Nightmares

[Rodafina]

My days are pretty good. There is plenty of sensory overload, shut down, and anxiety, but more than ever, I feel that I have outlets for these things now and they are far more manageable and short-lived than they have been in the past. I talk about these days with a friend, I actively do things to feel empowered over my life, things are looking up.

But there are nightmares.

I haven’t slept well for decades, but I am beginning to sleep more and in sobriety, I am dreaming again. Lots of dreaming. At first, it was fun and fascinating, but now, the nightmares are troubling. I wake up and the feelings persist for a while into the day and when I started to fall asleep at night, I get flashbacks of the feelings from the night before.

I don’t know what my question is. I just wanted to share and see what people say. I’m scared to sleep, because sleep is scary.

 

[Forest Cat]

I have experienced the same thing. After not being sober for a while, I sobered up and that made me dream a lot and have nightmares. I think it's pretty normal but it's also awful, for a while I was worried about going to sleep. It's exhausting to have nightmares every night. I told myself it would get better with a little time, my head just needed to adjust. And it did, it calmed down. Hang in there, I think it's something people have to go through but it does end, it gets better.

 

[MildredHubble]

I get horrible nightmares too when I manage to sleep :-( Like you they trouble me during the day and also I fear what is going to happen when I finally nod off.

Once I had a horrible dream that I was driving like a maniac down the road with my dad and girlfriend in the car, leaving a trail of horror in my wake. It was super distressing as it was so vivid and it was like I'm screaming at my self from behind the wheel to stop in the dream or rather nightmare.

It distressed me so much that I had to ask my dad to drive to the supermarket a few days after. Usually I drive due to my dad preferring not to because of his mobility issues.

Even thinking about it now makes me feel a bit anxious.

I wish I had some advice beyond what I think may be a contributing factor, which is, if you feel anxious when you are about to sleep, it's likely that your thoughts will influence the sort of dream you are likely to have.

So maybe watch some videos of fluffy kittens when you are readying to get some sleep and hopefully your dreams will be not but fluffy kittens

 

[Owliet]

My days are pretty good. There is plenty of sensory overload, shut down, and anxiety, but more than ever, I feel that I have outlets for these things now and they are far more manageable and short-lived than they have been in the past. I talk about these days with a friend, I actively do things to feel empowered over my life, things are looking up.

But there are nightmares.

I haven’t slept well for decades, but I am beginning to sleep more and in sobriety, I am dreaming again. Lots of dreaming. At first, it was fun and fascinating, but now, the nightmares are troubling. I wake up and the feelings persist for a while into the day and when I started to fall asleep at night, I get flashbacks of the feelings from the night before.

I don’t know what my question is. I just wanted to share and see what people say. I’m scared to sleep, because sleep is scary.

Would it be worth it to keep some sort of dream journal? List down what happens and maybe reflect on it?

 

[Rodafina]

I have experienced the same thing. After not being sober for a while, I sobered up and that made me dream a lot and have nightmares. I think it's pretty normal but it's also awful, for a while I was worried about going to sleep. It's exhausting to have nightmares every night. I told myself it would get better with a little time, my head just needed to adjust. And it did, it calmed down. Hang in there, I think it's something people have to go through but it does end, it gets better.

Thank you. This is hugely helpful to hear.

I wish I had some advice beyond what I think may be a contributing factor, which is, if you feel anxious when you are about to sleep, it's likely that your thoughts will influence the sort of dream you are likely to have.

So maybe watch some videos of fluffy kittens when you are readying to get some sleep and hopefully your dreams will be not but fluffy kittens

Thank you, Mildred. The perplexing part is that I typically feel okay by the time I am in my room, and I have done a lot over the last decade to manage sleep anxiety, so I do all the things that are comforting. Like last night, I fell asleep downright happy, but then the nightmares crept in.

It is hugely helpful to hear your experience though and I definitely relate to the daytime fear of the nighttime horror.

Would it be worth it to keep some sort of dream journal? List down what happens and maybe reflect on it?

Definitely worth it. I will try this. Thank you.

 

[MildredHubble]

Are you at a comfortable temperature when you are in bed? I have noticed that since I bought a new duvet I'm feeling a little less tense when I sleep. This has only been in the last couple of weeks and I realised just how cold I had been in bed. I suspect that being too warm could be a factor for me.

As for the effect on the nightmares, it's hard to say for sure. I generally don't seem to remember any dreams unless they were vivid and distressing so it may be a good sign that I don't recall any dreams at all

One thing that some people have told me helped them was a weighted blanket. I'm not sure if maybe something like this could help in your situation but I thought I would mention it

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Im sorry that you are getting so many nigthmares. When I happen to remember my dreams, 9 of 10 times they are nigthmares.

I have different kind of nigthmares.

Direct violence related ones when I was young, in those I suffered violence untill I died by monsters, dinosaurs, very strong people, bears or dogs. If I run, cried or tried to scape, the nigthmare would come again some other nigth untill I could harm back what hurted me. I got to a point were I no longer cared to die and just focused on hurt the agressor back and those dreams stopped. I think they are related with bullying and were adaptative so I could be able to figth back to bullies.

Insecurity related are about exams and work scenarios were I cant solve simple situations and I have all kind of problems. From lacking clothes to being spoken in another language. Everybody arround me do fine except me. Other times my teeth get bloked or even break, so I end with pure pulp, nerves and theeth fragments in my mouth while I cant stop grinding them. Quite painfull.

Once I became father, I had nigthmares in wich my daugther suffer damage or is taken from me. Its way worse than suffering pain myself.

Lately im getting social nigthmares, In those people start hurting my family in social ways. Like not talking anymore, being rejected from schools, work, saboutaged by neigbours, ignored by police, robbed by friends... and all society slowly decides to get rid of us little by little and we end being hated by everybody else. I think this started when I became aware of my autist traits and social dificulties.

Im curious if social nigthmares will continue when I will get a boxtruck camper conversion. Because I am actually who is planning/daydreaming to no longer depend on society in a future.

So those are mine. They are mostly self fears related.

 

[Rodafina]

Are you at a comfortable temperature when you are in bed? I have noticed that since I bought a new duvet I'm feeling a little less tense when I sleep. This has only been in the last couple of weeks and I realised just how cold I had been in bed. I suspect that being too warm could be a factor for me.

As for the effect on the nightmares, it's hard to say for sure. I generally don't seem to remember any dreams unless they were vivid and distressing so it may be a good sign that I don't recall any dreams at all

One thing that some people have told me helped them was a weighted blanket. I'm not sure if maybe something like this could help in your situation but I thought I would mention it

Thank you, I will try those things and pay attention to sleeping conditions like temperature. I’m wide open to advice here, so all of it is helpful.

 

[Rodafina]

Im sorry that you are getting so many nigthmares. When I happen to remember my dreams, 9 of 10 times they are nigthmares.

I have different kind of nigthmares.

Direct violence related ones when I was young, in those I suffered violence untill I died by monsters, dinosaurs, very strong people, bears or dogs. If I run, cried or tried to scape, the nigthmare would come again some other nigth untill I could harm back what hurted me. I got to a point were I no longer cared to die and just focused on hurt the agressor back and those dreams stopped. I think they are related with bullying and were adaptative so I could be able to figth back to bullies.

Insecurity related are about exams and work scenarios were I cant solve simple situations and I have all kind of problems. From lacking clothes to being spoken in another language. Everybody arround me do fine except me. Other times my teeth get bloked or even break, so I end with pure pulp, nerves and theeth fragments in my mouth while I cant stop grinding them. Quite painfull.

Once I became father, I had nigthmares in wich my daugther suffer damage or is taken from me. Its way worse than suffering pain myself.

Lately im getting social nigthmares, In those people start hurting my family in social ways. Like not talking anymore, being rejected from schools, work, saboutaged by neigbours, ignored by police, robbed by friends... and all society slowly decides to get rid of us little by little and we end being hated by everybody else. I think this started when I became aware of my autist traits and social dificulties.

Im curious if social nigthmares will continue when I will get a boxtruck camper conversion. Because I am actually who is planning/daydreaming to no longer depend on society in a future.

So those are mine. They are mostly self fears related.

Thanks for sharing, Atrapa Almas, I’m going to take Owliets advice and start to really keep track of what’s going on.

So far, there are a few common themes.

- generally violent and feelings of being trapped or lost

- Losing sight as if staring into the sun, and losing my voice, like screaming for help, but no sound can come out

- Upsetting people to the point where there is anger and violence toward me

 

[Outdated]

Considering everything that’s happened to me in my life I’m surprised that I don’t get nightmares. I can only remember it happening twice in my life, during periods of significant emotional trauma.

Normally I sleep too heavily, too deeply, to remember any dreams. If I do remember any it’s during that period when I’m slowly rising to the surface again, about to wake up. Or if it’s a hot afternoon and too uncomfortable to sleep properly.

So I hate dreams. We all dream constantly while we sleep but if I am aware of the dreams it means I’m not fully asleep and not getting the proper rest I need. I like my sleep but I like it undisturbed. I like waking up after a good 8 or 9 hours that to my knowledge didn’t exist.

I did go through a period of very vivid dreams at one stage. They weren’t nightmares, just weird dreams. One of them was such a strange science fiction story that I got up and wrote it all down while I could still remember it clearly. Normally I can’t remember what was in a dream a few minutes after I’ve woken up, they fade from memory very quickly.

It didn’t take me long to work out what was causing all these vivid dreams all of a sudden. It was a particularly hot and wet wet season. My pillows had gotten damp from sweat and during humidity that high they don’t dry out again, and they went mouldy.

The dreams were a result of the fungal spores I was breathing in during the night, essentially I was getting a drugged sleep. Buying new pillows fixed the problem. And just the way life works sometimes, a few weeks after this some friends of mine started having trouble with weird dreams.

They lived in a two bedroom unit and they had moved out of the main bedroom and in to the smaller room because “that bedroom is haunted”. Jeff showed me the room, it was empty, and without all his wife’s smelly cosmetics in the room I could smell it, mould.

I sniffed around and sniffed around, it was coming from the carpet underneath the big front window. It took a bit of convincing before he let me rip up one corner of the carpet but I was right. It was black with mould underneath. They ended up throwing the carpet out and putting ceramic tiles like in the rest of the unit, and that worked. No more weird dreams in the main bedroom.

 

[Angular Chap]

I have had 4 types of nightmare that I can describe:

1. The self-contained bad dream where bad things happen. Strangely, pretty rare.

2. The night terror with the hallucinations and maybe sleep paralysis. Very rarely. Only had something I would actually genuinely call a night terror, once during COVID.

3. The realistic scenario that doesn't exist, never actually happened, but feels real. I'll wake up in a panic about something that I've forgotten, be half way across the room to get ready, before it hits me that I imagined the whole thing. There was no dreaming involved, I just woke up in a panic thinking there was something innocent I forgot to do.

4. Emitting a cry of distress that wakes me up. Just like snoring myself awake. No dream involved.

These are all caused by anxiety.

Lately, I've been getting dreams with the exact same theme: being lost. Either lost generally or lost in a hospital. The content of the dreams are not particularly distressing, but I think to myself when I'm awake "wow, did going for the COVID vaccines really bother me THAT much?" and "wow, am I really THAT lost that I have recurring dreams about it?" Being lost is probably my strongest Autistic trait, and now that I'm thinking more and more about it, that's probably where the dreams come from.

 

[Rodafina]

Thank you everyone for sharing. I have a long long way to go. Gotta take each bump in the road and study the hell out of it, and figure out how to keep moving forward. I appreciate the input and advice received on this thread.

I think I need to figure out a way to bring some weapons into my dreams. Blades always make me feel better.

 

[MildredHubble]

Thank you everyone for sharing. I have a long long way to go. Gotta take each bump in the road and study the hell out of it, and figure out how to keep moving forward. I appreciate the input and advice received on this thread.

I think I need to figure out a way to bring some weapons into my dreams. Blades always make me feel better.

Perhaps you could look into lucid dreaming? It starts with doing an action over and over throughout the day and asking yourself "Am I asleep or awake". Like for example tapping the palm of your hand with the fingers of the same hand as asking yourself the question.

The theory is that at some point it becomes part of your dream and you notice you are dreaming and can take control of it as make anything you want happen.

Lots of people claim to be able to do it. I've never been able to do it, probably because I wasn't very disciplined with the action and question part.

Just an idea that could be worth trying if you can get in the habit

 

[Tom]

I have a history of recurring nightmares, but they have nearly disappeared in the last few years thankfully. Also have sleep issues. I wake every hour or so.

One cause I detect is trauma and the further away from the event you get as well as replacing bad memories with good or at least neutral ones helps.

Also what you experience or watch can make a fast apearence in dreams, so if violence for instance is a theme, avoiding that on TV or computer can help. It can be nuanced. For me watching crime news, dramas, etc makes me anxious but watching fantasy versions of violence (ie sci-fi, zombies, etc) has no bad effect and almost never makes an appearence in nightmares. Actually zombies did make a rare appearence just last week. But for some reason they didn't bother me and we were cool. Though those around me weren't so fortunate. I think I actually joined their band, so as not to piss them off. Not as a flesh eater, but kinda like their living mascot/muse.

I should add, I have heard there are techniques to end a nightmare using lucid dreaming, something you may be able to learn/practice. But I haven't tried them myself so can't verify if it works.

 

[Angular Chap]

Very occasionally I've had a bit of the lucid dreaming thing. Doesn't last very long before I wake up. I've never been able to do the whole take control thing that people talk about. I just think "Oh, I'm dreaming" and don't really know what to do, just like real life!

I could work on it I suppose, now that I know I can at least experience it for a short time. I've heard that people who play a lot of video games are more likely to experience it, so that explains things.

I could probably rig up some tech to help. I've heard of one person wearing glasses with LEDs on them that were timed to try to predict the REM phase, then they would flash. Another tried a recording of their partner's voice saying "your dreaming, [person's name]"

I did Google lucid dreaming apps, but I'm not sure how effective they would be, only one way to find out I suppose.

It would be nice though, if I ever found myself having one of my classic "I'm lost again!" dreams if I could just take out my phone, or open my trusty flight case full of tech, use GPS to find out exactly where I was, then call in a drone to whisk me back home...

 

[Mr. Stevens]

My days are pretty good. There is plenty of sensory overload, shut down, and anxiety, but more than ever, I feel that I have outlets for these things now and they are far more manageable and short-lived than they have been in the past. I talk about these days with a friend, I actively do things to feel empowered over my life, things are looking up.

But there are nightmares.

I haven’t slept well for decades, but I am beginning to sleep more and in sobriety, I am dreaming again. Lots of dreaming. At first, it was fun and fascinating, but now, the nightmares are troubling. I wake up and the feelings persist for a while into the day and when I started to fall asleep at night, I get flashbacks of the feelings from the night before.

I don’t know what my question is. I just wanted to share and see what people say. I’m scared to sleep, because sleep is scary.

I recorded my dreams from my early twenties until a few months ago--so well over a decade. The more I wrote them down, the more I remembered. Some were scary, but still enlightening. Mostly they conveyed troubles I was aware of, but ignoring. Much of this had to do with masking, in retrospect. Lots of dreams where I was attacked from all angles; lost and trying to find a quiet, comfortable spot; or my vision would get worse the more I tried seeing something.

I don't know what your dreams are, but I'd ask if they relate to something similar. Especially now that you are sober, and without the veil of drugs. Stimulants are a mask, too. You've stopped numbing yourself, so this may be a phase you have to go through as you continue to live as Rodafina--not the person you constructed to deal with pain.

 

[Aspychata]

My dreams are night terrors, and l usually slipped into ptsd and wake up agonizing over something my dream, which is usually unwanted male attention. Most of the time l have no issues, but once or twice a year, it may manifest into a nightmare. It may go back to being stalked in another state. I think my nightmares are PTSD related.

Do you know what your night terrors are related too?

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I’ve done lucid dreaming since I was about 6 years old and obviously had no idea what it was. I remember being very proud of myself for turning that nightmare around. It was based on my fear of tornados.

As an adult, if the nightmare is repeating, I can take charge of the situation and stop the action. This entails taking my power back in some manner.

Rodafina, use your blades. I have terminated the chase scenes by turning around and chasing them with a knife. (I like knives too.)

 

[Uppity Creek]

I listened to a podcast recently with a sleep specialist. He spoke of your liver & kidneys removing toxins from your bloodstream, and that when they have an especially large amount to deal with, once they have finished their work for the night all your dreaming hits hard at once. This can bring on the lucid dreams. He said it much better than I just did. I tend to snack before going to bed and I can most definitely see the correlation. Chocolate will do it every time! Blessedly, I don't have many that I would categorize as nightmares, but there is a long standing series that is quite annoying. Anyway, if I were keeping a log, I'd make sure and write down dietary information.

 

[Rodafina]

I listened to a podcast recently with a sleep specialist. He spoke of your liver & kidneys removing toxins from your bloodstream, and that when they have an especially large amount to deal with, once they have finished their work for the night all your dreaming hits hard at once. This can bring on the lucid dreams. He said it much better than I just did. I tend to snack before going to bed and I can most definitely see the correlation. Chocolate will do it every time! Blessedly, I don't have many that I would categorize as nightmares, but there is a long standing series that is quite annoying. Anyway, if I were keeping a log, I'd make sure and write down dietary information.

That is really interesting and useful. You already know that I am in recovery, so my liver and kidneys have been taxed heavily. They must work hard. This is very interesting information. Thank you.