Nightmares

[Guest Iain C]

Do you suffer from nightmares? How do you cope? Recently I've been having a lot and they're just getting worse. Last night I barely slept a wink, at times I was waking up more than once an hour with disturbing and frightening dreams. It's not the dreams that bother me so much it's the exhaustion. This is kicking my arse and I'm craving, absolutely craving a night of uninterrupted sleep.

[Guest thejacketloose]

Do you suffer from nightmares? How do you cope? Recently I've been having a lot and they're just getting worse. Last night I barely slept a wink, at times I was waking up more than once an hour with disturbing and frightening dreams. It's not the dreams that bother me so much it's the exhaustion. This is kicking my arse and I'm craving, absolutely craving a night of uninterrupted sleep.

 

[Guest Iain C]

No monsters, my dreams are incredibly realistic and feature people and places from my real, waking life. They're not all bad either, just the vast majority of them.

 

I don't even know what I'm asking in this thread really. I'm just really tired and frustrated and very down about the whole thing, I've got to go to work now and i'm dead on my feet.

[FLA FUR BIS FLE]

I have night terrors/hags/paralysis. I walk and talk and my sleep on a regular basis. It's retarded. My "nightmares" of recent have to do with a house, a sort of farm house. Wood siding, painted grey. In side is all dark, hard wood. The doors are heavy and bolted with brass. I am following a person through the house, but the doors are so large that it takes me a while to open them, and by the time I get through one door, the figure is slipping away through the other. Nothing overtly scary about the dream, but the house is very stuffy and old, and there is an intense feeling of anxiety and dread, like I am being followed. It sort of feels like a Lovecraft story.

[Guest Helper ET]

for a while last year i had a one or two week long streak of constant nightmares. first time i ever had nightmares in my whole life (except when i was 5). they went away, but they were fucking insane

 

like this one night, i was dreaming but i thought it was actually happening as the dream was in my bedroom, i was dreaming i was all tangled up in a bunch of cords plugged into electricity outlets and i was desperately trying to free myself in a panic, and i was suddenly being electrocuted and it didn't ever seem like it was ending, so i ran for the door, thinking it was my only escape

 

the next thing i know (awake now) im standing outside of my house in my underwear trying to figure out why i was screaming my head off and outside without any clothes on

 

other nightmares include waking up screaming several times an hour after being completely terrified of this fat monster thing outside of my front door. it was fucking nuts, i went to sleep for the day, and woke up screaming because of this creature outside of my door. then i realized i was only dreaming, so i went back to sleep, and the same creature scared me again, and i woke up screaming in terror a second time. this happened like 3 or 4 times. i would be so afraid to go asleep because i knew the monster was going to scare me, and the second i dozed off, i would suddenly be awake again freaking out terribly. that was a weird one.

 

one more: so i am standing near the front door of my sister's house, and it's very dark, and i see this figure thing, i would describe it as a ghost alien. it was slender and sleek, yet was a glowing figure of white, anyway, it just slid at me, as if it was running at me, but it had no feet, so it seemed to just slide towards me incredibly fast. just before it gets me i wake up in a state of sheer panic and once again im screaming like crazy.

 

that is all. (except when i was five and i had a nightmare that i was laying down on the driveway of my house for some reason, and a bunch of rats approached me)

[fenton]

Iain C - are you taking drugs?

 

 

Pills and Acid used to send me fucking night-mental.

 

 

 

Now I enjoy a good nightmare 1/2 times a week.

 

 

Last night I dreamed I was a skateboarder and it was the late 70s, it was sort of scary,

[Guest 277: 930-933]

Try drinking less.

Have some sort of before bed ritual that involves ambient, working out (go for a walk or a bike ride), a cup of tea and a book.

Make sure your room is well ventilated and has a generally good athmosphere.

 

Instant awesome nightrest.

 

That or score a shitload of amphetamines and give in to sleep deprivation psychosis.

[Guest Betty]

I don't have nightmares very often but one of the worst ones I had involved me having some scary dream and then waking up out of it only to find I was in another dream. The thing is this happened about 20 times in a row and I fell for it every time! I was in such a state that I was trying to rip my eyelids open in order to wake myself. Eventually I did wake myself and I figured out why it was happening. I had been sleeping with my arm tightly cupped over my eyes in such a way that I could not open my eyelids. I could have been stuck in there forever!

[Guest Iain C]

Iain C - are you taking drugs?

 

Nah not at the moment. I am pretty depressed at the moment though.

 

Try drinking less.

Have some sort of before bed ritual that involves ambient, working out (go for a walk or a bike ride), a cup of tea and a book.

Make sure your room is well ventilated and has a generally good athmosphere.

 

Instant awesome nightrest.

 

All good ideas, thanks.

[Guest Helper ET]

Iain C - are you taking drugs?

 

Nah not at the moment. I am pretty depressed at the moment though.

 

its OK dude! everything is fine! soon you will come out of this and realize that nothing is wrong!

[Guest Iain C]

It's generally something that gets me in winter with lack of sunlight etc, pretty common. But I've been working in a basement with no natural light for the past couple of weeks which I think has made it come on a bit early.

[Guest Helper ET]

you love a kite

[Guest Iain C]

I'm not gonna hate on you in my thread, but you're going on ignore.

[Guest Helper ET]

dude i was just saying if you think you're low on sunlight, you should go outside and fly kites and go on picnics and other stuff like that

 

geese, who crapped in your cornflakes? a bit touchy maybe...?

[Guest Etch]

Hey Iain. I went to the doctor recently because of a persistent cough, bad sleep and total lack of motivation. He asked me if I was depressed but I just talked around the subject and made my excuses. In all honesty, what with one thing and another, I haven't been feeling brilliant about myself. In the end he diagnosed me as 'Run Down' and in need of proper rest. He told me to go buy some phenergan which is an over the counter antihistamine which makes you really drowsy. I slept very deeply for about a week on this stuff. The trouble started about four days in, when I began waking after the worst nightmares I have ever had. Long running terribly vivid and high-budget. They were also emotionally loaded, often waking shouting or on one occasion crying.

 

I stopped taking the phenergan but the dreams have not gone away. Before this episode I seldom dreamt (correct me if I am wrong but is dreamt the only word in the english language that ends with 'mt'?) But I am convinced that as a result of these dreams I am waking with a clearer head. Frightening as they are they seem to motivate me somehow. It is as if the horror of them seems to highlight the positive aspects of my waking life. I don't care much for what dreams mean in themselves but the emotional state I wake up in seems to put a slant on my whole day. Somehow the floodgate has been opened, a lot of deep emotional material seems to be being digested as I sleep.

 

My advice. Don't look at this as a negative thing. Let the dreams effect you. I'm looking at it like a strange form of exorcism. Its coming out so let it come out. And try phenergan. Despite the dreams I really did sleep like a baby. Or try and get a hold of some valium.

[Caretstik]

Keeping late nights might have a bit to do with it as well, Iain, I know you're on quite a lot when I am of a night (not that I'm complaining of course, and I'm not sure how often that actually is). It certainly fucks my bodyclock up, and I've found as well that a dingy work environment doesn't exactly do a lot to keep your mood up. Hope you get back on track soon.

[Guest Idrn]

used to have them occasionally - wake up knackered, tight chest, breathless, sweaty as. obviously you need to ensure you're happy/not anxious before drifting off etc... or failing that, get really drunk.

 

havn't had any in a while although a couple of weeks ago i dreamt i killed a hedgehog.

 

was washing it in the basin (it needed caring) when it disappeared, which elicited fervent panic and sketchiness. i ran around looking for it and thought maybe itde gone down the plug hole, but when i returned to the basin i realised i'd left the hot water running, steam was everywhere and the hedgehog was floating on top, drowned and scalding, moving weakly. in the dream i started screaming and crying whilst holding it.

 

not nearly as funny as it sounds, i woke near in tears!

[Guest Iain C]

Thanks for that Etch, yeah I do sometimes get nightmares when I'm stressed or depressed and it doesn't really bother me THAT much, I see what you mean about the exorcism thing, it's just the past couple of nights where I've been waking up from them multiple times a night which is bothering me cause it feels like I haven't really slept at all.

 

And Caretstick, yeah I do keep very late nights, this is a habit I've had for years. It's OK cause my job doesn't start until 2pm, but that means I work until about 8pm so I go down into the basement in the early afternoon and when I come up now it's more or less dark. I hate that. It reminds me of going to college when I was about 18 and at my most depressed, something that would really get to me would be getting up for the bus at like 7 when it was still dark and not getting home until the sun was setting at 5pm or so. That's when the seasonal depression really kicked in quite heavily for me. I'm actually dreading this winter, I've just got this feeling like it's going to be a bad one.

 

Well this is Iain C's sympathy thread over, cause it's time for me to make some toast and catch the bus to work. The upside of my job is that about half the time I'm left to my own devices, and I can listen to Kate Bush on my iPod all evening!

[Guest thejacketloose]

No alcohol

No nicotine

No caffeine

No carbonated drinks

No white bread

No prolonged internet periods

No late nights

No eating fat after 18:00

No yearning after unattainables

 

Yes water

Yes fruit and cereals

Yes fish

Yes wholemeal bread

Yes 30 minutes exercise per day

Yes deep breathing

Yes keeping clean

Yes focus

Yes ambition

 

Try one week

 

Sleep improved

[Terpentintollwut]

I would stay far away from sleep pills and stuff like that. There's a reason for you to be haunted by your dreams. Any kind of tranquilizer is only going to shut that down temporarily and possibly even have long time effects, physiological and psychological, since you're not dealing with the cause of the problem.

 

I've only had reoccuring dreams when I was younger. The first one I had when I was about 3 or 4, it would be about something I called "the black animal" that would crawl out from beneath a closet and walk around my bed every night (looked a lot like the gmork from the neverending story). That eventually went away when I awoke one night and saw something coming out from under the closet, then I recognized that it was my cat. I believe that, in a much simpler way of course, this sort of explained to me why I had the dreams in the first place so I could let go of it. Confrontation is probably better than repression through meds... I'm not blaming anyone for taking them after all, I can barely imagine how unnerving it must be not to be able to sleep.

[Guest MetalLizard]

I get nightmares occasionally, and it only involves these assholes:

EVERY single time.

 

I don't believe in alien abduction, but I can't explain why every "bad" dream only features these things. Quite honestly the only thing that frightens me a bit.

[Terpentintollwut]

You don't believe in it but does the concept of the guys frighten you when you're awake, the dreams aside?

[OneToThirtySix]

Add to thejacketloose's "no" list:

 

Chocolate or pickles before bed.  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Something about the digestive tract and acids increases propensity toward nightmares.

 

And thanks robert moses, have you ever encountered a marionette with a head shaped like an apple in that house?

[Braintree]

[Caretstik]

I had an ace nightmare once where I was on a ferry, and Telly Savalas was also there (he looked like he did in Cape Fear). He seemed drunk and was pretty aggressive, I thought that he was going to kick my head in.