People with this disorder can never get enough sleep. After sleeping more than enough hours for others, they are still tired. Even if your sleep is not interrupted, it is not relaxing, refreshing or rejuvenating.
Hypersomnia
Even after ten to twelve hours of sleep, you find it difficult to get up. It takes two alarms to get yourself out of bed, leaving you to wander around in a daze for a while, truly sleep-drunk. It can take hours before you even come close to the world. Your excessive sleepiness also continues during the day and leads to frequent naps.
In situations where little activity is stimulated (during a lecture, watching television), your eyes quickly close.
Although drowsiness is certainly a common phenomenon in this modern world, cases of primary hypersomnia are relatively rare; they represent less than 10% of the people who undergo treatment for excessive fatigue and need for sleep. Hypersomnia is usually due to sleep deprivation (often resulting from insomnia or not allowing oneself enough sleep) or to narcolepsy, sleep apnea or the side effects of a drug.
Diagnosis according to DSM IV
According to the diagnostic manual, you have primary hypersomnia if the following occurs:
- You sleep too much at night and still need sleep during the day.
- The fatigue and daytime sleepiness or excessive sleeping are severe enough to interfere with your daily functioning and last for at least a month.
- Your sleepiness is not because you are chronically getting too little sleep.
- All other causes for the sleep problem have been considered and ruled out.
Nightmares
Lots of people have nightmares every now and then. Nightmares are certainly scary and unpleasant, but are not considered a sleep disorder unless they persistently affect your functioning. Your sleep is disturbed by recurring terrifying dreams full of doom and danger.
You are being chased, physically attacked, or even killed. In less common dream scenarios, the danger is more subtle: you have to be in your underwear for the World Cup, or you keep getting lost on your way to an exam, or perhaps you have to keep reliving a traumatic event that occurred in your life as the gruesome details of your staying in the war zone, the rape scene or the hurricane invades your dream again and again.
The nightmare ends with you waking up with a start, wide awake, drenched in sweat, your heart pounding wildly, but relieved that it was just a dream. You are often unable to fall asleep afterwards. The terrifying nightmares can occur so often that you may find yourself trying not to sleep at all or having great difficulty falling asleep. Nightmares occur exclusively during the REM phase of the sleep cycle and are therefore more likely to occur later in the night, when they will also be worse. The resulting disruption of sleep can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability and reduced ability to concentrate
Diagnosis according to DSM IV
According to the diagnostic manual, you have a real problem with nightmares if the following occurs:
Your sleep is repeatedly interrupted by detailed and vivid frightening dreams. The dreams and sleep interruptions occur frequently enough and are disturbing enough to affect your daily functioning .
