Narcolepsy Support Group
A sleep disorder (somnipathy) is a disorder in the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders can interfere with mental and emotional function. If you are having trouble falling asleep or having some other kind of sleep disturbance, this group is for you.
I have had N for 4 years and find all the various symptoms really hard like we all do. I get great comfort from reading about other people's experiences and it makes me feel less alone, so thank you. Whilst the day time sluggishness and fog is hard the worst is the nights. I stumble through the day and then feel there is no respite as the night brings no relief, in fact I dread going to sleep. I feel like I am going to a 10 movie complex and I am the actor in each of the films. Sometimes I can control the plot and other times I am detached or I simply am swept along inside another reality. the movie Inception just made me weep, because it is real for N sufferers. I would give anything for one night of no dreams or nightmares. I wake and don't know whether I am awake or not and this can carry though the day. I often have to ask my kids or ring my partner to find out whether I am still dreaming. There are those times when there are dreams within dreams and it is really scary. I hallucinate most nights...toilets flying through the air, plates dancing ad crashing together, black figures sitting on the bed or the bed covers turning into animals. The worst is when I am in a trippy nightmare where the colours are not real and everything is distorted and parts of my past and my memories are in the plot too. I haven't taken acid but it is like a really bad trip. The worst is that I don't think I am going to wake up and that I will be stuck in that place. I have learnt a trick to wake up. For years I had recurring nightmares where I could not scream, but now if I scream in a nightmare I wake from it. I am normally drenched in sweat and very shaken and will myself not to sleep again. The other way I have found to wake from it is to will myslef to fly through things, normally people or walls and then I instantly wake.
I was just wondering whether any one experiences this. Does anyone have ways of breaking from the nightmare and waking up? Stress makes it worse and at the moment it is getting unbearable at night and then I wake and face the day. When I wake I say thanks for all of my blessings as I know there is still so much good in life. Would appreciate anyone sharing their night experiences....thanks
I was just wondering whether any one experiences this. Does anyone have ways of breaking from the nightmare and waking up? Stress makes it worse and at the moment it is getting unbearable at night and then I wake and face the day. When I wake I say thanks for all of my blessings as I know there is still so much good in life. Would appreciate anyone sharing their night experiences....thanks
The first time I had a dream with in a dream I didn't know what it was and woke up the next morning and was totally uncertain about reality. By the time it had gotten to a point where it was occurring on a regular basis I was also able to tell better when I was or wasn't dreaming.
I became able to tell the difference by the way things changed and the content of the dream. After a whole long stretch of violent nightmares I got to the point where my brain had managed to put together that anything that was to a certain level of violence and was a certain amount of pain could not have been real. Also, if the nature of what was inducing pain suddenly shifted that also noted something.
I suppose I'm lucky in that I also have another two things that keep things separated:
1.) location: most of the time I'm in a dream their is something wrong with the location. I'm in a house that I lived in ten years ago, I'm in a place that I could not name, I don't have any recollection of how I got where ever I was. I have no list of long occurring memories of the place that I can instantly draw on, and yet I know the location oddly well.
2.) My best indicator: Can I see MYSELF, what do I see and from what angle. Due to the nature of a different thing going on with my brain there is a noticeable split. When I dream I am capable of seeing myself from a forward direction. Sort of like I can see a video of myself. I think the best way to describe it is that it's like playing a video game of Super Mario. I can control what I am doing but there is a split between the physical location of my consciousness and the location of my physical being. Anytime anything pops into that I am left with three options: mirror, dream, or it's a memory.
How I am inside and on the outside physically are in congruent in actual reality....If I'm 100% congruent inside and out then it isn't real.