Ever since I can remember I have had trouble getting to sleep. I have to lay in bed for hours until I start to dose off. During the night I have such vivid dreams—and so many of them—that I wake up each morning exhausted.

Lately I’ve been having dreams about drowning and this causes me to wake up several times during the night out of breath. It seems that no matter how tired I am I can’t just lay down to sleep.

Could you please give a suggestion of what this could be? I think I might be suffering from a sleep disorder.  

—Allison, Age 42, Toronto, Canada