Vivid Dreams

[dancinglemon]

I'm 21 and getting on top of everything that's been causing my anxiety these last couple of years and it feels amazing. There is, however, one thing I think that's holding me back and stopping me from getting a good nights sleep a lot because I'm too scared to sleep a lot of the time.

Every so often, I suddenly get really tired during the night. I mean proper 'I'm exhausted, if I don't sleep now, I'll collapse from exhaustion' tired. I can fall asleep almost straight away but then I get these awful vivid dreams. They're like images flickering through my head, disjointed and chaotic. It's like someone had put the tv right next to my ears cranked up the volume and were switching the channels as fast as possible. It genuinely feels as if I'm about to go crazy. Sometimes I'll wake up about every 5 minutes for the next 2-5 hours and be so exhausted that I'll drop straight back off to sleep or sometimes I'll wake up less often but feel just as tired as I did before I slept. The first time it happened, about 2 or 3 years ago, it triggered a panic attack but since then I've learnt how to stop myself from getting that far by breathing and singing to myself.

What I want to know more than anything, is if other people get this? Does anyone know what could possibly causing this? I used to think it may be if I drank alcohol before sleeping that it would be that, so I stopped drinking. It doesn't seem to have made much of a change. I'm starting to think that maybe it's a response to stress but I can't seem to find a link between all the times I've had these dreams. Any help at all would be appreciated so so much because this stuff is really frightening me.

Thanks.

[anxiousmess]

hiya. i do believe stress could be the cause of this. but also certain meds can bring on vivid dreams. my sister suffered terribly from vivid dreams to the point she had to switch meds.
try relaxation techniques before bed and see if that helps :)

[dancinglemon]

I'm actually not on any meds at the moment but becoming more sure that it's perhaps my body yelling at me to take it easy but thank you so much. I feel more reassured already.

[GStar]

Dreams are our subconscious response to our conscious state of emotions, so it's quite possible that those types of dreams are caused by anxiety/stressed/suppressed emotions.

I can't say I have had exactly the same dreams as you, but when under a lot of stress or suppressing my emotions I have insanely vivid dreams, the type of dreams where I wake up in a cold sweat screaming and crying.

My most repetitive one is that is that I have become possessed by a demon, but I only notice when I walk past the mirror, I run to the back door (glass sliding door) and try to escape but can't and see the reflection so I run back to the mirror to see if it's real and it is, and I run back and forth between the mirror and glass door scratching at my face and pulling out my hair to get the demon out and punching and hitting the mirror and door trying to break them to escape it, but at the same time the demon (me) is cackling hysterically as if to mock me that I'm not going to escape.

It's so vivid and real I hate it. I downloaded the dream pro app and it said that dreaming about being possessed means you are experiencing feelings of complete hopelessness and being out of control, which would ring true with me because I do go through periods of feeling content hopeless about the lack on control I have over my emotions and anxiety.

If there are any parts of the dream at all that you can pick out or remember maybe research it and see if you can interpret those parts of the dream?

Also have you talked to someone about the stress or emotions you are experiencing and going through? So many things didn't make sense to me until I started seeing a therapist, having someone be able to make sense of all the craziness running through my head has helped immensely and that in turn has allowed me the ability to open up to my fiancé about my anxiety/depression/OCD because previously I suppressed it all from him because I figured I couldn't possibly try and explain something to him that I didn't even understand my self.

Sorry for the ramble but I hope it can help you a little. Just remember that the dreams doesnt mean you are going crazy, even speaking to your GP about it if you can't afford to see a psychologist may be able to help, because lack of sleep won't help the feelings of stress