Intrusive random thoughts when trying to sleep

[John20001]

Hey guys. I was diagnosed with OCD several years ago and am being treated on an antidepressant, a less common one known as Luvox. It seems to work the best for me personally, but that's not why I am here. I have two states I go into when my body needs sleep. The first is when I feel tired, that exhausted feeling that you could just lay down and fall asleep in two minutes. The other state is when I stay up very very late, and am not really that tired, but I am experiencing symptoms of brain fatigue and my eyes begin to glaze etc. It is during this second state that I get very persistent completely random thoughts that protrude my mind when I lay down to go to sleep. I'll be laying there, and all of a sudden a song pops into my head and ill find myself tapping a part of my body to it, or i'll "hear" a voice say a random phrase like "Yeah I dont know" or "Thats what he did!". Obviously these "voices" have no context and when I "hear" them, I find my logical brain saying "What the heck was that??". I feel I should say that by "voices" and "hearing", I mean the kind of voice you hear in your head when you imagine someone speaking. I'm not talking about literally hearing as if I would by a sound source. But it might as well be, since a part of my brain is sending this perceived thought into my head. Once I hear the voice and am trying to reason why that popped into my head, I get no more intrusions. It's like when my rational/concious mind it active, I dominate this obnoxious part of my brain. But as soon as try to sleep and rest my mind, the thoughts come flooding back.

As a strange analogy to my symptoms, I'll explain it this way. I often feel like there is this part of my brain that is locked up all day, when the logical/rational part of my brain has enough energy. It is constantly being subdued and put into check. But when my brain gets tired after staying up really late but not feeling too tired(state 2), my rational brain no longer has enough energy to silence the obnoxious, loud, random part of my brain. So when im laying there, I am under siege by constant strange thoughts flooding my head.

Does anyone else have any experience with this? Is it normal, or another symptom of OCD? I don't have suicidal thoughts or thoughts of killing or hurting anyone, its just these random thoughts at night. Thanks very much for taking the time to read this!

[Cuchculan]

I would say it is far easier to have thoughts enter our heads late at night. Dark room. Silence. That is when a lot of people with anxiety get their racing thoughts. So I would assume your voices are somewhat similar to their racing thoughts. It can be very hard to switch off at times. You could try any form of distraction at all. Be it music to listen to. So you are not thinking inwardly. A clock radio that would knock itself off after an hour. May help distract what you are hearing. It is not something I suffer from myself. So I don't fully understand the condition. But I do know if I get the lyrics from a song stuck in my head it drives me crazy till I can name the song. Kind of like we can let such things get in on top of us. Just have to learn how to switch off. You might find some new way that works for you. If you do, continue using it. There is no such thing as the wrong way. Once it works.

[Calamy]

I get racing thoughts and intrusive thoughts at night. I have had trouble sleeping since I was a teenager and even these days some nights I will get weird images pop into my head -- like monster or distorted faces or something like that. It's not every night and I think it really has a lot to do with your level of anxiety. If I take a xanax I usually sleep much easier and will not wake in the middle of the night as often. It's a sounder sleep. You are not alone with this one. It's hard to control thoughts when you're trying to relax. I think we spend all day directing thoughts and at night have to "lose control" and they just sorta get really wonky and random.

[Princesskj]

This is exactly what I've been going through. It's scary. Have you asked a doc about it