Insomnia Support Group
Insomnia is a symptom, rather than a disease, and is characterized by inadequate quantity or quality of sleep. People with insomnia complain of difficulty falling or staying asleep, which results in significant impairment of daytime functioning. Insomnia is categorized as transient (shorter than one week), short-term (one to three weeks) or chronic (longer than three...
I have been having nightmares since mid last year. I am sure they're part of my PTSD and while I've come to accept they're not going away anytime soon I do go through periods where they'll stick with me.
Ever since I was a little girl my dreams were quite fantastical; think Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli imagination. I'd dream of the same or very similar places; a marketplace with a great tape collection, a beautiful Japanese-style bridge, a tree house overlooking trees as tall as those that grow in Denmark, an old haunted house with a dumbwaiter that would take you to the top of a tower where a monster who I to this day cannot quite remember or describe what it looks like.
There is an amusement/water park I'd visit from time to time and I'm always with my brother, but he never ages. He is twenty-one, but in my dreams he's always about ten.
One of my favorites was of beautiful fields that stretched as far as you could see, with mountains and clear blue skies. In one of the fields is an entirely green centaur male I'd call Mau-Rami. He can't speak, but as I've grown up I'd like to sit with him as he tended to a garden or we'd walk together, and he'd smile if nothing much more than that.
It'd be the same places, and as I age so did the people/creature's that I'd regularly see. Around the same time I'd started taking Lexapro for my depression and anxiety, the dreams changed. I started having vivid nightmares that would wake me at night. I'd wake up shouting, crying, and there was one time recently where I pee'd the bed.
I won't go into detail about many of them, but there was one where I dreamt I was in a dark place, maybe a crypt or basement. It was filled with men who were skinning and sodomizing live dogs. In another my mum was sitting on my bed and stabbing herself in the arms as shes smiling and telling me everything is fine. Most recently I dreamt that someone was strangling me in bed. They feel real, and at times I'm not sure whether I am dreaming or not.
To me, they feel real. Like I need to remind myself it is a dream. My fantastical world has turned into this grisly string of nightmares. One of the dreams I had more recently had gotten my interest. I'd spent it in a store with black bed sheets hanging up instead of interior walls. There was a young guy working behind the counter; pale, short spikey black hair, tall, facial piercings and casual punk/goth attire. Good looking and friendly enough. Usually I can't remember exact conversations or names when I wake up but I specifically remember him introducing himself as Evan, and he said to me, "Welcome to Fish Bowl".
He may have meant his store was called Fish Bowl, but I've begun to call the whole world Fish Bowl. Because that's kinda how it's starting to feel. I know it's my subconscious and I know I'll wake up but I'm afraid to fall asleep knowing when I do I'm going back to such an awful place. It's hard sometimes to remind myself it's only in my head.
Ever since I was a little girl my dreams were quite fantastical; think Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli imagination. I'd dream of the same or very similar places; a marketplace with a great tape collection, a beautiful Japanese-style bridge, a tree house overlooking trees as tall as those that grow in Denmark, an old haunted house with a dumbwaiter that would take you to the top of a tower where a monster who I to this day cannot quite remember or describe what it looks like.
There is an amusement/water park I'd visit from time to time and I'm always with my brother, but he never ages. He is twenty-one, but in my dreams he's always about ten.
One of my favorites was of beautiful fields that stretched as far as you could see, with mountains and clear blue skies. In one of the fields is an entirely green centaur male I'd call Mau-Rami. He can't speak, but as I've grown up I'd like to sit with him as he tended to a garden or we'd walk together, and he'd smile if nothing much more than that.
It'd be the same places, and as I age so did the people/creature's that I'd regularly see. Around the same time I'd started taking Lexapro for my depression and anxiety, the dreams changed. I started having vivid nightmares that would wake me at night. I'd wake up shouting, crying, and there was one time recently where I pee'd the bed.
I won't go into detail about many of them, but there was one where I dreamt I was in a dark place, maybe a crypt or basement. It was filled with men who were skinning and sodomizing live dogs. In another my mum was sitting on my bed and stabbing herself in the arms as shes smiling and telling me everything is fine. Most recently I dreamt that someone was strangling me in bed. They feel real, and at times I'm not sure whether I am dreaming or not.
To me, they feel real. Like I need to remind myself it is a dream. My fantastical world has turned into this grisly string of nightmares. One of the dreams I had more recently had gotten my interest. I'd spent it in a store with black bed sheets hanging up instead of interior walls. There was a young guy working behind the counter; pale, short spikey black hair, tall, facial piercings and casual punk/goth attire. Good looking and friendly enough. Usually I can't remember exact conversations or names when I wake up but I specifically remember him introducing himself as Evan, and he said to me, "Welcome to Fish Bowl".
He may have meant his store was called Fish Bowl, but I've begun to call the whole world Fish Bowl. Because that's kinda how it's starting to feel. I know it's my subconscious and I know I'll wake up but I'm afraid to fall asleep knowing when I do I'm going back to such an awful place. It's hard sometimes to remind myself it's only in my head.
You mentioned that your dreams turned into nightmares after you started taking Lexapro...vivid dreams and night terrors are a side effect of some medications, so if your sleep is really suffering because of this you may want to check with your Dr and see if this is a side effect you are experiencing. Perhaps a different med can address your anxiety and depression without the nightmares?
Wishing you the best,
Sonny
Good feedback from Sonny as usual. Agree that if you are taking meds, your doc may be able to make some adjustments so you're less bothered by the dreams.
And it's worth remembering, as you are, that these are not in fact real. Only dreams, nothing more. You can safely let them go.
More than that, really. Because when you dream, you typically are at the end of one of the 4 to 6 sleep cycles we normally experience each night. That suggests you are getting all the many benefits your mind and body need from good sleep ... even if the content of the dreams are disturbing.
There are people on this board that hardly get any dreams because they can't sleep.
Maybe you can sort of turn this around in your mind as a good thing. That's because maybe through your dreams you are cleansing yourself of the trauma you experienced. You are getting them out of your system through your dreams, so you can heal. In that sense, they are a good thing.
Help me.... (bad joke...hey, it's 3am and I'm tired...)
I'm truly sorry for your nightmares though. I've had them...and they're miserable. Time eventually made mine go away.
I am also prone to various tunes playing over and over in my mind in the middle of the night when I want to sleep. They are quite detailed in mind, I hear them very true to how they are recorded.
These tunes are a form of an occupying thought. Another form of this is listening to sounds, or anticipating noises or sounds of any kind while in bed. Or worrying about your day, past or future. Any occupying thought can fuel insomnia. I've learned over time to try and turn them off ASAP before they really take hold.
There's a number of methods you can use to distract yourself from tunes or occupying thoughts, including the age old method of simply counting sheep. I prefer deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.
There's always something new to learn.