I don’t ever remember being able to sleep well. Even when I was a little kid, I had trouble sleeping, and would often wake up in the night, unable to fall back to sleep. But lately, my sleeplessness has reached a whole new level.

I’m not sure what’s causing the sleeplessness, but it usually goes something like this. I lie in bed, almost asleep — until I get a strong sensation of movement that startles me completely out of my state of almost-sleep.

It’s strong enough that I actually lie in bed, muscles tensed, wondering if I did actually move — even though I know that I really didn’t. This is coupled with a second feeling, where I am actually sleeping, and then wake up because I’ve rolled over — and then get the sensation that I just keep going.

The really, really annoying part of this is that it seems to be cyclical. That is, because of all these weird things that happen to me at night, I’m not able to sleep, which then makes the symptoms worse the next night.

The starting feeling is probably the worst though, and I don’t just get it at night. I often get this feeling during the day when I’m concentrating on something, and then suddenly feel like my brain is alerting me to the fact that I’m moving, even though I’m not.

I think I’ve actually started to dread going to sleep a bit, and that’s part of the reason that I can’t get to sleep. I always know that I’ll get this falling or starting feeling many times during the night, and it makes me hesitant to go to bed, which of course is not good.

I used to really enjoy sleeping, but I don’t feel the same way about it any more. Although I feel tired all the time and like I can never get enough sleep, I don’t ever feel like going to bed because of the annoyance of it all.