Posted by cactus on October 17, 2008, at 20:14:22
In reply to Re: Does anyone have cronic nightmares? » cactus, posted by raisinb on October 17, 2008, at 16:28:16
> Thanks for clarifying. This is such an interesting topic. I don't find the experience unpleasant at all. I feel like I just succeed in loosening a muscle in my brain so that my thoughts become random and not controlled by me.
I don't mind that either, as I'm drifting off to sleep, voices or images coming to me, realizing that you are still awake and dreaming at the same time is quite a pleasant sensation (lucid dreaming). That's how I usually fall asleep, I wait for it to begin and use it as a hook I suppose to get me into sleep. I got use to that years ago. I even got use to the hypno's too in the end, but now that they don't occur very often anymore they catch me off guard and give me a fright at first.
Before I was medicated I was experiencing them about 3-4 times a week, now it's maybe 1-2 times a year. So the occasional slap or sleep paralysis in the middle of the night when my nightmare manifests into my bedroom catches me off guard again. Sometimes I get a grip on it but not like I use to be able to.
I especially use to hate the nightmares when I'd wake up and feel a presence in the room. Reach for my bedside lamp and it wouldn't switch on, the light had blown, so I would leap out of bed and run down the hallway, everytime I got to the kitchen to have a glass of water to calm me down I'd wake up in bed again paralyzed with some ominous presence lurking in the shadows. I couldn't always see it because I could only move my eyes if I was lucky. The really bad ones would involve slapping, grabbing and or tugging of my limbs, being choked, gagged or smothered or my all time favorite, being grabbed by the scruff of my t-shirt and yanked upright. That wouldn't stop until I was either fully awake or fell back asleep. If I fell back asleep there was a 50% chance of it happening on my next waking cycle.
It is so real, and confusing. The only way I knew it had stopped was when I could move and my bedside lamp would finally switch on.
I don't miss those days, they were so exhausting, but so are the straight, up normal nightmares too.
I find the best thing to do when you've had a really bad nightmare is to get out of bed for 10mins, have a glass of water or go to the loo. If I just roll over and close my eyes, I'll jump straight back into the nightmare again. I have a weird brain, Peace, C
poster:cactus
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