[Anxiousvalkyrie]

I have a long history of nightmares. I've had them all my life with a period of really bad night terrors from about the time I was 7 until I was around 16. My parents would find me in various parts of the house, a couple of times outside screaming violently and saying something was after me. When I was really young I used to have auditory hallucinations. Not voices necessarily but I would always sleep with the radio on really low next to my head to drown them out. But that stopped about the time I hit puberty and hasn't happened since.

In my adult life I've always had weird, very realistic dreams. I also still have nightmares. I tend to have a lot more nightmares when I am manic. Super intense realistic ones.

Does anyone else experience this? If so have you been treated for it? I also wonder if it's a possible sign of some other psychological disorder and that maybe I should talk to my doctors about it.

[kkrrhh]

I've never had night terrors, but I can definitely relate to the suuper weird vivid dreams. Especially when depression's worse and I'm sleeping heavily, they can be so ridiculous and real feeling. I think there's definitely a big connection with depression/mental illness, and I'm pretty sure they mess with my sleep quality and actually make the hypersomnia I get worse. I know they can definitely affect my mood the next day, and sometimes I'll end up distracted throughout the day because they were so expansive that tons of little things throughout the day will jog my memory and remind me of some different part of the dreams I had. MAOIs lower REM sleep and some people say there's a connection, and I know when I was on those I'd have little to no dreams, which actually felt strange, but it was nice.

Usually mine only tend toward nightmares during certain spells, one of which I'm going through right now. I've looked into ways to treat it a little bit, too, but never found much of anything. Have you ever considered having a sleep study done?
I was just googling a bit and apparently there's a therapy called imagery rehearsal treatment that might be worth looking into.

[Anxiousvalkyrie]

Unfortunately getting a sleep study with our social healthcare system is super, super hard unless you something like sleep apnea that can be physically dangerous.

Sometimes the nightmares are so realistic that I can be conscience that I am in a dream and I try to wake myself up because it's so horrifying or I try to scream so my husband will wake me up. I had one of those last night. My husband said he heard me whimpering and woke me.

A lot of of nights I'm afraid to go to sleep because I'm afraid of my dreams. This obviously makes my already crippling anxiety worse.

I wish I could have a sleep study but things here are just so screwed up. I've been trying to get in with a psychiatrist for months to get on meds for my BP but you wait for forever to see any kind of specialist here. Ive been to the ER three different times over the past week for my mania. They wanted to hospitalize me but they had no room in any of the psyche wards so they just sent me home. Socialized healthcare is a nightmare. Especially for psych patients.

I've had plenty of dreams where I've killed people... like I stabbed them repeatedly, shot them in the head, slashed their throat, bludgeoned them to death, pushed them down the stairs to their death, etc. it's pretty disturbing, especially when I've killed members of my own family, as well as my friends and other people I know. I've also beat them up.

Suffice it to say, I have major anger problems in my dreams. I would never do this in real life, which is why I always wake up terrified.

I've also had dreams where I've been attacked by people and monsters, and I've had to fight them back so I wouldn't die. It was a "kill or be killed" situation. In fact, I just had a dream about that.

I've never been treated for this, but I sympathize with you.

[BastetsMuse]

I've always had really vivid dreams, where I wake up believing it was real -- I once checked my husband's teeth for fangs after one dream!

I've had vivid dreams/nightmares from an early age, but with my abuse history I'm not really surprised about it.

[gina_re]

I've had dreams where I had to wake myself up because they because they become so terrifying that I can't take it anymore. They tend to be about someone trying to kill me.

Yes, yes, and yes!!! I've suffered with this as long as I can remember. Might be some PTSD in my case but that is only speculation. Could be something else. Nightmares are strong right now and seem to mean something. I dreamt my father drove over a mountain side with me and a bunch of people and he was injured badly and we couldn't get to help. I wish they would go away. I always dream extremely vividly. Dreaming is another life for me. Sometimes they are ok, but during high stress times, they become horrible... I'm afraid to sleep and afraid of what happens if I don't sleep. Can't win.

[Nammu]

I had night terrors as a child then again as an adult after the PTSD set in. I was on prazosin that's supposed to help reduce the intensity, it may have helped along with propranolol which I still take for anxiety. I still get the intense vivid dreams but now there are just weird and not threatening.

[Bipolarchic14]

Fortunately my dreams you're not become too vivid. I have nightmares sparingly