Being aware of falling asleep. How to end hyperawareness during insomnia

Have you ever experienced this – you lie in bed hoping for sleep to come and your attention finally starts drifting away… when BAM! You suddenly become aware of falling asleep, and a wave of anxiety washes over you, waking you up.

When that happens, many people begin fearing that they’ve forgotten how to sleep, that their sleep mechanism might be broken, or that they’ve started fearing sleep itself.

In this article, I’m going to explore:

• Where that hyperawareness comes from
• Why our brain reacts this way during sleep onset
• How to break this vicious cycle

If you struggle to fall asleep and keep waking up because you are aware of falling asleep, this article is for you.

Where hyperawareness comes from

Hyperawareness is one of many symptoms of our survival response, or fight-or-flight response. When our brain feels threatened, it can become excessively aware of what is happening to us and around us. It relentlessly monitors the signals we receive from our environment, as well as our emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations.

For example:

• You see it’s getting darker outside, and you already brace for the upcoming night.
• You go about your day and get visited by a thought: “What if I don’t sleep tonight again?” – and you begin feeling anxious.
• You wake up in the middle of the night and feel your heart racing – you get more nervous and are unable to get back to sleep.

Why you are hyperaware of falling sleep

During insomnia, the importance placed on sleep onset becomes so high that our brain starts to pay close attention to falling asleep. And as we begin to transition, it alerts us that something very important is happening – sleep.

Because of the timing of that specific reaction, I call this event hypnic awareness, as “hypnic” means related to sleep or the onset of sleep.

It’s as if the brain wanted to tell us: “Be careful! Sleep is coming – don’t mess this up!” Ironically, such a reaction introduces awareness into a process that is not meant to be monitored. So by being aware of ourselves falling asleep, the moment of falling asleep gets postponed a little.

When a person experiences hypnic awareness for the first time, they can develop a fear of that hypnic awareness itself, which reinforces the vicious cycle: the more afraid we are of being aware of falling asleep, the more vigilance goes toward it, making hypnic awareness more likely to occur.

It’s important to know that this reaction is automatic and involuntary. We often feel responsible and guilty for not being able to stop it, but in reality, we don’t control that reaction. It happens because our survival brain believes it must protect us from sleeplessness and hypnic awareness.

But the truth is – both nighttime wakefulness and hypnic awareness don’t pose an immediate physical threat. They may be highly uncomfortable, but essentially, they are safe.

How to break this vicious cycle

Having gone through this myself, I can say that this is, if not the most dreaded experience, then certainly one of the most dreaded experiences for anyone dealing with insomnia and sleep anxiety.

For someone already struggling with sleep, being pulled away from it like that feels cruel. No wonder we tend to get so scared, frustrated, and desperate when that happens.

I used to think that my brain would keep doing that for the rest of my life. I thought – I will never sleep normally again… I just couldn’t seem to stop my brain from doing that. At that time, I still believed that I was doing it intentionally to myself.

But things changed when I changed one thing – my response and attitude toward it.

My strategy used to be about control and avoidance. I tried to do everything I could to avoid that experience and make sleep happen. But unfortunately, it led to the opposite outcome. That’s when I started changing the way I interpreted and responded to that experience.

Interpretation

I believe that the core of this issue is what hypnic awareness means to us. For many people, including myself back in my insomnia days, being hypervigilant is seen as a direct obstruction to sleep. We see it as something that should not be happening. Fair enough!

But the same event can also have a different, more positive meaning. And redefining it and changing the way we think about it is what can set us free from it.

As I mentioned earlier, all our brain wants at that moment is to fall asleep. And often, we feel like that mechanism is broken or that we’ve forgotten how to sleep – we have zero confidence in our ability to sleep.

Now, the good news is: we didn’t forget how to sleep. The mechanism is not broken. That natural ability to sleep is still there, within you, waiting for the brain to put down its defenses and feel safe.

You don’t have direct access to it because no one can fall asleep on command, but we can turn a perceived enemy into a friend, thus helping turn down that fight-or-flight response.

Have you noticed how that painful awareness happens just before you are about to fall asleep? How about we celebrate it? The body is literally trying to fall asleep, and the fact that we feel that moment is evidence that the process of falling asleep is still happening.

The body keeps initiating sleep, and we can welcome that moment, even if it is full of that unpleasant feeling. The most important thing is that sleep is on the way.

In other words, hypnic awareness can be seen as a good sign.

Embracement

Because my interpretation of that hypnic awareness had changed, the way I was meeting it had also started to change. And that made a big difference. Yes, that annoying feeling kept coming for a while, but I was no longer resisting it as much because I knew it was bringing good news. It meant sleep was coming.

And gradually, my brain stopped caring whether I was aware or not, and the transition to sleep became smoother and more seamless.

You can meet that hyperawareness with a simple act of acknowledging it, like, “Here it goes. Here it goes again. And again…” Or imagine it as waves coming toward you and willingly diving into those waves. You can choose any form of acceptance that feels natural.

The beauty of that approach is that you can use it not only for hypnic awareness but also for hypnic jerks that happen before you fall asleep. As annoying as they can be, they do show that your body is moving toward sleep, and they eventually subside when we abandon the fight.

Hypnic awareness and other insomnia experiences are discussed in greater detail inside our Fearless Sleep Library community. So if you feel like you need a bit more structure, nuanced explanations and a supportive environment to navigate your recovery process, you are welcome to join.