The following is a visitor-submitted question or story. For more, you can submit your own sleep story here, or browse the collection of experiences and questions other visitors have shared here.

Falling Asleep While Doing Homework, And Sleep Writing

by Sidney
(Norco, CA, USA )

I'm a junior in high school and I have AP/honors classes and soccer 4 days a week. I usually don't start homework until 8 because my practices are usually 2-3 hrs long, and I typically stay up until 1:30-ish. The earliest I've gone to bed was 9:40 because I literally could not handle the stress and sleep deprivation.


I end up staying up so late that I actually zone out and start to "sleep write." For example, I was doing APUSH notes last year and in the middle of a paragraph about Africa and slavery I fell asleep and woke up to "and then my mom wouldn't let me take a picture of her without her permission".

Lately this has been happening a lot, even beginning at 10:00pm. I was doing math homework about a month ago and began falling asleep and woke up to "3x(23.5-4)=my sisters crayons.."

Mind you this isn't the only other time I've done this it happens all the time it's just one of the ones I remember. I usually zone out for a few minutes and wake up to misspelled words, random words, or just scribbles/drawings..

Can anyone provide an explanation for this? And I suffer from social anxiety, I've already been to a therapist and that didn't help at all. I've tried googling my symptoms but nothing relevant came up, and this never happens to anyone I know. I really would appreciate some explanation for this and a way to stop it because frankly it's annoying.

Comments for Falling Asleep While Doing Homework, And Sleep Writing

Click here to add your own comments

Nov 14, 2015
 Me too NEW
by: Anonymous

When you find out let me know. Because I do the same thing!!
Nov 14, 2015
 I will try NEW
by: Anonymous

I'll definitely try and let you know, I'm now a senior and it hasn't been happening as often but still occurs. And I still haven't found anything on it
Mar 05, 2016
 Same NEW
by: Anonymous

This would happen to me while I was in class writing notes. One time I remember writing notes for theology and falling asleep. When I woke up I closed my notebook and left because class had ended. I came in the next day thinking I would quickly look over the notes before the test only to find "The Synoptics are holy shit I want my ecig where my blunt". Well the Synoptics are not ecigs and blunts so I failed that test. Several times I fall asleep while taking notes in class or doing homework and find that I have either written really weird things or have continued with the correct words for about 3 words in completely different and very sloppy handwriting that ends with a pen or pencil line straying all the way down the page. I have several issues with falling asleep during the day and EDS. I am going to a sleep center to be evaluated very soon for what my pediatrician and psychiatrist call "narcoleptic" tendencies. I hope we both find the answers we are looking for
Apr 23, 2016
 Sleep writing: another here NEW
by: Jikani

Too funny. Yes I remember writing "Friday ovens
And If you leave them in the skies you've been smoking too much.
Oct 13, 2016
 sleep NEW
by: Anonymous

Haha this has been happening to me lately
I have AP calculus and AP English and have Band practice 3 hours a day two days a week so on those days I really am exhausted by the time I get to my homework. I was working on an economics project and wanted to Google "How did Disney get started" and instead Googled "how dod yearnookl get do good" which doesn't even make sense. I am in yearbook but dunno why I wrote that. also in my chemistry class last year I would always fall asleep during class whole taking notes and my notes would be fun to look at later with friends. Last night while doing my calculus homework, I wrote a function and instead of t^2 I wrote 2^t= isaiah. I did not notice until I went to brush my teeth to wake myself up and gave up on calc so I went to put my notes away and noticed that. don't even remember writing it or know what isaiah I was dreaming of
Dec 02, 2016
 Sleep writing NEW
by: Anonymous

This has happend to me however my answers were not false or funny sleep mistakes. They were correct! It just happend to me last night when I feel asleep thinking about my recent math quiz when I started doing equations in my head and got them right! I remember it all vividly almost as if it was a dream. This has also happend to my sister, she did 3 pages of vocabulary while SLEEPING. Again all of her answers where correct. If anybody has any explanation to this bizarre "sleep work" I would like to know what's up with it. Thank you
Jan 05, 2017
 SAME NEW
by: Me

I'm also a junior in high school and I do the same exact thing! It'll be late and I'll be working on my homework and then zone out and see really random things that I wrote, thinking I was writing something else. Have you found out anything else??
Jun 02, 2017
 sleep writing NEW
by: ishmael beah

maybe it's a high school AP/Honors thing lol
this happens to me a lot when i do homework in bed. some of the things ive written are still inside jokes among my friends and i ("Ishmael Beah eventually eats a blue raspberry jolly rancher" and "1/5 < conman, 2/5 = double tie he balder eyes falls directly he really")
Jun 09, 2017
 Falling asleep NEW
by: Anonymous

This happens a lot to me. Try sending your boss an email and go into a sleep stage. Didn't know I even sent it until I received a auto reply that she was out of the office. Let's say I freaked because it was talking about pizza and vacations. Made no sense. I wrote an apology email blaming the computer lol. It was bad. Note taking in meetings are no longer an option either. Never make sense. Everyone said I had my eyes open the entire time. I need to see a doctor because it is getting worse.
Feb 02, 2018
 Sleep Writing NEW
by: Megan

I was Doing my Homework and I fell asleep. When I woke up I found myself writing VERY sloppy and automatically awoke later.
Feb 07, 2018
 Chiken egg? NEW
by: Anonymous

"Fell Asleep" for maybe 1 minute in class. The lecture was thromboembolism and this is what I wrote in my notes:

Skin/feet no important for when cardiac output won’t make chiken egg

Yes, I know chicken is misspelled, but I was half way asleep.
Mar 01, 2019
 Same happened to me. NEW
by: Augus

I'm in high school and I can't even describe how many times has this happened!! I wrote such idiotic things in my books that i could die from embarrassment. I write things from my dreams and I'm gay so that becomes a lot of problem.... It seems painful.
Jul 10, 2019
 I might know why but I don't yet know how to fix it
by: Max

I'm a medical graduate now doing PhD. I have been suffering from falling asleep while writing and in class and even during clinic hours. I snap out of it by some prompts now days but back in school iy was hard. I would wake up in a cold sweat and looking at what I've wrote you can tell I'm passing out or just about to. Time goes by differently when you are in that zone. You are awake and not really, you know its happening but you can't do anything to fight it, you are not lazy by any means because you are still there writing your notes and doing your due diligence. The reason we have this issue is because we are strong we don't give up, even when our body gives up and many will just take the easy way put and nap in class, we fight on till the bitter end.

I have narrowed it down to a few things that I would like to share. Also I would like to share what I use to trip myselfe out of it.
I can tell you 1 thing for sure it has to do with what you eat, the second thing is i figured out ways to get out of it.
More to come!
Jul 10, 2019
 What I avoid and how I get out of it NEW
by: Anonymous

If you wrote here telling people about your experience, see something in common we all have on the posts? You are intelligent and you are hard working! You fight to the bitter end even when your body quits on you. I was able to video tape myself in a few of these episode and it became very clear how hard we fight.
I learned not to eat heavy or at all when i know I'll be sitting or standing static and using my brain, i stay away from starch, this includes rice, noodle, pasta, potatoes. This works on making the situation more manageable and mostly it won't happen at all.
If it does happen, as soon as it does I stop what I'm doing right away and do something else. For example I'm sitting in class writing, I'll stand up and excuse myself for a washroom break. If I'm at home or in the library studying making notes, I'll go on my phone and watch something funny or interesting on YouTube or write to you guys like what I'm doing now.
Once you feel the cloud is clearing and you feel back in control, continue to do what you were.
Like i said time works differently when you are in that zone... so you will need to back track a few min of your work before you snapped out of it. Otherwise you will not remember what you did exactly just like a dream!
Try videotaping yourself and see how hard you are struggling. We are not lazy or stupid, we are quite the opposite! We are fighters lets us win by fighting it smartly.
I have actually worked out the mechanism behind it. I'll publish it on a journal someday.
Jul 10, 2019
 What I avoid and how I get out of it
by: Max

If you wrote here telling people about your experience, see something in common we all have on the posts? You are intelligent and you are hard working! You fight to the bitter end even when your body quits on you. I was able to video tape myself in a few of these episode and it became very clear how hard we fight.
I learned not to eat heavy or at all when i know I'll be sitting or standing static and using my brain, i stay away from starch, this includes rice, noodle, pasta, potatoes. This works on making the situation more manageable and mostly it won't happen at all.
If it does happen, as soon as it does I stop what I'm doing right away and do something else. For example I'm sitting in class writing, I'll stand up and excuse myself for a washroom break. If I'm at home or in the library studying making notes, I'll go on my phone and watch something funny or interesting on YouTube or write to you guys like what I'm doing now.
Once you feel the cloud is clearing and you feel back in control, continue to do what you were.
Like i said time works differently when you are in that zone... so you will need to back track a few min of your work before you snapped out of it. Otherwise you will not remember what you did exactly just like a dream!
Try videotaping yourself and see how hard you are struggling. We are not lazy or stupid, we are quite the opposite! We are fighters lets us win by fighting it smartly.
I have actually worked out the mechanism behind it. I'll publish it on a journal someday.
Aug 15, 2019
 Omg same NEW
by: Anonymous

Wow I'm so glad I saw this cause I remember dealing with that mostly in sophomore year. It scared me cause I asked my friends if there's such thing as sleep writing. I told them about it and I didn't find anyone who sleep write.
Sep 12, 2019
 Yes! This happens with me too NEW
by: Anonymous

I suffer from exactly the same thing! I hate it when it happens because I always try so hard to fight it but I still zone out for a while, sometimes miss out on important information or concepts in class, and my notes are absolute gibberish. They are nonsensical words (sometimes the 'words' are basically an arrangement of random letters) and scribbles in place of class notes. When I snap back into regular consciousness, I scramble to hide whatever I've written–– it's so embarrassing!

The weirdest part is that other people don't always realize that I've been in this trance-like state? Like, they might notice that I'm sleepy, but that's about it. I've literally sat at the front bench, right in front of my teacher, and gone into this half-asleep mode without being called out for it.

I wonder if there's any name for this strange condition. There seem to be a bunch of us going through the same thing!
Sep 14, 2019
 Same NEW
by: Anonymous

Well, I am not the only one who has this problem. I once woke up to see Barbecue recipe in my examination answer sheet then ran to washroom to wash my face. This happens to me many times. Is there anything that will be help to me?

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to The Effects of Sleep Deprivation.



Enjoy this page? Please help us pay it forward to others who would find it valuable by Liking, Sharing, Tweeting, Stumbling, and/or Voting below.

About This Site

Welcome! This site is continuously being created by students of Dr. William C. Dement's Sleep And Dreams course at Stanford University.

We made this site as a call to action for people all over the world to live healthier, happier, safer, and more productive lives by learning about their own sleep. We have faith that reading the information provided on this site will motivate you to be smart about your sleep deprivation and strategic about your alertness in order to live life to your fullest, most energetic potential.

In fact, we challenge you to do so! What do you say, are you up for the challenge?

A Note On Visitor-Submitted Questions:

Publishing sleep stories and questions from our visitors is meant to create a forum for open and proactive dialogue about an extremely important portion of our lives (one that occupies 1/3 of it and affects the other 2/3) that isn't talked about enough. It is not meant to substitute a trip to the doctor or the advice of a specialist. It's good to talk; it is not good to avoid consulting someone who's profession it is to help you with this kind of stuff.

If you are in any way concerned about your sleep health, don't wait for an answer on here, and don't necessarily rely on them. See a sleep specialist in your area as soon as possible.

More Questions:

Ask | Answer

The Stanford Sleep Book

Stanford Sleep Book Picture

Dr. Dement's pioneering textbook has been the core text for Sleep and Dreams since 1980, but it has just recently been made available to the wider public for the first time.

In it you'll find a more detailed account of the most important things you need to know about sleep, alertness, dreams, and sleep disorders. Studies, statistics, plus plenty of Dr. Dement's classic anecdotes painting the history of sleep medicine.

Preface | Intro | Contents | Get A Copy

More Sleep Resources

The Zeo

Track Your Own Sleep With Zeo

A revolution in personal sleep tracking, the Zeo is a wireless headband that transmits your brainwaves in realtime to a dock (pictured here) or your smartphone. The result? You can wake up and see exactly what stages of sleep you were in during the night! Unprecedented personalized sleep knowledge.

Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer's Guide

Sleep Paralysis Treatment Book

Ever woken up paralyzed? A surprising number of us have, believe it or not. But few know the actual causes of this phenomenon, and fewer still how to exert control over it. Dream researcher and sleep paralysis expert Ryan Hurd shares breakthrough insights into how to do just that.

Important Disclaimer

Please Note:

The information found on this page and throughout this site is intended for general information purposes only. While it may prove useful and empowering, it is NOT intended as a substitute for the expertise and judgments of healthcare practitioners.

For more info, see our
Terms of Use.