I am wakened while falling asleep. Very difficult to get back to sleep.

I have many weird things happen, a sudden bang inside my head will wake me, I will wake and see people standing by my bed, they slowly dissappear, inability to get to sleep despite being very tired, early waking, awake 2 hours after going to sleep for up to 2 hours.   I do not look forward to going to bed because every night is different, I never get a good nights sleep. I envy people who sleep soundly without a problem, I rarely sleep more than 6 hours on a good night.  I feel tired physically and mentally by 10pm so have no choice but go to bed and hope for the best. I try to look on the positive side,the winter is the worst with the dark nights and mornings.

I see.  I have the same problem, mainly waking up after only being asleep for a short time and then having a hard time going back to sleep.  6 hours is pretty good, so don't worry so much as that "sleep anxiety" just makes it harder to sleep.  If and when you wake up in the middle of the night, just have something already planned out that you can do until you get sleepy again.  This will preferably be something relaxing, not work related.  My go-to is paperback nonfiction, as it keeps me mildly entertained without exposing me to a lot of artificial light.  These few things have helped me more than anything:

1. Get up if you can't sleep.  Laying there tossing and turning only strengthens the association you have between the bedroom and being awake.  If you can't get to sleep after a half hour or so, get up and do something per above until you are tired again.  

2. Don't spend as much time in bed.  Figure out how much total time you are sleeping per night (not how much time you are in the bed), then only be in the bed that exact amount of time.  For instance, if you are sleeping 6 hours total over 2 or 3 different sessions in a night, only be in bed for those 6 hours.  You may still wake up just like now and it will be difficult to stay up as late as you need to in order to accommodate the new schedule, but sooner or later your body and mind will realize that it needs to sleep well because you aren't giving them a huge window to be as active as they want.  When I first started this, I made my time in bed 5 hours total.  The first couple of weeks were hard, but gradually I got to a point where I slept that entire 5 hours. Once I was able to do that, I expanded my time in bed by 15 minutes each week. 

3.  Exercise each day.  It doesn't have to be anything extreme, just get your heart rate up for 20 minutes.  I didn't want to hear this when I was sleeping terribly and felt bad all the time but I did it anyway and it helped so much.  After a month of daily exercise, I slept more deeply and it actually made me feel better on days even when I had slept very little the night before.  This is probably the most overlooked piece of getting over insomnia but may be the most important.  If there is any such thing as a miracle drug, it is consistent exercise. 

4.  DO NOT TAKE SLEEPING PILLS.  They are a road to nowhere.  I won't go into too much depth on the problem of addiction; my main gripe with sleeping meds is that they simply don't work.  I have taken them all at one point or another and the story is the same for each one.  It helps slightly for a couple of days and then you develop tolerance and they stop having any effect at all, other than the significant negative side effects they come with.  It is so nice to think about being able to simply take a pill at night and sleep like a small child but that's a fool's errand.  It won't happen.  

5. Go talk to a therapist if you have some lingering anxiety or depression.  I was dealing with both and those things are firmly entwined with insomnia.  You may just have the sleeping problem and if that's the case then ignore the advice here.  

Hope that helps.  Take care