Comment by robg

I’ve been watching a lot of healthy gamer youtube channel, the host likes to really geek out on brain science. One of the big take aways I’ve gotten watching him, is that sleep serves a layered purpose psychologically (and physically as per this article), that you work through social problems, then physical problems, then consolidating memory, sort of in that order.

One of the study tricks that the host figured out, was that if you want to memorize something, you should get rid of all the other things you don’t want to learn, and that journaling is amazingly good at that. Basically if you write down all the things you don’t want to remember, it sort of leaves space to move things to long term memory.

I say all this, because I’ve been experimenting with journaling at night, and it really helps with some of the restless nights where it feels like something is keeping me awake. It’s not a magic bullet, and it takes effort, but it may help to write down the things bothering your partner prior to sleep to allow for some of the ”less important” processes to happen.

Learning to control your dreams is what I did with my nightmares, at some point it becomes so easy you can do it on command but... It doesn't always work and requires extra energy to stay in control often leaving me falling asleep in my dreams which ironically means I don't sleep well. And there are still nightmares I get, just had one a few days ago that left me too afraid to sleep again. Still, I think it's overall a good long term skill about building mental awareness. I learned it as a child on my own, and I believe adults can also learn it by simply studying their environment often and looking if anything else is amiss or "unrealistic". Sometimes you can also ask yourself questions before bed, and try to use visualization before sleeping or sleeping to sound or audiobooks to help you relax too. My family has a history of being more prone to spiritual and psychology issues so bring aware of family history can also sometimes make you idk feel less alone too. Just being able to shift the narrative can mean a lot and give you power when you feel powerless sometimes, but it can be tough to get there but baby steps can make a huge difference. Something I personally did as a child when I felt afraid was to visualize a golden warm light around me almost like a bubble, it didn't always work but I guess it helped to get away from negative thoughts by trying to focus on something protective for me. Soft repetition also seems helpful because it's predictable so perhaps finding something predictable may help too. And maybe looking into CPTSD.

I know you've probably already tried lots of things, and you're also inundated with ideas from others, but:

Here's a psychiatrist's guide to solving insomnia: https://lorienpsych.com/2021/01/02/insomnia/

And here's a psychiatrist's guide to solving nightmares: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/peer-review-nightmares

Prazosin is the standard drug for PTSD-related nightmares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prazosin

She should try ketamine. Sounds like it’s exactly what you say, past trauma, that’s holding her back from a good nights sleep. Ketamine has done wonders for someone I love and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. The person in my life who benefited greatly from it only needed one weekend (2 relatively low to medium dose sessions of ketamine) and she was cured of her ptsd.

Also strongly recommend weighted blankets, especially for someone like your SO.

All the best eh

Sounds so hard.

I’ve experienced that a moderate or intense exercise regimen can help a lot with sleep.

If she hasn’t tried therapies directed at trauma and recovery that may also be helpful.

> she's exceptionally sensitive to sound and vibration

I'm assuming you've tried ~everything already, but just in case: Have you tried white noise yet? Your brain is very good at filtering it out after listening to it for a while, but it'll still drown out other noises.

Sounds too simple but high doses of vitamin C before sleep removed all of my stress induced nightmares.

How healthy is she in general? Does she eat well? Exercise? Have a consistent night routing? Has she tried melatonin? What about sleep apnea?

If she's sensitive to sound and light, what has she tried to address that? Like blackout curtains?

I find it a bit odd that sleep clinics would turn her away so readily.

I understand the struggle though which is why I asked so many questions, because all of these things have factored into my quest for better sleep. The psychological stuff is hard.

Bad gut health screwed up my sleep, after working on it it got better. But if im not careful with what I eat, my sleep quality is screwed again

Promethazine (1) helps some people, myself included (UK Sominex). And occasionally, phenibut.

(1) https://www.inhousepharmacy.vu/p-1189-phenergan-tablets-25mg...

Has she tried cannabis? It prevents dream memory formation and can help with nightmares

If the problem is psychological trauma, wouldn’t therapy be the obvious solution?

If she falls a sleep then can she have the expected sleep length when not interrupted?

Edibles have been a godsend to me. Have you guys tried them?

Has she considered PTSD? It sounds a lot like it and there has been promising work around PTSD from what I have seen in passing.

Psychoanalysis might be useful, it is my understanding that it can deal with complex issues where simpler forms of therapy fails

My suggestion is to try a religious conversion to christianity. I know it sound weird, but we all live in a story and she relive the same story over and over in her dreams and in real life.

Christianity will help her make sense of what happenend and will help her get over it. She will have a place to put evil and a place to put good and she will be slowly be able to fix the direction of her mind.

She can search for scripture that speak around what happened to her and see what she can do about it. She will ask for help to go past her trauma.

I tought all my life that it was supersitious nonsense (scientific atheist) but I found out that I was wrong. We have no choice, we are religious by nature. Without a solid faith we are free floating, anxious, depressed, confused and stuck in loops.

If there is any magic bullet, it'll be something biological evolution can't easily jump-to or stumble-upon. Otherwise I think it would have happened already, given the risks of sleep and the rewards of an expanded activity (or at least awareness) cycle.

> I wonder if eventually once this is more thoroughly researched there could be a way to induce constant cleaning instead of having to do it while unconscious at night?

Hopefully without having to induce those brainwaves, otherwise you might be able to do it during the day but you wouldn't exactly be conscious. But there's also the question of whether those brainwaves are doing more than just cleaning the brain.

I think some types of learning and memory formation also happen during sleep, right?

More efficient sleep is possible with ultrasound. But keep in mind that the glymphatic system seems to expand as other systems contract. The waves are tied to brain activity slowing down, can’t have one without the other. That said, could intersperse active times of the day with naps. But naps alone don’t seem sufficient as good sleep.

Philips has a headband product called DeepSleep. They claim it increases your deep sleep by playing some sort of sound during your sleep that induces more deep sleep. For some odd reason, despite being a Dutch company, the product was only sold in the US. I spent a lot of money having it imported to Netherlands.

Unfortunately I can't tell whether it works. I rely on headphones and earplugs to block out sounds during the night. Sounds such as cars and airplanes outside, or other people in the house going to the toilet, tend to wake me up unless I block out those sounds. And the handband is not compatible with headphones or ear plugs.

I wish there is a better solution.

Check this out, I just saw a reference to this recently:

https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/noninvasive-brain-wave-treatmen...

There already is constant cleaning, the brain just can’t seem to keep up. Sleep is more efficient at clearance. People are working on making sleep more efficient. As you can imagine, military leading here.

I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn't sure how long ago it was.

I’m thinking it should be pinned to the top of any sleep post!

Am I missing something? 2015 for a paper feels relatively new enough that people might not know about it and it might not be in school books.

I'm about the median age in the US and wouldn't expect anyone less than a decade younger than me to have been taught it in school unless they went for a degree in a related field, and possibly not even then. 2015 is after I finished grad school and something like a decade after I'd last taken a class where it might have been taught if it had already been around for enough years to make it into the curriculum.

> so newly discovered likely you didn’t learn about it in school.

So with the slow pace knowledge makes it into the school curriculum, you likely wouldn't have heard about it in school unless you just left the system a year or two ago (if even then).

You are missing the context of age demographics. For example: in the United States of America about 63% of the population is over the age of 32 which represents roughly 200 million Americans which graduated Highschool before the year 2010.