combatting unpleasant dreams and such?

[GarethSE]

for the past few nights ive been having really, really disturbed sleeps
i keep waking up about
i dunno every 3 hours or so with this ache in my chest, like this constricted, heartache-y feeling after having these horrible dreams.
they're not even nightmares, they're just deeply unpleasant and playing on my insecurities to an extent thats making me feel like i can't even tell people what the dreams are, and i've never ever felt like i couldnt tell even my closest friends about that stuff, it's that bad.
i know its fairly pointless asking how to stop dreams dead in their tracks, but im asking anyway

 

[Line666]

Less cheese before bedtime!

 

[TheDriller]

these kind of dreams are almost always related to stress and anxiety in real life.

i know i get some ridiculously scary hallucinations when i'm stressed out. not quite dreams, but i'll be drifting off to sleep and suddenly the ceiling is crawling with spiders or just amorphous black shapes, i'll be totally convinced that it's real and jump out of bed and run away.

most of the time i wont even remember it untill my girlfriend tells me about it the next morning. i've been found sitting up talking to myself, walking around talking to myself, hiding in a corner, trying to kill scorpions with a shoe and other weird shit. i can only dimly recall these things when she reminds me of what happened. she must have the patience of a saint to be explaining to my sleep-walking self that there are no monsters in the room and then putting me back to bed.

whenever this happens, its always down to real-life stress. sort out whats bothering you in real life and the dreams will go away.

 

[iamandy]

these kind of dreams are almost always related to stress and anxiety in real life.

i know i get some ridiculously scary hallucinations when i'm stressed out. not quite dreams, but i'll be drifting off to sleep and suddenly the ceiling is crawling with spiders or just amorphous black shapes, i'll be totally convinced that it's real and jump out of bed and run away.

most of the time i wont even remember it untill my girlfriend tells me about it the next morning. i've been found sitting up talking to myself, walking around talking to myself, hiding in a corner, trying to kill scorpions with a shoe and other weird shit. i can only dimly recall these things when she reminds me of what happened. she must have the patience of a saint to be explaining to my sleep-walking self that there are no monsters in the room and then putting me back to bed.

whenever this happens, its always down to real-life stress. sort out whats bothering you in real life and the dreams will go away.

haha, seriously dude.. untill now, i thought i only did that. thats fucked.

worst one i had was at my brothers and i was half asleep, and i thought i saw this baby jump at me. thought it was my neice and jumped out of bed and no-one was there. the spiders thing used to happen alot! like.. little spiders running everywhere and i tried squashing them.

but, i must admit.. i haven't had these sort of dreams for awhile, think its because i haven't had alot on my mind for awhile. i dunno?

 

[Fox Mulder]

Hmm, never had those 'scary' moments, but I swear I once heard sounds of a chicken flapping its wings behind my head.
wtf.

 

[Jaymz]

Haha weird, only a few days ago just as I was drifting off I was sure I saw a smallish black shape crawl behind a picture on the wall so I jumped out of bed and had the light on in a flash! Stood for a few minutes and then figured it was one of those moments! Happen'd twice to me in the last few months, never happend before then :S

 

[Notuern]

I know what you're feeling bro'!
Ive had those dream before.. its not really a nightmare just like you say, but you still get this very deep, dark feeling that sticks with you for the rest of the day..
Damn, just thinking back to those dreams gives me the fuckin' creeps man!

But i really dont know what to do about them, but i can totally buy in to what driller said about the dreams being caused by anxiety/stress.. because i was stressed as a holy shitfuck when i got those dream.
I just quit school, needed to find a job, the band wasn't working out, major health issues with in the family, trying to keep my best friend from becoming an alcoholic etc.
And when it all started to sort it self out, the dreams where gone.

.. but damn, seriously, i feel sorry for you dude!
I hope it gets better for you man!

Edit:

Oh, and that "heartachy"-feeling sounds sort of like the beginning of a panic attack.
It starts with this really heavy feeling in your chest, then you start to feel like nothing is real and a bit dizzy/weird, from there it just gets worse.. not a great thing to experience anyhow.
But you should definitely check things out, because if it is the beginning of an panic attack you are feeling, you want to be treated for it, trust me.. its not very pleasant to experience a full blow from one.

 

[iekobrid]

Have you started taking any new prescription medication recently?

 

[GarethSE]

Nah.
I refuse to take any pharma ceuticals of any form unless some short term shit for the flu or something.

edit: fucking censor, wtf

 

[GarethSE]

why the fuck is that word censored
what the fuck

 

[Viridian Ice]

I agree with the panic attack possibility - and that you really do not want one of those to hit you unprepared.
I think you should maybe check in with the doc, get a blood test if possible.

I'm not trying to scare you, but I had similar nightmares and restless, broken sleep.
I once dreamt the entire world was flickering in and out of existence in time with my breathing in and out and as usual woke up with real trouble breathing. I often dreamt my arms had been amputated or I'd been in a road accident where they got cut off - and woke up with completely dead arms.
These things are there because they're trying to tell you something. Turns out I had a dangerously underactive thyroid, where my heart was getting slower and slower, my breathing was affected, the circulation down the left side of my body was so bad that my arms went numb while I was asleep. I was heading straight for a coma, may never have woken up one day...

So seriously, yeah, maybe see the doctor. He might well say it's stress, but it's worth checking out. And, yeah, I'm like you, never been on meds, hate even taking a pill for a blinding headache, but sometimes it's worth it.

 

[GarethSE]

thanks for the info guys, ill try and book an appointment with my doctor for tomorrow
i guess the panic attack thing could make sense
im having a lot of nights where i get this like
feeling in my chest or some shit and then i start getting in a stress and have to go and break something or have a cigarette or two and listen to some music t calm down, and its been happening frequently
best way to describe it would be a feeling of panic i guess.

 

[iekobrid]

why the fuck is that word censored
what the fuck

I guess Ultimate Metal doesn't want people trying to sell [that word] to its members.

 

[Viridian Ice]

Good for you!

Yeah, you want to check out if you're on the edge of getting panic attacks. A full blown one is naaasty. I have them sometimes because of my condition and they are pretty horrible, you hyperventilate and are on the edge of passing out. It's kind of ok if you can get out into the fresh air or are at home, but I had one on a train a week or two ago and had to get through it by staring at a ceiling light and reciting French conjugation tables.

Might be an idea if you keep a paper bag to hand. My doc says if you hold it to your mouth and breathe in and out, you replace the carbon dioxide that you expel too quickly when you are breathing too fast. He also said to get a mental 'restful' place prepared in advance. Visualise a place where you feel relaxed, and it has to be somewhere you know, so you can concentrate on it, feel the wind in your hair, grass under your feet, birdsong or whatever. Then when the attack happens, put yourself in your 'restful' place and you'll go back to normal. I find though I'm better repeating lists, like all the tree names I know, or all the songs on an album.

Anyway, good luck!

 

[JBroll]

There have been other threads on panic attacks, so I'll just sum up what I dealt with along those lines.

During my sophomore and junior semesters as an undergrad (yes, semesters... I was impatient) I would occasionally start noticing my heartbeat and breathing seeming somewhat irregular - there turned out to be nothing wrong physically, but after thinking that I might be developing some sort of arrhythmia and obsessing over it I almost did. This developed into other concerns, and eventually fits of even more paranoia than I'm used to - past the point where I couldn't function socially, even - before I went to see a doctor. (I've always had issues with dealing with too many people at once - right now I'm uncomfortable around more than 5 or 6 in the vast majority of settings - but at this point having more than three people within ten meters of me for more than a few minutes made me shut down.)

I went to see a therapist for this (Ph.D., not M.D.) and after a few sessions we tried a *very* small dose of Zoloft to work as an anti-compulsive (since full-blown weapons-grade obsessive-compulsive disorder has been an issue for as long as I can remember, and was thought to be at the root of the panic attacks)... big mistake. I basically couldn't function at all, and instead of having panic attacks like before I'd know that a panic attack was coming on and *that* would replace the usual panic attacks in a wonderful display of "Wow, there's a fucking improvement...", so after some time (to make sure the problems weren't just startup-related, I stayed on regularly for a few weeks) I got off it and tried other ways of figuring out how to stop the panic attacks.

Fortunately, they went away on their own, but apparently that stress went to screwing with other things in my head so now you have wonderful comparisons between compression and Smurfs. If you do go on medication, chances are good that you'll be told to keep a log of progress and other issues; after the issue with Zoloft essentially turning me to a zombie, I'd strongly recommend keeping some note of mental acuity - time yourself doing hard sums or products, recite some string of letters or numbers, whatever, just make sure the drugs are making you healthier and not stupider.

Jeff

 

[onqel]

in the summer of 2006 I was sitting home alone playing guitar when I suddenly felt like being struck by a lightening or something.
my heart started pumping really hard and it felt like some negative energies were floating all around me the next two days..
I woke up from nightmares EVERY night for 6 weeks, and they wasn't so scary though, they were disgusting.. One I remember was that I played with my then 10 year old brother and suddenly he sits there screaming with his hands before his eyes, and I realise he stabbed his eyes with some damaged plastic toys or something..
I never went to the doctor about this, but my life went back to normal again after two months.. I smoked 1 joint the day before this happened, (my last one), and didn't take any other drugs..

There was things happening in my life back then, my girlfriend moved away and I was very depressed.. that might have triggered it.. could this have been a panic attack followed by a psychological disease?

 

[joeritson]

Hmm, never had those 'scary' moments, but I swear I once heard sounds of a chicken flapping its wings behind my head.
wtf.

Fuck that shit!!

The other night I dreamed that a guy I know of (who doesnt know me) cut my throat. I could feel the pain and everything, it was fucked

 

[Emdprodukt]

Once I woke up in the middle of the night. My room had a door right to the garden. I was shure I heard people talking in front of that door and got scared."EEEEEEEEY!!!!! WHO'S THERE?". I jumped up and got something to defend myself and opened the door. nothing. in fact i was sleeping on the remote for my computer which started south park very quietly which I identified as people in front of the door. couldn't sleep after that.

 

[Jevil]

I agree... it seems like anxiety and panic. I was treated for that.
Pill of Lorazepam and you'll sleep relaxed. But don't get use to it.
Visit your doctor.

 

[GarethSE]

got a doctors appointment for tomorrow afternoon
cheers for the advice everyone