The dream was vivid, bright high-resolution visuals and realistic surround sound. A roaring beast was chasing me on a mountain top and suddenly I came to a cliff edge - off to the left I desperately saw a flimsy rope bridge. I narrowly evaded a brutal toe as the beast tried sweep me up into his mouth. I ran onto the rope bridge - when I got to the middle the bridge started to sway violently - then a bolt of lightening struck the rope just in front of me and I fell into the abyss…

I woke up on my knees next to my bed, clutching the sheet, with my poor wife staring at me in horror. I dream every night, and most nights I thrash around - never waking up in the same place where I went to sleep.

The last few years have not had as many terrors as the one described above, but it is like I live in many different worlds when my eyes shut out the conscious world.

Around about the time I turned one, my mother noticed that I was scratching my pillow to keep myself awake. Seventy years on and I have simply found other techniques to avoid sleeping.

Most of my working life I thrived on around 4 hours sleep a night. Being a news photographer during a turbulent time in Southern Africa almost demanded that one be able to function on minimal sleep.

Having been involved in ADHD for the last 25 years I know that sleep problems and ADHD go hand-in-hand, as well as Forrest Gump said peas and carrots did. But I never knew just how prevalent it was. There are significant non-sleep impacts on the person affected by a sleep disorder. Sleep issues must be taken seriously.

One good thing I have known for a long time is that the best ADHD statistics come from Sweden where the authorities know everything about you - and their data is accurate.

Here is the relevant data - I have simplified it so it is easier to understand. What you will see below is the ratio of ADDers compared to non-ADHD people who suffer from sleep disturbances

 Adolescents and young adults are the ones that suffer the most.

Further on I will provide you with the ratios of people that suffer with the different types of sleep problems, which will help you as a parent to understand that your child is not alone when it comes to sleep issues.

Now I will break the figures down into 8 different categories and how uncommon they are compared top non-ADHD people.

Here are the figures from the highest to the lowest.

The Swedish team that undertook this study concluded their work saying this:
“Our findings also suggest that greater clinical attention should be directed towards addressing sleep problems in individuals with ADHD. This entails implementing proactive measures through sleep education programmes and providing both pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy and parental sleep training.”

The Method Used by the Swedes

• Sweden has a single-payer health insurance system and a series of national population registers that track virtually its entire population.
• Using the Swedish Total Population Register, a local research team created a cohort of all 6,470,658 persons born between 1945 and 2008.
• They linked this to the Swedish National Patient Register, which includes inpatient hospitalizations from 1975 to 2013, and outpatient specialist diagnoses from 2001 to 2013, to identify diagnoses of sleep disorders.
• They also linked to the Prescribed Drug Register, covering 2005 to 2013, to identify prescriptions for sleep medications.

Dinasaur Image: Alex Bon