Scared to Sleep; Awful Nightmares

[coollady1957]

I wonder if a warm glass of milk and a studly Chippendale Dancer giving me a massage will ease my crazy dreams?

 

Hey that sounds like a plan. I could certainly handle having that massage, , not sure about the warm milk However, My grandma used to say the warm milk was a great sleep aid.

[csula2004]

you guys dream about flying?

i have never had that dream.... i always dream that i am falling. it's weird, because a lot of times i won't even be fully asleep and i'll sart awake with that falling sensation. it might happen as many as 3 or 4 times before i cn finally fall asleep.

 

i wish i could fly.

waking up a split second before you eat pavement is disconcerting.

[CarnelianButterfly]

Milk before bed gives me reflux I find it best to sleep on an empty stomach.

[coollady1957]

Milk before bed gives me reflux I find it best to sleep on an empty stomach.

 

So do I CB. I never have been a fan of milk, especially close to bed time.

 

[renaissancewoman101]

I wish I could drink milk period. Drinking milk always gives me an upset stomach. I can eat milk products ok but milk itself gives me problems with my stomach.

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

you guys dream about flying?

i have never had that dream.... i always dream that i am falling. it's weird, because a lot of times i won't even be fully asleep and i'll sart awake with that falling sensation. it might happen as many as 3 or 4 times before i cn finally fall asleep.

 

i wish i could fly.

waking up a split second before you eat pavement is disconcerting.

 

Yes, that is disconcerting. I dreamed I (for some reason) jumped or fell I guess off TAAAALLLL buildings when I was a child. I used to have that dream alot. But woke up before splatting!

 

The flying bit. Yeah, every now and then, I dream I'm just minding my business and then just decide to try and fly! And I can actually lift off and it's like it feels like a struggle, trying to stay aloft! In my case it seems like it usually takes place above some field or other grassland.

 

At one point I actually wondered this: Since soooo many people seem to have this same dream, does that mean that there is some way we actually can fly? I don't know. Probably not of course?

 

About your dreams of falling. When you're trying to fall asleep, to feel like you've suddenly falling, that's normal. I read about it somewhere. Something to do with brainwaves or something.

[coollady1957]

you guys dream about flying?

i have never had that dream.... i always dream that i am falling. it's weird, because a lot of times i won't even be fully asleep and i'll sart awake with that falling sensation. .

 

 

When I was a kid, I used to dream of falling off bridges and mountains. That is the weirdest feeling though, when you are almost asleep and feel that sensation of falling and suddenly jump or jerk as a reflex to that.

[Dako]

I used to dream of flying almost every night and would lift off and go anywhere. I really enjoyed it, but they stopped when I became single.

Maybe I can really fly now ?

[iamteddybearfeelmecuddle]

but they stopped when I became single.

Maybe I can really fly now ?

 

I think you're on to something.

[CluelessGuy321]

The weirdest dream that I ever had was that something or someone was sitting on me and I couldnt get up or say anything. The freaky thing was that it felt so REAL like someone was REALLY sitting on top of me, on my back and I couldnt get up. This happened while I was driving out here to San Diego from Milwaukee. I had been up for three days with minimal sleep packing frantically, then I got drove with my friend for 14 hours straight and we spend the night in a motel. I was exhausted, fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night in a panic where I felt someone sitting on my back and I couldnt get up. It was freaky. I prayed a bit and then I woke up or was able to get up.

 

Here's an article about it: link removed

 

I've had those twice.

 

 

Anyways, whenever I had a string of bad dreams, it was because I was feeling anxious about something. They go away though when I focus on remembering to 'counter' the bad dreams by realizing that I was in a dream state and to subvert it that way.

[itsallgrand]

Hey, ditto what everyone has already said.

 

Wanted to share something that helped, and continues to help me, when I get a spurt of nasty nightmares. Video cam. yourself sleeping. It sounds weird, it's not for everyone. However, it helped me fast and for a long time. You get to see yourself in the throes of a bad dream. Somehow, don't ask me how it works exactly, watching yourself grounds back to reality and can very effectively stop the nightmares.

[annie24]

I also have awful nightmares. One of the medicines I am taking (almost done with it though!) has "vivid dreams" listed as one of its side effects. Are you on some new medication?

 

I used to dream often of being chased. I've heard it means that you're putting too much stress on yourself.

[eleanorrigby1]

I suffer with nightmares all the time. At one point when I was a teenager I sat up all night crying and I said to my mother "I feel like i am living in a Freddie Kruger film! Im afraid to sleep" It went on for a while I even went to counselling.

 

Its years later and I still have them, recent ones involve a severed head chasing me shouting "My boyfriend has chopped my head off help" and I celotape her head onto a broom so she has a make shift body!

 

one where I was chained to a table in an old time mental asylum while patients cut my eyes out with cigar cutters

 

another where my dad is being killed savagely infront of me and i kill his killers and then bury them in the garden!

 

I have lots of dreams that Im shopping an atom bomb is dropped and i feel myself getting wiped out. terrifying!

 

I conclude that my anxieties are released when I sleep because in my busy life and the way I handle my emotions (i.e i try to fight them down and push them away and I hide my real feelings from the people i love) they have to go somewhere so they come out in the form of nightmares.

 

Whatever you have going in your life at the moment or inside of you, it need dealing with.

 

Or maybe don't eat cheese?! : )

 

good luck!

 

I know how physically draining it can be too.

[KatieTheresa]

Hey there; for the longest time I had terrible nightmares, too. I still do have some pretty bad ones, in fact, but something that really helped me is Lucid Dreaming. Basically, it's becoming aware that you're dreaming... while you're dreaming. For example, what if someone said to you right now that you were in a dream? What would you do? You could do anything! There are no rules in dreams, so anything you can imagine, you can do (in a dream), as long as you believe you can. This is WONDERFUL for nightmares; as soon as something scary happens, you realize it's a dream and stop it from happeneing. You can just change the dream into something else and fly around if you want to, or kill whatever bad thing is after you by just pointing your finger at it. With lucid dreaming, there's no reason to be afraid to sleep. Many people do it just for fun, including myself. I know it really helped my control my nightmares and make me much, much less anxious to sleep. It's also completely natural and harmless. Most people have already experienced this naturally and perhaps unknowingly at least once in their lives already. If you're interested, it sounds like you'd really be helped by it. You can find more info at link removed You should at least check it out.

I really hope this info. helps; I know how terrible nightmares can be.

Good luck,

Katie

[Haven]

The weirdest dream that I ever had was that something or someone was sitting on me and I couldnt get up or say anything. The freaky thing was that it felt so REAL like someone was REALLY sitting on top of me, on my back and I couldnt get up. This happened while I was driving out here to San Diego from Milwaukee. I had been up for three days with minimal sleep packing frantically, then I got drove with my friend for 14 hours straight and we spend the night in a motel. I was exhausted, fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night in a panic where I felt someone sitting on my back and I couldnt get up. It was freaky. I prayed a bit and then I woke up or was able to get up.

That's sleep paralysis disorder. Your muscles are paralyzed when you sleep, so that you won't move and wake yourself up (sleepwalkers have problems with this). When you experience sleep paralysis disorder, your muscles stay paralyzed when you wake up. That's why you can't move. Usually it's experienced when the person is under a lot of stress or goes to sleep at an abnormal time.

 

This happened to me a few years ago, and I was so freaked out. Until I finally looked it up and found the info. It's happened to me around 15-20 times since then. I don't feel like anyone's sitting on me, but I can't move, and I have this paranoid feeling like there's evil in the room. (So imagine thinking that there's a serial killer by the bed, and you can't move... freaky.)

 

But some people actually see shadows and hear voices, so... at least I don't experience that.

 

Oh, and if it ever happens to you again, try concentrating really hard on trying to move your toe or your finger. It's usually easier to succeed moving a smaller part than, say, your arm or your leg. If you can move your toe/finger, then that usually breaks the muscle paralysis, and you can move again.

 

So, yeah. I just thought I'd share that.