I definitely do - especially when I am more fatigued or stressed. It wears me out!

Very, very rarely.
Sorry you're having this problem.

Yes, the dreams are very emotional and that leaves me feeling worse in the morning. Doesn't do much for my mental state either.

My naturopath says this is because most of us have adrenal fatigue and our cortisol and adrenaline are essentially just messed up. We get them at higher levels when we are sleeping than other folks because they are trying to do their thing all day but we are so worn out they can't. So they work at night...and we end up either wide awake or having vivid dreams.
And yes, I do, mine are in color and I seem to be able to direct them if I don't like the way they are going. Doc says this means I'm not really, really in rem sleep. Dunno....

I'm not buying that if you contol your dreams that you aren't really in rem sleep.

Before my first baby I had trouble falling asleep. (Babies cure this real well.) I mean even as a kid I took extra long to fall asleep.

In my teen years I started daydreaming while waiting to sleep. This was both for something to do and in hopes of falling asleep. If you want to try this it is key that you do what you would usually do to fall asleep - comfortable position, eyes closed, etc.

I discovered that if I fell asleep while daydreaming, it might become the begining of a real dream.

With time I became able to control some aspects of this first dream.

After years of doing this I began to notice a change in my dreams. I began to be able to sometimes control part of a regular dream. I can tell the difference. it has a whole different feel to it. That early light sleep dream seems more in my mind. A regular dream I feel completely like I'm living it or observing it like a movie. In fact I often think it is real until I wake up.

I am not buying that I wasn't in real rem sleep. This happened to me before cfs. This happened when I woke up refreshed. I could dream like this and have a good nights sleep. I didn't drag during the day after sleeping well.

After years of being so aware of being able to change dreams I get excited when I remember a dream that I wasn't aware I could change anything. It's more fun sometimes when I don't know it's a dream.

I am sometimes made aware I'm dreaming in odd ways. If I don't like something that is happening in a dream it will sometimes start the last part of the dream over so it can happen differently. I usually know at this point that it's a dream.

I have had a few times that I really didn't like what happened in a dream, thought the word no, and then woke up. I didn't like being woken up though. Knowing that I don't want to be woken up, if I become aware that it's a dream I will fight to stay asleep. I can feel that I almost woke up and then went deeper into sleep. I completely buy that I was leaving rem sleep when I almost wake up.

I became aware a long time ago that dreams about troubling things are my minds way of dealing with certain things. Becoming aware made sleep during such dreams better. Like you know how when you are healthy and you have a nightmare you aren't as well rested? Usually didn't happen to me after I became aware, which was many years before cfs. So I'll share some of mine. Maybe if you see how mine work, it will help you see how yours work. If even one person feels a little more rested, well that would be great.

If I'm thinking about a problem before sleeping I sometimes solve it in my sleep. I usually don't remember a dream for this, but will wake up with an answer or something to try.

Sometimes I dream about stressful things so my mind can figure out how to handle it if that ever happens to me. At first this was upseting. But when I realized why, it became more of a relief. These can be any of the following or more: embarrassing stuff, rejection, break ups, death, surprise pregnancy, marrying someone and being unhappy I did, bad reactions from other people, horrible illnesses contracted by myself or someone I care about, accidents, losing a pet, etc. No matter how bad the thing is, after dreaming about it I don't feel as bad about it. It's a mild version of having been through it.

Then there is a big dream quirk I have. I would start having repetetive dreams about someone dying. Or I would die and that same person would be there. Over and over I'd dream about the same person and one of us would die. Sometimes it would be the death, sometimes the funeral, sometimes many years later thinking about the person after they died. My dreams would go through many possibilities. Some of the worst ones I'd dream of again. It would always seem real. These are not the kind I could control. Eventualy the dreams would stop....but sometimes it would happen again with a different person.

At first I reacted just as you'd imagine. I'd wake up and sob. I'd be horrified. I would think about it during the day. That is until I made an important connection and came to a realization.

These dreams occur when someone becomes important to me. Not for every person who is ever important to me. But everytime these dreams start happening, that person is very important to me. In fact the dreams usually start before I've conciously thought of how important the person is.

My reaction to those dreams now? Ok, this is weird. So I dream someone I love has dies and I'm at their funeral sobbing. And then I wake up and I'm just so happy. Happy because I know the only reason I'm having the dream is because they have just become that much more important to me. In a really freaky way dreams of death have become a symbol of great joy.

The way I figure it is this. My heart has just wrapped around someone. It has gotten to the point that if they died, I'd be devastated. If I died I would also be sorrowed for leaving them behind to grieve. So my mind starts having me dream about it like a sick kind of dress rehearsal. But being aware of this I wake up and am at once glad that it was only a dream and elated that this person has come to mean so much to me.

This has almost always been about someone I have fallen in love with. But it also happened with a couple very close friends.

I am not in any way discounting anything anyone said about cortisol, adrenal, etc. Just the 1 doc that doesn't believe you can control a dream in deep sleep.

So yeah, I totally went off topic. But really, this whole dream thing seems like some fantastic thing I ought to be sharing with people. It's just too good to keep to myself.

I don't find that what I dream has anything at all to do with how rested I feel the next day. I NEVER feel rested. I make it through REM sleep, I dream, I wake up, I go back to sleep........! I do know that I will have a nightmare if I take a sleep aid, so I try not to do that. Sometimes I have to though...to break a non-sleep cycle.

So, in answer to your question, I don't feel that the reality, or intensity of my dreams affects whether or not I feel rested. I simply never feel that I've had a good nights rest. I have to back to bed again, every day....to make up for whatever goes on in my head or adrenals during "night time".

Yes. I have very vivid, emotional and recurring dreams. Sometimes I feel like my dream life is more real than my actual life! For me the vivid nature of the dreams is constant, occasionally they are more nightmares than dreams, I try hard not to dwell on them.

I read somewhere (can't remember where sorry) that vivid dreams are a symptom of CFS/ME. Also during the deep sleep phase we don't dream, (we dream in REM sleep- as far as I understand it) and CFS/ME sufferers can have disturbed or shortened periods of deep sleep.

My advice (if I may) don't get too caught up in it, you had a bad night, but tomorrow you'll sleep better! I used to lie awake at night worrying that I wasn't getting enough deep sleep and that's why I wasn't healing!!! Suffice to say that's the ultimate Catch 22!

All the best.

Read somewhere that CFS may be related to PTSD. In short seems most people with CFS amy also have some trauma in their past. Unresolved trauma has a way of expressing itself in vivid dreams.

Might be worth looking into the possibility there is some emotional stuff which needs to be resolved.

I get vivid nightmares but seemingly only during certain phases of my life. Earlier this year I was plagued by these, got very little restful sleep. Have not done anything to resolve them but thankfully they have gone back into hiding and I am able to sleep now (although I am up by 3am most mornings).

Wish someone would do a good survey on that connection!
Maybe extreme stress in youth damages the cortisol or something... very interesting!

I have (professionally diagnosed) ptsd, from stuff that happened when I was 10 yrs old. I became ill in my 30s while in a relationship that dredged up similar feelings.

I'm going to ask my ND if she has heard anything about that, and would love to read up on it if you remember where you saw it! Thanks for mentioning it.

"Read somewhere that CFS may be related to PTSD".

Sorry Max, but there's no evidence for this.
This isn't a psychological disorder.

All kinds of people get this illness, including people who have no history of trauma.

Nina, I remember when the only piece of research came out that suggested a history of having been abused as a child had something to do with our ME/CFS.

It was thoroughly boo-ed by the patient community because - once again - it suggests our illness is psychological in origin. Problem is - it isn't. This is just as real as heart disease.

It was the 2006 article I was thinking about.
The first one published in the Archives of General PSYCHIATRY:
http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/news/features/childhood_adversity.html

It is true that cfs can be caused by excessive stress.
PTSD can be caused by the same thing.

It isn't fair. It's like, now that you have way more than you can handle, have a pernanent condition.