In the last 3, maybe 4 months I've been having serious sleep issues. At first, it was only a night or two, followed by an increased sensitivity to a full bladder, and now I'm having problems every night. What happens is, I ALWAYS wake up earlier than I should because of the bladder; some nights I feel very sleepy but can't fall asleep, and it goes on until I don't feel sleepy anymore - the only way I can get at least a couple of hours of sleep is either reading/thinking very much or trying to solve cross-words, and I usually fall asleep near 6A.M.; sometimes I fall asleep, wake up three hours later because of the bladder and struggle to get back to sleep...and I dream. Damn dreaming, I'm starting to dislike sleeping because of them. I dream horrible things, like myself torturing/killing relatively small animals (like cats - especially cats!, and dogs), weird things, like being a character in the MASH series fighting for my life, fighting in a war, escaping from someone/something, etc., and confusing things, like me having, well, sex with someone whose face I can't see until she turns into my aunt (who is my mother's twin sister)...
I've taken melatonin, the first times it worked, but now it doesn't anymore.
I realise my sleep problems might be related to bipolar, but what can I do about the dreams? It doesn't matter what I read or watch during the day, I'm always dreaming rubbish. Even if at the beginning of the dream I see something I like, by the end of it everything turns into a tragedy/weird dream. Always.
Oh, and by the way, I frequently dream myself torturing cats.