Constant wakings when falling asleep (stage N1) without clear cause

After new events, wrote a more comprehensive post:

SUBJECT: Recent constant wakeups during sleep transition with and without myoclonus, keeping me up hours or all night. Questions regarding sleep medication and other history.

TLDR: skip to Questions in next post.

2 bad nights of sleep last week due to upstairs neighbor noise (bad floor insulation which for some reason I've only just started noticing although we both lived here for years). Since then I've had nights where I'm constantly woken at N1 (transition from wake to sleep). Lasting hours to the whole night, sometimes felt as constant as less than a minute in between. Initially I thought it was just sleep

(hypnic jerks, etc) -- typically movements smaller than arms/legs in these cases, such as jaw closing resulting in teeth clicking (not bruxism), slight finger movement, eyebrow raise or furl, slight head movements, etc. But sometimes, particularly after the first night this happened, I noticed the wakeups sometimes or often seemed to correspond with seemingly no movements at all. In this latter case, sometimes I was aware of the transition -- but it happened even when I wasn't aware I was transitioning, and only became aware after the transition failed and I woke.

I'll call these wakeups "bounces" below.

Anyway, the day before last night I was awake all night, in the morning went to my girlfriend's to escape the neighbor noise and got maybe up to N2 (light sleep) for up to a few hours (before which I experienced further bounces), but don't recall or felt like I got any N3 or REM. I decided I wouldn't be able to deal with this another night so I planned to take Zolnox for the first time that night at 2am if the bounces continued. Since it had started less than a week ago, I hadn't gone to a doctor about this (plan to now) or been prescribed any sleeping drugs but my gf had some and offered.

So I got into bed before midnight (not taking melatonin 1mg although I had on most of the nights since last week), initially with just earplugs and then with white noise on my headphones (I use white noise machines at home but my gf doesn't like it), but in either case, the bounces persisted, so I popped my first Zolnox, 5mg, shortly after 2am. In 20-30 minutes I was experiencing some interesting visuals (like the visuals I sometimes see in transitional state when I used to be able to sleep normally) - weird trippy cartoonish characters, etc. DURING THESE VISUALS, A FEW TIMES I FELT MYOCLONUS. However, I didn't fully wake up during these; instead, the visuals adjusted to the situation. For example, a character I was visualizing said something like "we'll have to find out what is causing that". Nonetheless, after about 30 minutes since popping the Z, I was awake, and questioned whether 5mg was enough. But I decided to rest more, and in a bit over an hour since popping, I was fully asleep. I slept to the morning about 8:30am, about 5 hours since crashing (not counting the N1 with bounces in the few hours preceding). This sleep seemed mostly N3 (deep); I don't recall any dreams. During these hours I woke up just once IIRC, 2 hours before the last wakeup, and didn't use the bathroom to urinate like I would normally multiple times per night. So it seems the sleep I got was minimally disrupted and relatively restorative. Notably, during those hours I also didn't exhibit or notice any myoclonus. After those 5 hours, however, when I tried to sleep further, I noticed the myoclonus again, although they seemed smaller than before.

My goal is to eliminate the constant myoclonus, take a safe sleeping drug to assist with sleep in the meantime, and establish that drug or another as a possible future "KO" solution for any restless nights.

Other notes related to sleep/movement abnormalities in my past; maybe related, maybe not:

a. Since sometime after 2010, I've occasionally had "angry" dreams where I'm arguing with someone, which occasionally causes me to wake while I'm punching or kicking the bed a few times in anger in real life, or yell or say something (the last time this happened based on my records, Aug 2025, I woke to myself finishing saying "I hope that clarifies things" in real life which I originally started saying in the dream; gf heard it). I've researched this and I think I saw a post on reddit months ago suggesting this isn't enough to count as RBD (REM sleep behavior disorder; association with Parkinsons) and/or wasn't problematic. I think one of the reasons is it's not an issue if the movement/vocalizations lead to waking. Also not an issue if it happens only a few times a year.

b. Since sometime after 2017 (IIRC), I've had what feels like a semi-automatic facial tic/twitch that I can control when I'm thinking about it but subconsciously do it if I'm not (I notice it's often when I'm thinking of something cringy), which involves simultaneously raising the left side of my mouth and blinking/winking my left eye. I think generally it happens up to a few times a day, sometimes more, sometimes less if at all. I don't exhibit other twitches when I'm fully awake.

c. I've woken to hypnic jerks in the past, but the jaw closing leading to teeth click which wakes me is something I first noticed beginning of last month or slightly before, although didn't notice it for the vast majority of nights since then up until end of last week.

d. I often snore on my back if head is not tilted back but I don't think I have sleep apnea; neither gf nor I have ever noticed me stopping breathing or waking choking/gasping for air.

Questions:

1. I've had 2+ consecutive nights of poor sleep in the past but never experienced this. Is it possible they can kickstart something like this though? Am I more susceptible than when I was younger due to my age (late 30s)?

2. Is it possible that the movement-related wakeups happened so often that my body associated the transitional state itself with waking up, and that's what causes those bounces with no clear cause? If so, how do I get out of it?

3. My gf has been taking Zolnox, usually 5mg, relatively regularly for years. She uses it for overseas trips, as a jetlag fix, when she needs to wake up early for work, etc. She says the longest stretch she's used it daily is 1-2 weeks, and she hasn't developed tolerance or dependence, nor issues such as cognition/memory impairment, etc, and it always knocks her out in 20-30 minutes; sleep amount varies. Is this typical of Zolnox or does she have an unusually good reaction? Should she still consider potential long-term implications? For months she has also been taking melatonin 0.5mg and magnesium glycinate, if relevant.

4. Still, I'm concerned about long-term use of Zolnox and other Z-drugs, including potential links with dependency and dementia (although the consensus doesn't seem clear on dementia, but it seems any link may relate to impaired glymphatic system / norepinephrine waves despite increasing N3 sleep), so I'm thinking of requesting an Rx for an alternative drug that hasn't been associated with this risk. Following is a list of drugs that I understand fit this category; anyone with direct experience with these (better yet, multiple) can share thoughts/comparisons (although I realize everyone responds differently), and are there drugs/categories I missed?: Dual Orexin Receptor Antagonists (DORAs): Lemborexant (Dayvigo), Suvorexant (Belsomra), Daridorexant (Quviviq); Low-Dose Doxepin (Silenor) (3-6 mg to avoid anticholinergic sides); Melatonin Receptor Agonists: Ramelteon (Rozerem); Sedating Antidepressants (Off-Label): Trazodone, Mirtazapine (Remeron) (latter may cause hunger, weight gain).

5. The only big recent diet changes I can think of are broccoli sprouts (have been eating \~2oz almost daily for weeks) and a supplement called Complement Essential (started a few months ago) which has B12, D3, K2, magnesium, iodine, omegas, selenium, zinc. I saw a few anecdotes about broc sprouts and/or high sulforaphane potentially causing insomnia, but I haven't found any science behind this, and these anecdotes didn't seem tied to myoclonus. Is there a possible association I'm unaware of?

6. Is there any possibility of notes (a)/(b) above being related to note (c) and the recent issues? How to tell if this is something potentially neurological/neurodegenerative?

7. I started using earplugs before 2010, and white noise machines last year to drown out all the noise in my ground-floor street-facing apartment in this noisy city (evidently not fully effective due to the wakeups from the neighbor noise). Could white noise machines have lowered my threshold for environmental noise? I haven't found much info on this. (That said, within the past year I tried to sleep a few times without earplugs or white noise and was able to reach N3+REM sleep, or, in the last week, at least N2.)

8. Does my need to get up to urinate multiple times a night when not taking Zolnox possibly implicate some related issue?

9. What non-medicated interventions should I try? I've tried exercising earlier (at least a few hours before bed). Haven't drunk caffeine in years (occasional cup of non-caffeinated tea, e.g. chamomile). No alcohol.

10. What kind of a doctor should I see to start off with?

sleep journal:

I took 0.5mg melatonin at 10pm, went to bed around 11pm.

Early on, a few myoclonus (including hypnic jerks, although didn't notice the teeth click issue at all last night) but most wakeups seemed at transition with unknown cause - may be "conditioned arousal" as some noted, a common factor in insomnia; in this context the wakeups may occur bc they happened so often recently that the body automatically wakes up at that point. This continued to maybe around 1am (very approx), sometimes feeling like it was waking me up every minute or so, although the N1 (+N2?) was providing a little rest. Unlike previous nights this happened, I gave a "whatever" attitude instead of getting annoyed/etc, which kept my pulse low.

Finally I got past that at some point, reaching REM. During a funny dream I laughed silently in real life which woke me up. I got back to sleep, maybe up to a few transition wakeups this time so didn't take nearly as long.

Slept to somewhat before 8am, feeling relatively rested so far, without recollecting further dreams, so I assume I got adequate N3.

Didn't take my gf's Zolnox, didn't need last night. I think that for the future, I would leave at least a day between any sleeping pills (a strategy some seem to use to minimize dependence and longer-term ramifications) unless absolutely needed. I plan to still ask doc for a drug with a safer long-term profile, maybe Dayvigo.

Early last night I had switched my earplugs for my Shure headphones with noise apps (the headphones act partly as earplugs so total volume not too loud). This, when combined with white noise machines, seems to work much better to block environmental noise (including upstairs neighbors), as well as internal body noise (easily heard with earplugs) like heartbeat, friction from head movement, etc. White noise machines were on all night, initially at full volume, then at -5, which seems like a good balance with the headphones. Phone volume typically between 10-12 out of 25.

I didn't run yesterday bc wasn't feeling that energetic, which I'll make up today or this weekend. Unsure to what extent that affected last night's sleep.

Also I've recently been limiting drinking water at bedtime to 10 sips after brushing teeth. Seems to prevent needing to use bathroom too often at night. Previously I often drank more.

sleep journal:

after going to bed at 2am, I bypassed wakeups mb around 5am, slept to slightly after 830 for up to 3-3.5h N3 (unsure all of it was N3). tried to return to sleep but myo and wakeups restarted so seemingly got at most N1-2 most of the night

don't recall any REM, so unsure if had any, but based on typical sleep cycle durations there should've been some in the 3-3.5h