[brokenwingsflying]

Because I have various other mental illnesses, I tend to read more into things than usual so I never really know whether to take things seriously or not.. but I keep waking up and seeing/hearing things and then going back into a light sleep and dreaming about other things happening to do with what I've actually just seen whilst awake. So that when I wake up again from the dream, I don't know whether it was a dream or real, and it's so confusing..

Example is this morning- my cat woke me up early and I kind of just looked at her a bit and watched her walk across my room. I went back to sleep and had a dream where my cat climbed onto my desk and then on my bed and started fussing with me and then she bit me. I then got woken up at normal time and I asked where my cat was, then asked if they'd seen my bite... but it wasn't real. I feel confused about whether it is real or not and feel like I'm only half sleeping/dreaming and half in reality. My head is usually very fuzzy when I wake up.

Another example is yesterday where I was woken up by the post lady and then I went almost straight back to sleep. I dreamed that the post lady had put through a green letter saying something about my brother's music lessons, that he had to swap his current instrument for a trumpet or something like that. I woke up again at normal time and started asking why my brother had to swap his instrument and then I got all confused and asked whether he post had actually come and if my brother had seen it, etc.

It's like I don't know what's real or not. Maybe everyone has this I don't know, but the mental illness I have, Bipolar Disorder II, could progress to Bipolar Disorder I which includes hallucinations and things. With all my mental health problems.. maybe it's nothing... I don't know.. Anyone?

[medkev13]

I've never heard of Bipolar II progressing into Bipolar I. But usually, if you're hypomanic, you're not sleeping in the first place, so I'd just as soon rule out your BP as the cause.

It actually sounds like you're lingering in Theta sleep, the midway betwen waking consciousness and dreaming. It seems like you don't go deeper than this....but the problem becomes that the "dreams" (I don't like to call them true dreams becasue they're highly suggestable by the waking world, and usually nowhere near what deep sleep dreams are like)....the "dreams" mirror the waking world so much that you don't know when you're actually sleeping during these. It's not something everybody experiences....but then, sleeping is something like fingerprints, different for everybody.

I recommend looking into doing reality checks both during sleep, and during wakefulness. Simply look for things that you know would change in a dream, and observe whether they are dreamlike or waking. A good example of this is written words. In dreams the written word is almost never static. Letters and numbers change and move all the time. So if you see a sign, acknlowledge whether the words are moving or not, and tell yourself, "If the words were moving, I'd be dreaming."