question about nightmare..

[Oceanbreeze]

I suffer from flashbacks and have for years. I can vouch for everything Jillio said about them. When I am triggered, I have great difficulty realizing that I'm safe. To me, it feels like the trauma I experienced is happening to me. I've been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and I'm undergoing treatment using psychotherapy and meds. Both have helped me cope, but for me, it will be a long process to emotional wellness.

 

[jillio]

thanks for the explanation. that makes perfect sense. i know the same thing has happened to me whenever i hear the voices of those who were responsible for what happened to me and when someone in my environment touches me it's almost as if the flashback becomes that much more real.

There you go. You interpret the current stimulus based on your past experience. That is, in a simplified way, exactly what a flashback is.

 

[Hear Again]

I suffer from flashbacks and have for years. I can vouch for everything Jillio said about them. When I am triggered, I have great difficulty realizing that I'm safe. To me, it feels like the trauma I experienced is happening to me. I've been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and I'm undergoing treatment using psychotherapy and meds. Both have helped me cope, but for me, it will be a long process to emotional wellness.

ocean,

what you've described is exactly what happens to me. whenever i hear certain voices, anger, yelling, am touched or hugged, it triggers my flashbacks. my tdoc recently diagnosed me with ptsd, but he mentioned something different. he called it c-ptsd or complex post traumatic stress disorder. i have no idea what that means. all he did was explain it in terms of the meaning of ptsd.

 

[SeanB]

LOL. Kids are more likely to have periods of muscle activity while in REM sleep. They are also more likely to sleepwalk. It has to do with the brain not being fully matured. The majority simply outgrow it as their brain matures.

That explains the inability to see any obvious facial hair until my early 20's. My dad once was jokingly convinced all that banging finally jumpstarted my head to release developmental harmones. It's all so complicated, it's still no wonder researchers haven't explained the need for sleep and dreaming, but your posts are very insightful on that subject.

 

[jillio]

I suffer from flashbacks and have for years. I can vouch for everything Jillio said about them. When I am triggered, I have great difficulty realizing that I'm safe. To me, it feels like the trauma I experienced is happening to me. I've been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and I'm undergoing treatment using psychotherapy and meds. Both have helped me cope, but for me, it will be a long process to emotional wellness.

I'm glad that you are making progress. It is sad indeed that it takes so much longer to heal from the trauma than it does to create it.

 

[jillio]

That explains the inability to see any obvious facial hair until my early 20's. My dad once was jokingly convinced all that banging finally jumpstarted my head to release developmental harmones. It's all so complicated, it's still no wonder researchers haven't explained the need for sleep and dreaming, but your posts are very insightful on that subject.

Yes, you are correct. There are several schools of though on the need for sleep and dreaming. Probably all have valid positions, to a degree.

 

[SpiceHD]

wow so much info here!! all very interesting. Ill have ot try some of those when i have any of those similiar situations

i have like 2 or 3 different types of flashbacks too but not so severe. the triggers are mostly from unexpected touch or expression. those doesnt happen often anymore because i believed i have healed from it but i still have to be careful. i do remember what it s like and it really sucks. i wouldnt be able to do anything after a flashback cuz even though it was over i still shakes with fear or felt like my feet were rooted to the floor. it usually happens when im alone or with a specific person that is always angry... so it really sucked for me. (thats why i like to be around people they dont really happen much when im around friendly people) also i got weird flashback of the feelings u get from using a type of drug. i am not quite sure if thats actually is a flashback but once in a while i would get high like i just smoked a joint of pot or something but i wasnt smoking or drinking anything. i was doing something perfectly normal like walking down the hallway in the mall then suddenly i got that weird high feeling that was very similiar to being stoned but yet its not. i have complained about it to doctors before and they just said im lucky to be able to get high without using anything. *shrugs* eventually i gave up and just accepted it because it doesnt really affected me much other than feeling good lol. just really puzzled about it and wondered what hell was that lol.

as for nightmares i discovered that its very normal for most mothers to get nightmares about their child/ren not breathing or being hurt. (that was what my nightmare was about last nite... about my son being drowned and me not able to save him in time...still scary as hell and had to stay awake for 2 hours before i was able to go back to sleep without going back to that dumbass same dream)

what really bothered me that time was to be unable to get over it...meaning i cannot go back to sleep right away after the nightmare cuz my mind will take me back right to that same scary spot in the dream that will cause me to wake up again. i still wonder why my mind tend to do that. and i was pissed cuz i lost 2 good hours of sleep. having an infant means u dont get much sleep LOL.

 

[Oceanbreeze]

ocean,

what you've described is exactly what happens to me. whenever i hear certain voices, anger, yelling, am touched or hugged, it triggers my flashbacks. my tdoc recently diagnosed me with ptsd, but he mentioned something different. he called it c-ptsd or complex post traumatic stress disorder. i have no idea what that means. all he did was explain it in terms of the meaning of ptsd.

That's what I'm diagnosed with. If you would like to discuss this in detail, you can PM me.

 

[Hear Again]

this may seem like an odd question, but is it possible for someone not to dream? from what i understand, dreaming is essential for keeping us alive. i know there are people who don't remember their dreams (i used to be the same way as a very young child before i started experiencing daily nightmares) -- i wish i were one of them again. <laugh>

 

[Hear Again]

That's what I'm diagnosed with. If you would like to discuss this in detail, you can PM me.

thanks, ocean. i've never heard of that term before and would like to learn more about it. i'm sending you a pm now...

 

[jillio]

this may seem like an odd question, but is it possible for someone not to dream? from what i understand, dreaming is essential for keeping us alive. i know there are people who don't remember their dreams (i used to be the same way as a very young child before i started experiencing daily nightmares) -- i wish i were one of them again. <laugh>

We all dream. It is just that we only remember the dreams we wake in the middle of. Some people will go from one level of sleep to another without waking, and so come out of the REM period to a lighter period without waking.

 

[Oceanbreeze]

is it possible to experience a dream and avoid something you know will happen in it?

for example, if i'm having a dream about being chased by someone who intends to do harm, it is possible for me to make the decision to avoid that by waking up?

My Mother claims one can do that, but I've never been able to change the endings of the nightmares I have. I tend to dream the same thing with the same ending.

 

[naisho]

this may seem like an odd question, but is it possible for someone not to dream? from what i understand, dreaming is essential for keeping us alive. i know there are people who don't remember their dreams (i used to be the same way as a very young child before i started experiencing daily nightmares) -- i wish i were one of them again. <laugh>

Yep! I've a friend who did this - it's a side effect of a form of sleeping called Polyphasic sleep.

What the individual does is take broken down naps that usually aren't any longer than half an hour at most, and do this at a course of several times a day until they meet their desired amount.

What happens, as jillio stated, is that the REM (rapid eye movement) stage in your sleep is what causes you to have dreams -- but if you were to wake up prior to the REM stage in sleep, you would never have had a dream at all - some people experience a full night's rest in a pre-REM nap, in just 15 minutes.

When you wake up during the REM process, if you did not get enough sleep, often you'll feel tired or grumpy/ go back to bed etc.

One side effect of polyphasic sleeping is no REM obviously, so no dreams. The positive is that this schedule can accommodate someone who is on a very tight agenda everyday.
But my friend who did this, said sometime he experienced white flashes in his eyes like they were burning.


Anyways back to sleep discussion.. Often times I notice I die a lot in my dreams, just about every dream I die in, probably a 1 in 4 dreams it happens - I am always alive but dead in my dream. I continue to observe the scene in third person until the remainder of the dream, or appear somewhere else alive again in a different situation.

I honestly wonder what's going on.

 

[Hear Again]

We all dream. It is just that we only remember the dreams we wake in the middle of. Some people will go from one level of sleep to another without waking, and so come out of the REM period to a lighter period without waking.

interesting.

as for the things people do to avoid having nightmares, i always avoid watching the news. instead i read a good book or watch a tv documentary that interests me.

 

[Hear Again]

naisho,

that's really fascinating.

i've tried avoiding dreams by taking short 15 minute naps, but what i've found is that when i don't get enough sleep, i end up dreaming anyways due to be extremely tired. i wonder if it's possible for someone to reach the REM stage of sleep before the "normal" sleep cycle determines they will when they are severely exhausted?

on another note, from what i understand, if a person is sleep deprived, this will increase the intensity and frequency of nightmares.

 

[naisho]

Yeah, Hear Again -
I find it really hard to take 15minute naps unless I try my best to think "I'm not going to sleep - I'm just so damn tired and I want to close my eyes". its like a 75-25% chance I'll wake up in the next hour or more, because I haven't been able to train myself to wake up on the dot from a nap. Call it one of the hard accomplishments to do eh? Especially for us whom cannot rely on an electric alarm to ring.

I think it is possible to reach the REM stage and not experience the side effect of waking up in the middle- although I'm no expert, there are times where I've hit the dream stage and have only slept for one hour - then I woke up shortly afterwards and did not feel tired at all, maybe a little lightheaded but perfectly O.K.

I think the "weariness" is a bodily gauge factor of saying how much you really need to sleep for to recover the energy depleted.

 

[Jiro]

this may seem like an odd question, but is it possible for someone not to dream? from what i understand, dreaming is essential for keeping us alive. i know there are people who don't remember their dreams (i used to be the same way as a very young child before i started experiencing daily nightmares) -- i wish i were one of them again. <laugh>

yes why not? There are some times I have not had any dreams.... I usually call this - "I slept like a dead man" or "I slept like a corpse"

I noticed that I tend to have a very very disturbing, horrifying dream when I sleep under duress - such as pulling all-niter or sleeping very late and having to wake up in couple hours. On normal days - it was mostly very random dreams that I cannot remember when waking up.

 

[Jiro]

interesting.

as for the things people do to avoid having nightmares, i always avoid watching the news. instead i read a good book or watch a tv documentary that interests me.

lol classic remedy of avoiding nightmares. I don't get nightmares about something disturbing right before I sleep and same for good book/documentary/etc. It was mostly bunch of random nonsense dreams.

 

[Jiro]

naisho,

that's really fascinating.

i've tried avoiding dreams by taking short 15 minute naps, but what i've found is that when i don't get enough sleep, i end up dreaming anyways due to be extremely tired. i wonder if it's possible for someone to reach the REM stage of sleep before the "normal" sleep cycle determines they will when they are severely exhausted?

on another note, from what i understand, if a person is sleep deprived, this will increase the intensity and frequency of nightmares.

I've been sleep-deprived for a long while and it didn't increase the intensity or frequency of nightmares for me. Just that it makes me grumpy during daytime however I have had experienced disturbing confusion several times. For example - I confused reality with dream.... meaning I could not remember if something in my past memory is the real one or not (from dream).

I suppose that for people with severe sleep deprivation... they tend to be paranoid and confused because they could not discern the dream with reality.

 

[Hear Again]

I suppose that for people with severe sleep deprivation... they tend to be paranoid and confused because they could not discern the dream with reality.

sleep deprivation can also cause auditory hallucinations and paranoia. back in 2006 prior to my diagnosis of bipolar, i had not slept for over a week due to experiencing a manic/psychotic episode. i had auditory hallucinations where i lost complete touch with reality, paranoia and extreme confusion (according to my tactile terp, the nurses and my attending psychiatrist). the attending psychiatrist said that when someone is severely manic (like i was), it can cause sleep deprivation, auditory hallucinations, paranoia and confusion. now i'm on an antipsychotic med to help with my auditory hallucinations and only experience them when i'm manic or off of my meds.