I’m glad you are still enjoying the blog — that’s good to hear — I appreciate that.
Kathy
Woah… Caroline – that just opened a whole new… awareness. Mind is spinning.
[M]& C:o–that makes sense to me. We have some that do that too, go to sleep for years.
Kathy I had this realization last night…sometimes I have dreams that my eyes are open and I’m looking around my bedroom, that the other kids are awake and doing stuff and playing together– last night I realized, I am probably not actually dreaming those things, its probably the kids actually being awake while I’M asleep.
Caroline
PS. To Kathy : Don’t know if you’ve already written about this or if you intend to write about it, but we’re interested in reading about insiders who go “to sleep” for years.. Not integrated, but reduced to silence and “deeply asleep”. Does that make sense to you ?
[M] & C:o again
justgimmeaname,
Hey! Thanks for the comments – it’s good to hear from you. 🙂
I’m glad to hear that my blog is helpful for you, and please send a friendly hi back to those little ones of yours. 😀
And yes, the deeply asleep situation does absolutely make sense to me. Hmmmm…. I can probably come up with things to say about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
Kathy
Hi,
Just wanted to say it feels good not to reconize everything 🙂 I’ve certainly got problems with sleeping – sometimes far to much, sometimes miles from enough – but at least, I don’t think I’m switching while asleep.
Lil ones inside tell me to say hi miss kathy nice to read your blog ! Keep on posting – it helps a lot !
[M] & C:o
I lose time is my sleep. I have known that I lose time in my sleep for quite a few years, due to rearanged objects, or waking up in different rooms.
Hi roguesophia!
It’s good to see you again. 🙂
Thanks for your comment and for validating the issues I was writing about. I hope you are doing well.
Kathy
You know, the more i look into this, the more i think that parts are awake but not going anywhere or doing anything (anymore-like in the past 5 years). From what I’m getting the kids don’t think they’re allowed to leave the bed by night, but one or two, plus a guardian, stay awake as lookouts. our dissociative walls are not as thick as some (most?) so i (think) tend to know what is going on even if i have no say in the matter. I was getting last night also that we’ve a strong controlling part that marshalls things – so we do not have obvious swapping in public either because that would go against the parents rules of observed nicities. subtlety is key for our survival and being intimately aware of who people (parents) become at any moment for our own cues for who to be at any time. sleeping would greatly deteer from safety. it is painful to not rest well, but far better to be alert. the host commented that her face is so pale and sickly looking. but we must stay alert!
Hi Kathy,
It was some of the younger parts of the “night/dark” part of the system that began to show me who they were and what was happening in my other life. They wanted out. They had had more than they were capable of holding and dealing with. They were so fearful, but yet so brave. Many of the older parts were much more difficult to accept and to build alliance with. Some of them still had strong loyalties to some very dangerous people. Some of them felt that they had no choices and had to remain there “or else”. It took a number of years to get that whole side to trust the “daytime” side enough to start to break “the rules” and resist their conditioned responses.
I was talking with a (safe) friend on the phone the other night, and she was telling me about a new puppy her brother had gotten. When she said the pup’s name, a jolt went through me from head to toe, and I felt as if my brain was on fire. The name of the puppy is the same as the name of the system member who was the dominant member of the “dark/night” side. The name is a partial inversion of the letters of my birth name, and is quite uncommon. I heard inside my head, “Who’s calling me!?” in a very angry tone. Then I felt everything relax when it was quickly processed that this was a benign situation (that part was contacted by telephone while we were sleeping when we were still “active”). That part is now my protector, though I am rarely aware of her presence since she has become such an “integral” part of my life today. To know that her response to hearing her name on the telephone is to become alert and angry, but not to fully switch makes me feel so much safer from any of the dangerous people who may wish to reestablish contact with the system. I’m really glad that happened, because it shows me that I have less to fear now than I thought…that my whole system is on “my side” now.
Thanks for your thoughts and support 🙂
Winter’s Keeper
Castorgirl – I think she’sjust referring to my former enept Ts, saying they at least need to KNOW about and ASK about sleep switching. “it’s another issue to WORK on them”. That’s my understanding. =)
Kathy – reading you say “this is a basic DID101 thing in my opinion” and am thinking wow- no one’s ever talked to me about it before. I’ve worked with 5 different therapists – one who “worked with a lot of DID’s” and now one PsyD… it’s never come up and i would have never known how to even talk about it. I mean, i read about it in “When Rabbit Howls” and maybe even in
“Syble” but that’s it… until this article (and people’s posts), I’d never seen it in myself – never recognized it as such. As for talking to a dr about it, if it were me i think i’d print up your article and take it in with me.
kiyacat
Kiyacat —
I can understand that you yourself had never thought of it…. Hidden switching is exactly meant to be that — hidden from you. And the “sleep switching” (for lack of better term) is one of the most hidden of all.
BUT – I would certainly hope that ANY therapist that claims they have done “lots of work with DID” has heard of this, and/or known to ask questions about it with the people they work with. This is a perfect example of a situation where it is really important that the therapist have sufficient understanding about dissociative disorders to ask about situations that might not be as obvious to the person that dissociates.
So yes, in my opinion, it is really basic for a DID therapist to at least ASK about it, and to wonder about it. It’s a whole different level of issue to work with it, and to address what it means, but to at least be aware of that as a really easy switching time, well… that only takes me back to my earlier blogs about being sure that your therapist actually knows about DID.
But — I am really glad to see that this blog is educational in that sense. 🙂 Mission accomplished. 😀
Kathy
PS to Kiyacat and everyone else —
It is a real honor to me to hear that any of my blogs are printed up and taken to your therapy sessions and shown to your therapist. That’s wonderful – and as long as I am properly recognized as the author of the article, I couldn’t be happier about that. So whether your therapist sees a printed version of what I’ve written, or if they come here to look themselves… those are the same / same in my opinion. And thank you for that. It’s greatly appreciated from me and I certainly hope it’s helpful for you and your t. 🙂
Kathy
I’m going to tell my doctor that I’m losing time in my sleep… Do you think he’ll laugh or take me seriously?
Hi Paul –
It’s good to see you again.
And to answer your question, I suppose it depends on how you say such things. Even the most serious of issues can be said with humor, so maybe he’ll be able to both laugh AND take you seriously???? Of course, it could be said with fun, but it is a real and genuine issue as well.
And in all seriousness, since I actually know who your doctor is… I absolutely hope that he would take it seriously. If not – that would be alarming because this is a basic DID101 thing in my opinion. And, if you read the comments from all the others here in this thread, it’s very clear that many people switch during times when they think they are sleeping. It’s nothing new – I’ve known about this kind of “hidden switching” for years and years of time. I most certainly would hope that your doctor is aware of this as well.
If he doesn’t know about it, maybe you could refer him to read about it here in this blog. 😉
Have a good evening – 🙂
Kathy
Hmmm Jodie, what you say reminds things in us too.. how i remember – i’ll never forget – there was only one night and i was little where i just lay on my back staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours and hours. and then i blinked and it was morning! I’d not moved a muscle all night. never again seen a thing like it. It was so very strange. I wonder if that is what nights are like for some ppl without DID… for us nights are sooooooooooooo long. and even longer now as an adult. i know last night, some part of my brain was awake all night long. and like you say – when i “woke up”, there was already someone awake. i’d never thought about it like that but that is the perfect explanation. this morning i was moody and grumpy and things kept going wrong. i went back to bed for 4 hours and things are a little better. i am still groggy and could have slept longer (but I have group to go to tonight). Some night out “Brain radio” also stays on all night – which can be sooooooooooooo anoying. she has not off switch. and if we ask her to stop or at least change songs, often she’ll play the same one louder and longer. At least last night’s was a nice one – didn’t even put on my sleep CD. but it didn’t help us get rest. Kiya
Kiyacat your reply reminds me how our sheets and blankets are always all twisted up every morning too, it looks like someone was running a marathon in our sleep all night. Our husband has said that we toss and turn and flip-flop around all night long and thrash around, and talk in our sleep, even on the sleeping meds we’re on.
It takes a long time to fall asleep at night too, even after taking sleeping pills it is always like this whole long process. We always have panic attacks at night and flashbacks, so it takes this whole long self-talk process and calm-down time, and trying to fight off the bad images of stuff that comes into our different minds before we even get into bed. Then in bed, we see things when we close our eyes, and can hear things, from the memories. We try to tell stories and make up good things to think about, and Caroline tries to pray. And the little kids that are not so hurt try to talk to each other and play inside. But it just takes a long time most nights. Every time we wake up at night, there’s always someone else who is always awake already.
I don’t know why its like this.
But it was like this when we were little too– all this stuff, including the hard time falling asleep and everything, started around kindergarten. So, we’re sort of used to it.
Jodie
I’m curious as to what you mean by the phrase: “It’s a whole different level of issue to work with it, and to address what it means, but to at least be aware of that as a really easy switching time”?
Why is it a whole different level to work with? Is it more dangerous to lose time during the night, than the day? I know that there are fatigue issues. But, fatigue is common with anxiety related issues due to hypervigilance, irrespective of dissociative switching. It’s also a common PTSD symptom.
I agree that dissociative switching during the night is important to identify, but so is any dissociative wall. The walls indicate there are issues of safety and communication to work through. Surely safety and communication are the overall aim, irrespective of whether the different ones are active during the day or night?
Hi Castorgirl –
It’s nice to see you here again 🙂
I’ll try to give a short answer to your question. Yes, of course, it is absolutely important to identify any dissociative wall and work at reducing any time loss or amnesia created by that wall. And yes, safety and communication are very much the overall aim, regardless of the time of the switch or time loss. I agree with both of those statements.
The “it’s a whole different level” to work with the issue of switching during periods of sleep was a trailer to my comment about it being a simple, basic DID101 issue to ASK about whether any switching happens in connection to periods of sleeping. Meaning… it’s typically not at all simple (aka, not at a DID101 level) to resolve the issue of switching during sleep.
Resolving why parts are switching out during the times when others believe they are sleeping can be very complicated treatment issues. Sleep-switching is typically more complicated than switching that happens during normal waking hours because it can be much more hidden from the awareness of most of the parts of the system.
A general rule of thumb could be: the more hidden the switch / time loss is from the rest of the system >> the bigger the reason for secrecy and separation >> the more intense the issue >> the more complicated the process in resolving the issue.
It’s like comparing a treasure box with 4 locks on it to a treasure box with 10 locks on it. Sure, it’s important to check in both boxes, but one is going to require a lot more work, understanding, patience, emotional detailing, etc. Typically, switching and time loss that is hidden via the “sleep lock” is going to be much closer to the treasure box with 10 locks on it.
Also, most dissociative survivors were severely hurt during night time traumas. Of course, there are day-time hurts, but in the most general sense, night time frames seems to contain more severe trauma than the days. This means there will likely be a variety of parts that were created during the night. These parts may have had years of practice of separating and hiding their existence from the daytime parts. Daytime parts are typically not as hidden, and not as difficult to find as many of their roles involve public daytime activities.
Any trauma that happens in the night could also happen during the day, of course. It’s not like this stuff can be categorized in a set of rules that was followed neatly, but speaking in general terms, parts that hide in the night have more of the heavy-duty issues.
I’m not sure how clear that answer is, but I hope that helps to explain what I meant.
Thanks for the comment.
Kathy
PS: Kiyacat interpreted my comment right and said it much more succintly than me, lol. Thanks kiyacat! 🙂
Thanks for this post Ms. Kathy.
I knew there were times that my parts did something else while I was sleeping. I would wake up having marks on my body or grass in my bed. For the first time I realize that there are certain times in the day when I “need” to go to sleep. I never asked why? I would wake up later finding myself feeling nauseas.
I guess there still is a few things we need to deal with in therapy regarding this topic.
Thanks again, this helped a lot!
identity
Hi Identity –
You are so very welcome, and thank you for your comment! It certainly sounds like you have recognized switches happening during your sleep, and yes, those sudden “needs” to nap could be coming from the inside. Would people in your system have reason for you to be asleep or napping (even if that is happening internally) so they could be out and doing their own thing? If you can’t explain or understand why you are feeling nauseous after your sleep, explore that with more of your internal parts. They may know things that you didn’t see while you were “napping”.
Yes, please keep working on all this in your therapy. You could learn about all kinds of important information when you connect with the ones that are awake while you are asleep.
Good luck – I wish you the best in your healing journey.
Kathy
csunbean, yeah i have that with the 8-leggeds… i see them either in my mind and i have to make sure there are none, or i dream of them -that the are on me (either thousands of them, or one really bog one) and come flying out of bed – our of sleep – land feet from the bed, shaking all over. thoes are my phobia. hard enough to sleep, lest having those there too. so i don’t know if that is someone’s dream who switched in… or what.
Ihave had trouble going to bed, staying asleep, for decades. When I was younger I always thought I just had the biorymths of a bat. If I had to be somewhere early in the morning, I had to stay up all night to get there, and often, I would stay up after being awake all night to try to be tired enough to go to sleep at night on the next night like “normal people” and somehow not be tired when night came on the second night. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get on a normal sleep schedule. Now I am working on sleeping at night sometimes, a little, when my partner is here I am not so scared, but the weirdest thing happens: DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ANYONE ELSE? I will be awakened by a sudden picture of a huge bug, spider, ugly being that appears to be on me. I finally figured out this seems to be a tatic to switch my thinking from whatever I was thinking about and it often wakes me up throwing off my blankets to swat off the bug (I am not really scared of bugs but these creations are huge).
Maybe this scared me with a bug phenomenon is done to prevent memory recall, too. When I try to sleep at night I often awaken IN a memory where someone is bending over next to the body or standing beside the bed and I am NOT me. Someone who holds a level of terror that is so intense I can hardly phantom how they are alive jumps up and we go off running until it is figured out that whatever that someone is reliving is not happening now. After the adrenal surges from this, it is often impossible to go back to sleep.This person does come out at night and I don’t hold the terror that they do, but when I feel an inkling of it, I seriously consider inpatient as it is indescribably huge.. Sleep meds can turn off this brain.
csunbean – gosh, you have some complicated sleep struggles – it sounds very difficult, and frightening, and upsetting. I hope that you continue to address these issues in your therapy process. If you work on this specifically, you will be able to figure out what these bug messages are about. If you are not seeing actual literal external bugs, then someone from inside could be causing this to happen. Explore more within to see who or what is making those bugs appear and why. You’ve got some really good starting ideas about that, and if you keep working on that with the help of your other insiders, you all can probably figure out a way to make those pictures not happen so much.
I hope that you find some ways to comfort and protect the ones that hold that extreme terror. Helping those parts to experience a sense of safety will be an important part of your healing process.
Thanks for your comment – I wish you the best in your healing journey…
Kathy
ok that’s got me paranoid. I don’t *think* i do… but i am always tired. I know i used to sleep walk (which is different) but some of those i knew were dreams and i remembered the dreams – i just didn’t know i was acting them out. But other times i was told about the night actions and i had no conscious awarenss off it (like in high school mom found me throwing all the clothes out of my drawers. when questioned I told her I was looking for something). Other times i evidently got up and went to sleep in her bed… but i am clueless on those. Thankfully I don’t sleep walk anymore… but I do often have bruises and I don’t know where they came from. I have a hard time telling between reality and dreams.
I do know that often when I try to have us do healing work – pull out journals and The Courage To Heal, etc, the insiders will MAKE me fall asleep on purpose to keep away from the homework. These days, no one wants to sleep, so it is taking several hours to get sleep (like 2 or 3am). and I sleep more now in the day (which feels safer). I guess i swap out all the time anyway, and we all just come and go as events happen… so if there’s scary noises around the apt i know i won’t stay me for long. But i have no idea about me thinking my body is asleep while I’m really up…. unless those bruises, the bags under my eyes, and twisted up sheets have any mark on the situation.
K
kiyacat –
I am writing this in response to your earliest comment about this topic.
It sounds like you have lots of important sleep-related issues to talk about in your therapy sessions. Having unexplained bruises could be a very important clue that something is happening that you are not aware of. It’s normal for people to have the occasional unexplained bruise… but are you referring to a repeated pattern? If so, asking your insiders more about the bruises could be really important. Keeping a “bruise journal” for when you notice new bruises could also be helpful to figure out if there is any kind of pattern to it or not.
Many DID survivors feel safer to sleep during the day (for most folks, far too much trauma happened in the night time), so that alone doesn’t mean you are waking during your night sleep, but it certainly doesn’t rule it out either.
Before you understood you were dissociative, it is possible that you might have assumed “sleep-walking” explained some incidents of night-time switching. You might also be sleep-walking in the literal sense, but being DID, there is as good a chance that you had switched and didn’t remember. Maybe check with your insiders to see if anyone remembers the incident you were describing?
And maybe, if you begin to specifically ask your insiders, especially your internal helpers, you might get a little more information about anything else that may or may not be happening when you are sleeping.
Good luck — you can do it.
Kathy
i rarely sleep, maybe about 2 to 3 hours total a day. others inside sleep all the time. i feel tired a lot but not sleepy. i have lots and lots of energy. the only time i often feel sleepy is driving, when i’m driving i feel like i can’t stay awake. but i think it’s because my T decided that only two of us were old enough and had a drivers liscense to actually be behind the wheel. i think as a way to get back the system sort of shuts itself down or something i’m not sure. luckily for me i only drive very short distances, or if i am driving a long distance i take a sleeping pill or prn the night before to ensure that i get more than my regular 2 to 3 hours.
i knew that i was fractured when i was a kid because i would go to bed but i was never sure if i was actually asleep. sometimes i would sleep so sound i’d have to be forcefully shaken awake. Other times it was like was i or wasn’t i asleep. and sometimes i wouldn’t sleep at all. bad stuff happened during our sleeping time, so it’s kind a draw if we go to bed or not. someone is always awake keeping eye on the baddies. And we’ve a pet dragon that protects us also. We have internal bed times for the littles but the adults are allowed to come and go as they please as long as it isn’t destructive or interfere with our work schedule. but generally we don’t sleep much and we are always very tired. we have dark circles and bags under our eyes, and even certain medications that put out grown men don’t seem to do the trick for us.sometimes if we sleep with our mom it’s easier and we feel safer to just sleep, other times we toss and turn and feel out of place…
tls
hey tls —
Thanks for the comment – you’ve described it well. The complications of internal sleeping, external sleeping, having trauma at night, being afraid to sleep, needing to sleep, needing to feel safe enough to sleep, not knowing if you were actually sleeping or not, having sleep meds not work very well, and knowing that someone is always awake in your system, even if the body occasionally drops to sleep… Sleep and switching during “sleep” — it’s all such a complicated difficult topic, and thank you for sharing how these issues are part of your daily struggles. It sounds like you’ve found a few ideas that are helping, at least from time to time.
I hope you continue to find more ways that can help things calm down more for your insiders – you sound completely exhausted!
Wishing you the best in your healing journey –
Kathy
Me too
them big girls forgot to say we take 2 medisins to go to slep and the dr say its alot of medisn but it be the onle thing that make us stay in bed or els we cant sleep
its the litol kids that sing at nite its blue and james and mikey and somtims tuck talk abot what hes going to be when he grows up
at nite time they talk and sing
at nite time wehn its dark thats wehn jadie gets up when its dark in the room her can do bettr cos she is usd to dark plasis
it makes it hard for the grone ups to slep thowe tahts why we got to take lots of medisin and somtims allergy pills to that helps us get tired
from claire
Hi Claire –
Thanks for your post. That is a whole lot of activity that goes on with your people in the night time! It is good that some of the things you can do are fun things, like singing, and talking about fun dreams and goals. I hope that someday, the night time can feel safe and happy for everyone.
Kathy
Oh yeah. During the “unravelling” of my system and crumbling of it’s dissociative barriers, I would sometimes awaken somewhere far away and in the middle of interaction with people that were completely unknown to me and to half of the system. I would be there but be unable to control what was happening, what I was saying or what I was doing. I was trapped “behind” these other parts who were in charge at those times. Sometimes I would wake up at home, but have indications that I had not been there all night. Sometimes I would have flashes of what happened the night before. I tell my therapist that the fear I experienced when I began to realize that I was only in control of half of my life and had another very dark and dangerous one, was almost worse, if not worse, than trying to come to terms with what happened to me over my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.
Winter’s Keeper
Winter’s Keeper –
Thanks again for sharing your experiences here. You did well to pick up the clues that you weren’t always home when you thought you were sleeping. And the fact that your insiders were starting to show you the stuff that happened while you were “sleeping” let’s me know that they were really wanting your help to get them out of what troubles they were trapped in. Your strength, courage and determination to work with these insiders has given them permission to leave those scary worlds and to stay further away from them. The relationship that has built between you and your insiders has made all the difference in the world. That is really good work.
You are describing some of the scariest of the scary stuff that can happen when people switch and don’t know what is happening. All too often people assume abuse ended in childhood – and for many people it has — but for other people, things continued to happen for all too may years of adulthood as well. I have to agree with you — some of the things that can happen at night, as an adult, can be every bit as frightening as what happened during childhood. Thank you for having the courage to speak openly about that. I am always impressed by your posts, and I hope that you continue to build very strong communication with all your parts so that nothing else happens again.
I hope that your entire system now can sleep safely, and not have any other pulls to go out in the night.
Sending lots of warm thoughts your way,
Kathy
I am always always tired and no one knows why. I do know I do switch in my sleep as I have woken up in a different place from where I went to sleep. Sometimes a long way from home in my pyjamas. Also I have woken up and found food gone, work completed, colouring in done, a mess made, a mess tidied – all sorts of odd things but I have never thought this might be the reason why I am tired despite lots of naps during the day as well as sleep at night.
Hi Maddie50 –
Welcome to Discussing Dissociation, and thank you so much for your comment. You have described what I was writing about so very well. Thank you for being willing to share your personal experiences with this kind of thing – it certainly sounds like you are very familiar with switches happening while you thought you were asleep. Maybe you could pass on some tips to Our Life with DID / MPD as to how you got some of your insiders to clean up messes while you were sleeping. 🙂
And yes, if you are frequently feeling so tired, and yet there is so much activity going on while you thought you were sleeping or napping, then you are not getting nearly as much actual physical rest as you think you are, and yes, of course, that helps to explain why you are tired.
Thanks again, and I wish you the best in your journey. Work on building more teamwork and cooperation with your insiders. Maybe y’all can find a way to agree to get a little more genuine rest – it sounds like you need it!
Kathy
It’s a little scary to think about that happening. It’s so hard working on trust within the system as it is.
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been flooded with memories and flashbacks and using every coping technique we know. That has been physically and mentally draining.
Are there any other ways to know if switching is occurring during sleep, or is it more important to have solid communication inside to determine that?
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your comment – and yes, it is a little scary to think about these kinds of things happening in your sleep. Any kind of time loss can feel very scary and out of control, but yes, there are things that can be done to help that. Certainly the better your communication is with your inside parts, the more likely you’ll know if there was switching. Or – the easier it will be for you to ask the others inside if they happened to see if there was any switching. The more you all can talk together, the fewer unexplained gaps there will be.
Working with all these issues can be particularly draining… I certainly understand that. But keep up the good work, and you’ll notice the progress. It may feel like watching grass growing, but you know… it really does happen!
I will think about your question more — thanks so much for your post.
Kathy
This still happens to us although not as much as it used to. When we started therapy with our 1st therapist, and sessions were so incredibly frustrating all the time with her not letting us all talk to her, and sessions getting cancelled, and sessions being only 1 or 2 hours once a week, we were all SO frustrated, and switching was out of control. We were also exhausted all the time, and could never shut our brain off. I know that we were also switching all night long. It still happens, but we’re a lot less stressed now. We’ve had people tell us that we’ve been talking in our sleep, getting up, sitting up in bed talking, screaming, crying, things like that. Even now, we wake up and find 2 or more people already having a conversation, or wake up and hear Jadie or Mae jabbering away, or someone little singing, or someone making a list of things they need to do, someone having a conversation with an imaginary friend (well, hopefully its imaginary, and not yet another alter). Its like our brain never really rests.
Pilgrimchild –
Thank you for sharing your experiences about internal activity during what it thought to be sleeping time. It sounds like you do have a very busy brain and a busy group of insiders with lots to say, and with lots going on. I hope that you all continue to talk more and more to each other, and hopefully, some of that upset will slow down some day soon.
Thanks for posting 🙂
Kathy
Wow!!! LOL —– SOOOOO incredibly true for us!!! LOL …. wow … LOL — I remember in high school one night my friend stayed over and the next morning she woke me up at about 7 and asked me why I was acting strange (she knew I had DID and she had actually been diagnosed DDNOS — we concluded without knowing it was actually possible that someone inside had wanted time out in the middle of the night – she said the body was sitting up, rocking, singing, and smoking but whoever was up front would not talk to her and everytime she asked a question they would stop singing, start humming very loudly and rock furiously to the point that they were banging our head on the floor everytime the body went forward. — That was the first time I realized maybe I was switching in my sleep LOL — since then I will oftentimes think I got 7 or 8 hours of sleep but once checking with a lookout / protective part of mine who -never- sleeps I find out the –body– was only asleep for about 2 hours LOL — even during the day I’ll notice that I’ll be doing something (like returning emails or reading outside or cleaning the house) then the next minute it’s 2 or 3 hours later and I’m waking up.. in my bed under the covers and waking up lol — when in fact once I ask around I find out that someone pushed me aside – came up front – did their thing – whatever it is – then laid down to ‘sleep’ and I came back up front… it’s soooo confusing lol
Thanks for posting about this! 🙂 Puts new perspective on it for me 😀
Sally
Wow Sally –
Thanks for posting about your experiences with switching in your sleep, or after a sleep, or during a sleep…. It is always helpful to hear about some real-life experiences from those of you who recognize what I’m talking about in my blog articles. It sounds like some of your insiders get pretty upset at night tho’ – I do hope you have found ways to work with them and to help ease some of their pain.
It really is amazing how much you can learn about your system by talking with your other insiders about the kinds of things that happen that you can’t see. It’s really good that you have learned how to communicate on that level with some of your internal helpers. That’s good work!
I wish you the best in your healing journey – thanks again for your comment.
Warmly,
Kathy
To Our Life with MPD / DID –
Thanks for linking your blog article to my blog article – that’s greatly appreciated!
And wouldn’t be nice if your insiders would sneak out and clean the house for you while you were resting, lol. That’d be great! lol. 🙂
I hope you’re having a good day – 🙂
Kathy