Hamilton, Ontario, F23

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night....

Usually because housemates are loud but mostly its my brain that is loud...

I can't stop from thinking about anything and everything. I think an awful lot about my problems in the middle of the night. I wonder if I am going to get better and over come my mental illness, the disease of anorexia, depression. I wonder what the future holds for my partner and I. I wonder when the struggle will finally stop.

Toronto, Canada M48

Luckily, I’m a sound sleeper. I rarely have nightmares. Sometimes, I have a quick jerky body spasm that wakes me up, but it doesn’t keep me up. I fall asleep right away. Sometimes my boyfriend will elbow or knee me in his sleep, or I’ll do the same to him. Both scenarios have woken me up in the past. Our bedroom gets cold, so sometimes, I’ll wake up because I’m cold and notice he’s hogged all the blankets.

We live close to train tracks, so sometimes the trains will wake me up. This again is rare because I find the sound of the trains actually help me sleep. I find them romantic; the sound makes me feel like I’m traveling, somewhere else.

Corner Brook, NL (NewFoundland) M26

The inability to breathe properly when I have a cold wakes me up in the middle of the night. Also: coughing, running nose.

London, England, F 30

Sometimes I wake up in the night and think Im in the water with sharks

London, Ontario M 28

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night from dreams I don't want to come true, and I can't get to sleep because I know they probably will, somehow I could never foresee.

Toronto, Ontario F 24

Something that wakes me up in the middle of the night:
Two things, having my arm fall asleep and end up over me so that it feels like someone else's arm and not being able to breathe because of anxiety.

London, Ontario, F 27

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, sort of. I wake up and leave my room, but it's hard to speak and hard to walk, and the blankets are scrunched up around my face. My reflexes are very slow, and the air is kind of thick and murky. Stuff, like the tv or the lights don't work, or there are strange people in my house. It is usually then that I realize that I'm only sort of awake, and actually mostly sleeping, and the reason that the blankets stick to my face is because my real life body is still paralysed in sleep and I'm just dreaming banal lucid dreams. When I realize that I'm dreaming, I usually try to experiment, and fly out the window, or levitate to the ceiling, or have some sort of sensory experience in the dream--maybe sexy times, but just as often, I'll choose to have an olfactory dream or a taste dream with decadent dream foods. This will be fun, until I lose focus, at which point the dream often gets kind of nightmarish and weird. So I'll try to wake myself up again, which usually results in several false wakings--foggy, cloudy, heavy body again. Sometimes I'll try slapping myself in the face or yelling at myself to wake up, and this too is ineffective, since it's just my dream hand slapping a dream face, or my dream voice yelling. Occasionally, I can make my real body speak, but it requires a lot of effort. I am convinced that it works. This gets very frustrating, and annoying, and occasionally scary. I worry about being stuck in this awkward space forever. If I give up, and try to sleep in the dreaming world, I will wake my real body. I rarely remember this trick when I'm dreaming, however.

Denmark, M

Anyway the one thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night, often more than once, is the overwhelming urge to "drain the lizard".(pee). Other than that I sleep like ol' Rip Van Winkel himself.

West Lorne, Ontario F 25

I almost never wake up in the middle of the night. One instance that stands out, though, is my sister waking me up because our barn was on fire -- by the morning it had burned to the ground (Aug. 1994).

24, M, Toronto

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night desperately reaching out for something to hold on to because in my dream I was falling, and for that first second of consciousness my body still thinks it is.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think there's someone in the room with me or just outside my door. Most of the time it's just furniture conspiring together to form an ominous shadow to get revenge on me for using them so thoughtlessly. Sometimes it's just my eyes adjusting to being awake again. Sometimes I wonder if maybe there really is something out there playing tricks with me.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if I really will live up to everything I hope and want for myself. Sometimes I wonder if what I want is too much or not enough.

Ottawa, Ontario M 24

Sometimes I Wake in the middle of the night, and i feel sorry for my twin sister, for not being as smart as me.

Waterloo, Canada F 23

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming that no one has rsvp'd for my wedding. Sometimes it's that the ceremony will be interupted to organize the room for another function.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what the sound is coming from my radiator that wasn't working and then I worry that it will blow up.

London, Canada F 55

Sometimes I wake up and then get up in the middle of the night because I have an idea that needs to be recorded.

Denmark, F 31

sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night worrying that someone broke into my house and stole my children while I was sleeping! Other nights I wake up wondering if tomorrow will be as good a day as yesterday, then I check up on my children and I know that tomorrow will be even better!

M 34 London, Ontario

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because my roommates are too loud. They thump around up there like they have bricks for shoes.

Some nights I can't sleep anyway because I suffer from insomnia. And the noise from the people upstairs really put me on edge. I'm afraid sometimes that I'll never get any good sleep.

I also used to wake up in the middle of the night from my nightmares, in which I am being hunted in the woods by animals like wolves and bears.

London, Ontario, F 31

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about my
hometown, being all empty and attacked by vampires, including my
parents and sister. I'm all alone, everything is gray and windy and
I'm waiting for the night to come and to face my very childish, unexplainable
but very persistent fear.

London, Ontario, F 24

Last night I woke up and tossed and turned because of my upcoming thesis proposal. I kept telling myself to go to sleep, and of course, I couldn't because anytime you have to sleep you can't.

Bradford, Ontario M 24

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think about how fast time seems to flow toward my inevitable death and how sleeping makes it move faster.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night afraid of what death may be like. Being somewhere between an Atheist and an Agnostic the idea of death is a scary endeavour. I have no religion to fall back on for the hope of an after life. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night wishing for there to be a hell, for that would be a far better fate than to simply cease to exist.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if I've made a difference, if my life has made an impact, if I will be remembered.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if I've wasted my life, whether there's more I could've done, more I could've experienced.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and then go back to sleep.

Toronto, Ontario M 35

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if I will be able to finish everything I have to finish the next day.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, only to realize the entire night has passed, and its actually morning.

Windsor, Ontario, F 26

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think about my project that I have get done by end of week.
Or
I wake up at the middle of the night and worried about things that I have to do for the day next day.........
Or
not sure any more what not happened to me at the middle of the night anymore..

New Jersey, USA F 28

I have this strange reoccuring dream about a tsunami. i an usually outside and the water rises up from over the top of a building...really huge, and there is no escaping it. you are very frightened , because you happen to be with the people you care about in this dream. so after the water washes over you and you find out your not dead, you then have to search the dead for your relatives. so far none of mine have been found dead, and there is always a happy-type ending when we find each other and every thing is ok.

Toronto, Ontario M 28

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the day and I
can't remember key things that has happened to me, all
I have is the dream. The dream is never good, like
family memebers who have been hurt or some other great
loss. Most of the time I can logic it away, yet
sometimes I have to call someone, anyone to find out
the truth.

Toronto, ON F 22

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I'm incredibly, incredibly thirsty, and I realize that it's far too warm to be using a quilt.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night after a dream about the apocalypse.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and worry that I'm letting people down

Ottawa, Ontario M 24

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and worry that i forgot a due date or theres a test and i'm not prepared and i will fail

London, Ontario F 24

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I am afraid that a plague of zombies has taken over the world, and that they are on my lawn waiting to devour my flesh.

Bradford, Ontario F 25

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night in a panic and I don't know why.

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night and I won't move out of bed because, for a moment, I still believe there are monsters hanging out in the dark.

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night to think about the choices I have to make the next day.

Toronto, Ontario F 25

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night and think of bad things that have happened to me.

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night because I wish I was doing something else with my life.

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night and wonder if I'm a good person who makes good decisions.

Sometimes I wake up in the Middle of the Night and realize I made a bad choice and that there is no way to fix it.

Copenhagen, Denmark F 31

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night my heart beating really fast, and believe that there is someone in the room with me. I look around and listen very carefully, then I get up and check my whole appartment. When I am sure that I am alone, I go back to bed and try to fall asleep again, but the idea that someone was or is there still lingers.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night in fright, I was falling down stairs or tripped, my waking up in shock has saved me from the dream.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think that there is a spider or insect in bed with me. I have to check every inch of the bed before I can get back to sleep.

Toronto, Ontario M 26

I rarely wake-up in the middle of the night anymore, but when I do it's always under the influence of some dark and malicious threat. I don't seem to remember what that threat is, though, when I have awaken - for whatever reason it was the scariest thing at the time, and then it's stolen my memory of it, and any power that I might have had in releasing the dark hold it has over my unprotected subconscious. Could it be some succubus feeding off me? Some dark part of myself I can't even begin to face, a demon birthed in the mire of my subconscious coming up to feed on the remnants of my day? Just when it has me, just when I begin to shiver, I am startled awake, and left with this thing's faint shadow imprinted on the back of my mind. It lingers for a while as I get used to reality again, left simply to wonder at it as I stare around my twilight-lit room before rolling over and trying that otherness again.

Bradford, Ontario F 24

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and fear that I'll see a ghost

Toronto, Ontario M 24

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and think that someone is watching me.

Cookstown, Ontario M 3

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I miss my mom