June Sixon

My wondrously nightmarish mind 3:36 am ...

Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (Non-24) is a neurological sleep disorder in which a person's sleep/wake cycle is longer than 24 hours. The person is unable to adjust his sleep/wake cycle to the length of the day, and his sleep time progresses around the clock. For example, if he goes to sleep at midnight and sleeps until 8 am one day, he may not be able to fall asleep until 1 or 2 am the next night, and will need to sleep correspondingly later the following morning. The delay does not stop at 1 or 2am but continues to get worse every day until he is going to sleep at 4am, then 6am, 8am, 10am, noon, 2pm etc. Eventually he comes around the clock again to his starting point and the process continues on. For some people the length of their cycle varies from day to day, and they cannot predict their sleep/wake schedule in advance.