I had good dreams before CFS, I have good dreams with CFS.

I think I've learned that, unfortunately our sleep disturbances with this illness cause us to not sleep properly and hit dream stage often enough during the night!! That's why we don't dream, or remember dreaming. We are woken with pain, or have insomnia and a good nights sleep is necessary for healing.

We don't get that opportunity. The first few years I had CFS my sleep wasn't badly disturbed. I slept a lot. As my illness progressed I found that my ability to sleep was less and less, and now, very often without some medication, I can't sleep at all.

We can't dream if we aren't sleeping in proper cycles. I'm glad to hear you are dreaming and remembering your dreams. Good quality sleep means everything to us, doesn't it??

For me, my dreams on first onset were bizarre. I was pretty practiced in dreamwork at the time, so, the fragmented dreams I was getting was like a jigsaw puzzle I couldn't decipher. You are so right as we get a handle on cfs the dreams are better. I do notice when I have a flare up they can go back to bizarre again. You may be on to something--I wonder if any research has been done in this area I haven't heard of any as of yet. Now you got my brain thinking (whats left of it lol) --if we process our world through dreams, what does that mean for us--hmmmm--really will have to give this some thought.

Its funny that you mention research, I have read some that says that dreams were effected for people with CFS.

One research showed that people who had CFS had excessive dreams, and were stuck in thier alpha state while asleep, the state where you dream, but don't truly rest. It showed that they couldnt cross one step deeper into the delta stage, deep, refreshing, dreamless sleep in which your body recovers and rests. (usually the first few hours of sleep)

They then got some "normal" people who had no cfs, monitered thier sleep paterns, and they didn't allow them to cross to thier delta stage of sleep, instead they kept them in alpha. Within two weeks of this they all started showing signs of CFS, some even Fibromyalgia.
As soon as they let them cross back into thier delta stage, thier CFS dissapeared.
I have always been fascinated with this study, sorry I can't find a link.

wow cfw that is interesting would of liked to see that study. When I was in the testing stage of trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I went through a sleep study --- I thought it funny at the time because not sleeping was not my problem--anyway--nothing came up for my individual study.When you say "excessive" could you clarify what you mean by that eg, many, bizarre, etc.Like I said you really got me thinking,I am kinda a fan of Jung's work on dreams and have done some experiments with friends we've had some kool results.Any more info you can share would be great--this is such a fun topic-- do you dream journal? I was for awhile but not recently. You've inspired me to start again.

Alpha state and delta state are two stages of sleeping, when you are in Delta, it is usually the first 3 hours of sleep, it is when your body achieves true rest, and you don't dream. Then, you come out of that, and enter the alpha state, which is powerful dreams, your mind is so busy dreaming, you don't rest.

What I have read is that certain CFS patients couldn't get past that alpha stage, and enter the deep refreshing sleep of delta, they simply stayed in alpha and had very vivid dreams, but thier bodies never rested, therefore resulted in chronic fatigue.

I found most interesting is when they took the healthy people, and stopped them from entering the delta stage of sleep, and kept them at the alpha dream state, within 2 weeks they all experienced CFS! When they were allowed to enter the delta deep sleep again, thier CFS disappeared.

I think this is one of the reasons biofeedback was so helpful to my recovery, it allowed my sleep patterns to improve and get back to normal, so my body could once again experience true rest :)

Depending on how symptomatic I am reflects dream quality. I have found if I put on meditation music before sleep they are more cohesive vs disjointed.I have to wonder if ppl worked with their dreams like Jung suggests if it would speed the healing process. How exactly did the biofeedback assist your sleep patterns.I had a friend that did "it" and he told me I was one on those types it wouldn't really work on. He had explained the whole process but it has been awhile could you refresh my memory.

Been a bit symptomatic lately really noticing the dream thing right now.