[M A R S]

I just took a nap and woke up in the thrust of a massive nightmare, This is how my DP started in June. I woke up then and was so confused i felt insane and was tossed head on in to DP. Now i feel like i'm crazy. I feel like i don't know what to do.

Do any of you have crazy, scary and demented nightmares? Have they ever spawned DP episodes?

 

[M A R S]

none of you have this?

 

[university girl]

nope cause mine is 24/7 but i have had a few dreams where my dp/dr is at it's worst imaginable. guess it's just my fear of it getting worse acting up.

 

[BMF54123]

I wouldn't call them nightmares (well, sometimes they are), but lately I've been having extremely vivid, detailed dreams. They must be mentally and emotionally draining, because I almost always wake up extremely disoriented, exhausted, and with a sore neck (?). It was so bad last week, I nearly passed out a few times while getting ready for work. The rest of the day wasn't much better.

 

[Guest]

I too experience vivid dreams. For awhile, I dreaded sleep because of them. I called them nightmares when describing them to others, but really they were just so vivid that they were disturbing. I still have them, but now I am on Remeron, so I don't have the insomnia anymore. I wake up feeling extremely fatigued most of the time. Also, when I start to feel sleepy, I begin to recall the previous night's dreams almost obsessively. It's all I think about as I'm falling asleep...which then makes me wonder if I am just setting myself up for this to happen night after night. I have tried various techniques to rid myself of the situation. I try praying, I try listening to t.v., meditating, etc. but night after night it's the same thing. It's sad that it has become normal for me to wake up drenched in sweat and panicked. Could this all be a result of taking Zoloft? I now take Remeron at night and Zoloft in the mornings. I started taking a B complex vitamin in the mornings to try and wake myself up too. Sometimes it works.

 

[moonDust]

___

 

[peacedove]

I had this horrible dream once... it was so lucid.

I would wake up in my bed, get up and wander around the house... it felt like I was awake, but somehow I knew I wasn't. And I kept going back to my bed trying to "go to sleep" so I could wake up in reality... if you can call it that living with DP.

And I'd wake up again in my bed but it was still a dream.

I was stuck in this dream and I knew it and I couldn't get out of it!!!

Scariest dream I ever had I think. Sorry if it doesn't make sense.

 

[Guest]

Have any of you watched "waking life"? It's a movie with a lot of different theories about reality and dream life. It talks alot about dreaming that you are awake. After I watched it, I began really questioning what DP is and isn't. I have tried to explain my situation to others as if my dream life and my "reality" life are trying to merge.

 

[peacedove]

Sounds interesting... but I'm afraid if I watch it it'll send me into a panic attack.

 

[peaceboy23]

I've had really vivid dreams recently: nightmares, sometimes; othertimes, not. I have dreams sometimes where I'm sleeping and trying to wake up and I just can't do it. Or last night I had a dream where I thought,in the dream, "well, this isn't like a dream where I can just change scenes." I think dreams are a gateway to our fears and other areas of feelings...so it makes sense that with dp we would dream that we are not in reality or can't connect with reality because we are sleeping. Just a thought.

 

[Guest]

that makes sense. I have a hard time deciphering between dream states and reality.. for obvious reasons ha ha. The other night, I kept dreaming that I was committing suicide on christmas day. I had variations of the same dream four or five times that night. Then, the next day when I went into the craft store where they had ALL of the christmas stuff out, I went into a panic attack. I'm worried that the holidays are going to suck now.

 

[Martinelv]

I have either incredibly bizarre dreams, or incredibly tedious dreams. I won't describe the bizarre ones (including Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreaming), but some of the boring ones....Jesus.......

I once dreamt of a horse. In a field. Just standing there. That was it.

I once dreamt of going down stairs and making a cup of tea. And waiting for it to boil. I was so bored I woke up.

:shock:

 

[peaceboy23]

LOL...too funny. That gave me a good laugh, just a horse in a field. I just pictured a bored horse standing around waiting for something to happen. Sorry, just tickled my funny bone.

 

[Guest]

Strange how things seem to happen for a reason....I was going to ask about this today and then found this topic for the first time...

When my daughter's dp/dr started it came accompanied by night terrors, sleep walking, the nightmares-so-real-were-they-hallucinations question, and severe and prolonged paralysis upon waking. My daughter said she was waking 4-6 times a night and was so distressed by these dreams she became afraid to fall asleep. I brought my daughter into my room and made myself stay awake so I could see what was really going on. I thought it probably felt worse to her than it really was. Not so. For the three nights I stayed up I counted her "up" in one form or another 9-12 times before 4:00 a.m. No wonder she feels awful.

One time was so scary...she was lying on her side, began to move ever-so-slightly -- almost like a shiver or like she was really struggling to move, then opened her eyes wide with terror and said, "Mom, I can't move. Hands are on me holding me down." At first I thought she was asleep but we continued talking and she remembered it the next day. She said that happened to her all the time.

I have asked her therapists and doctors but they don't know. Is she dreaming? Sleep walking? Hallucinating? Are these memories? Why can't she move for soooo long? I know sometimes it takes a few seconds between waking and some brain chemical allowing the body to move but this is too wierd.

These sleep symptoms seemed to dissipate for a while but have returned with a vengence. Some of what you all said in your posts freaked me out. Your words are almost EXACTLY what she says. There has to be a connection.

Any ideas from the more experienced??? :?: :?: :?:

 

[maria]

If I weren't so pessimistic, I probably should think that my dp/dr is better since in my dreams I usually always always was dp:d, no I can feel real emotions while sleeping.

 

[Guest]

I am touched that you decided to take your daughter's nightmares seriously enough to watch her sleep. So many of us just deal with our issues because we're afraid to tell anyone for fear of people just either a.) shrugging it off or b.) thinking we're completely nuts. So pat yourself on the back for me... I don't have any answers, but I do have some high fives for you for being an awesome parent.

 

[Guest]

Sheesh...
Don't even get me started on the bad dreams with DP! Somedays just being awake is bad enough.

I wish you well.

Tony

 

[Martinelv]

When my daughter's dp/dr started it came accompanied by night terrors, sleep walking, the nightmares-so-real-were-they-hallucinations question, and severe and prolonged paralysis upon waking

This is 'classic' ASP - Awareness During Sleep Paralysis. Apart from being scarey, it is compltely harmless. It is almost certainly not an indication of something more serious. I've had it since I was a child, and almost everyone experiences it at least once in their life, usually without knowing it. Most of the time, they think (people of, er, certain countries) they are being abducted by aliens/demons...etc.....

I won't go into detail here, but surf the web for sleep paralysis and hypnogotic hallucinations. Ignore all the spooky/spiritual/supernatural stuff that you might find, it's bollocks.

Good tips for avoiding it - make sure your daughter doesn't take naps, and get's a good eight hours+ night sleep, uninterupted. Over stimulation and, bizarrely, over-tiredness, can also trigger it off.

Please don't worry. It's just a small hick-up in the sleep process. When you are asleep, your body is naturally paralysed (so you don't trash around and hurt yourself), but with sleep paralysis you 'wake up' in the middle of it.

 

[Homeskooled]

If your daughter's DP began when she started having sleep terrors and debilitating sleep paralysis, there is a good possibility that she is having treatable "hiccups" of the brain during sleep called complex partial seizures. Most people arent aware of it, but sleep paralysis is part of this syndrome. See if you can get a referral to a neuroligist to do an overnight EEG on your daughter. Its a kind of sleep study. While they are at it, they can also watch her during the test for sleep apnea, which also gives alot of your daughter's symptoms of abrupt awakening. I know what I'm talking about - my DP and DR began as a teenager with sleepwalking and night terrors, and it was related to complex partial seizures. These arent things that are serious, but lucky for your daughter, once they are treated, her symptoms will be greatly alleviated.

Peace
Homeskooled

 

[Martinelv]

Good point Homeskooled.