What keeps you up at night?

[Doclector]

3:02 am. Here I am again.

At least this time I know why, not sleeping is a lot more annoying and harder to avoid when you don't know what's causing it. It's a frequent problem;

Spoiler: hidden for TL:DR fans. Read a damn book!

I plan on being a horror director/writer as a profession, and as such, I'm rather good of thinking up scary things vividly. The drawback of which is that I'm often the first person to be exposed to them, unless it's something which most other people are afraid of that I'm not, which is rarely the case.

Sometimes it's a monster, sometimes a situation, but I can rarely sleep with that thought on my mind. Even if I write it down, it often won't leave for quite some time. The worst things are what I call "flash dreams". I'll close my eyes, and BAM! A few seconds or so of my very own high octane nightmare fuel. I go back to sleep, and it happens again.

This time, it's zombies. A little more traditional than usual...it's to do with all those stories that keep popping up. It seems ridiculous, as the modus operandi is similiar; Naked, going for the face/head. Hard to think of a mind altering disease with such specific outcomes, and some of the perpetrators even talked. And yet it gets me thinking of something starting plausibly enough, yet another disease scare or something, and then suddenly, all hell breaks loose. Go to bed one day, wake up to screams all around. It's a horrible thought, of course.

I'm currently attempting to stave it off with futurama. If that doesn't work, well, it's not as if I'm not used to my chaotic, ever shifting sleep pattern. Which I'm sure is contradictory, but screw you, I'm tired.

So, what keeps you up at night? When you can't sleep what is it that stops you?

EDIT: Wait, did I use the term "high octane nightmare fuel" to refer to an actual nightmare? Oh god I need to be stopped from making tired posts...

 

[Phasmal]

A general sense of timelessness.

I've been stuck indoors most of the last couple of months. Looking for work and looking after the house, hard not to get demotivated. Not to mention I need a job kind of damn sharpish and it's pretty bleak around here.
So, yeah, being stuck in the same routine the days tend to blur together and then I'm up at 3:30 for some reason.

EDIT: Oh, yeah- and Disney songs. For some reason when I stay up to stupid-o-clock I get the urge to listen to Disney songs.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Your mother.

I'm a night owl, so nothing really keeps me awake at night except the fact that I want to be awake.

Hell, it's not very often I can't sleep, I'm infamous amongst my friends for being able to sleep anywhere

 

[VegBerg]

It's too hot with the blanket, but too cold without.

 

[Nouw]

Eczema. It drives me crazy when I can't sleep because my face is itching.

 

[Marter]

Nothing now that I'm exhausted by about 8:30PM every night. >_>

But when I can't sleep, it's usually 'cause I'm doing something more important. I rarely actually have trouble getting to sleep if I want to.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

EDIT: Oh, yeah- and Disney songs. For some reason when I stay up to stupid-o-clock I get the urge to listen to Disney songs.

Spoiler: Here you go then!

You know when you're trying to write a story and nothing comes to mind? So you decide to sleep on it, and suddenly your brain is full of ideas?

Yeah...

 

[CODE-D]

Its called insomnia and its a *****.


Also zombies scare you? Zombies are the lowest on the horror food chain.
Theres much worse.

 

[Alternative]

Insomnia

except for last night, last night i stayed awake trying to bleach my brain after i found out some disturbing things about a friend.

 

[Crazy]

The current occupant of the bed who's snoring away blissfully unaware that I'm trying to get my beauty sleep.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Ah, good ole insomnia!

That and when it gets hot, like it is right now, I can't sleep for shit and I try to read to wear my brain out so that it will let me get some sleep. It doesn't really help that I'm a night owl too and that I don't have a regular sleeping schedule.

 

[Total LOLige]

Everything! Mind tends to wander while I'm trying to sleep. I worry. I start listening to music and the 'this is the last song before bed' song turns into another and another and another and another until it's 7:00am it's like a drug and I'm a dirty addict. I hear scary unsettling noises. The neighbors and drunks outside start to argue and I listen. I need to piss because I drank 4 cups of tea an hour before bed. I need to get my fix of TV on Netflix, I watched a season and a half of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in one sleepless night. I feel there are more important things too be done like finish books, I actually finished all my unfinished books on a sleepless night. So any of you that read my post about not finishing Stephen King's Insomnia I finished it, somewhat ironically it was through being unable to sleep I loved the Epilogue II. I'm too sweaty and my makeshift PJs are sticking to my skin, I take them off it's too cold. It's almost morning there's no point going to sleep. I usually go to sleep at 10:00am trying to get in one hour before my 11:00am alarm, I sleep through it and wake up at 3:00pm or later.

 

[Bagged Milk]

Everything! Mind tends to wander while I'm trying to sleep. I worry. I start listening to music and the 'this is the last song before bed' song turns into another and another and another and another until it's 7:00am it's like a drug and I'm a dirty addict. I hear scary unsettling noises. The neighbors and drunks outside start to argue and I listen. I need to piss because I drank 4 cups of tea an hour before bed. I need to get my fix of TV on Netflix, I watched a season and a half of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in one sleepless night. I feel there are more important things too be done like finish books, I actually finished all my unfinished books on a sleepless night. So any of you that read my post about not finishing Stephen King's Insomnia I finished it, somewhat ironically it was through being unable to sleep I loved the Epilogue II. I'm too sweaty and my makeshift PJs are sticking to my skin, I take them off it's too cold. It's almost morning there's no point going to sleep. I usually go to sleep at 10:00am trying to get in one hour before my 11:00am alarm, I sleep through it and wake up at 3:00pm or later.

This this and this.
Also, if I'm thinking about anything, anything at all, I cannot sleep. I have to have a completely blank mind or else I'll be distracted and start pondering it more and more. Even taking copious amounts of melatonin doesn't work.

captcha:
drink milk
That doesn't work either

 

[FalloutJack]

Hmmm? I dunno. Stuff. And things. Mostly Gazuga.

 

[TWRule]

Ennui.

Yep. To clarify - existential ennui as well (speaking for myself...but really for everyone...).

 

[Rule Britannia]

I'm up because I woke up at 2:00 pm. Not feeling tired, yet.

If I'm lying in bed I overthink thinks in my social life "what if this happens, then what if this happens, etc.

I also think of really good comebacks to something somebody said to me earlier

 

[Fiad]

Sleep-onset insomnia mostly.

 

[mParadox]

I don't know really. Maybe 'cause the night is that only time I get to play on the PC. =\

But even then, the fluctuations are too much for me so I stop playing 'cause there's no way I can kill dragons in this sweltering heat. >.<

So I just read a book. Currently reading up the 'Song of Ice and Fire'. It's a good series and totally worth reading. And the names actually stick in my head, although that might be because of me watching the series first and then reading it. :O

 

[Gmans uncle]

My Little Pony fan fiction, mostly shipping fics.
I haven't gone to sleep before 5:00 AM in around a month.
I DON'T NEED SLEEP, I'VE GOT PONIES!