Plagued by vivid dreams

Plagued by vivid dreams

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tim jb

Original Poster:

217 posts

10 months

Monday 15th April
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The initial message was deleted from this topic on 01 June 2024 at 10:20

Countdown

42,036 posts

203 months

Monday 15th April
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tim jb said:
It's crossed my mind am I being poisoned or is it a phychosis?
Why would that cross your mind? Tbh it sounds like you might be suffering from depression.

Liquid Tuna

1,403 posts

163 months

Monday 15th April
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Countdown said:
tim jb said:
It's crossed my mind am I being poisoned or is it a phychosis?
Why would that cross your mind? Tbh it sounds like you might be suffering from depression.
Probably because he's ruled out all "normal" things that might be a cause (like eating too much cheese before bedtime!). I can see why someone would start to look for more "leftfield" reasons, just need to be careful you don't become paranoid.

Sunday Drive

222 posts

27 months

Monday 15th April
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Are you taking any medicines or herbal remedies?

For example, Valerian causes vivid dreams.

KobayashiMaru86

1,329 posts

217 months

Monday 15th April
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My dreams are often vivid but often after anything dairy (lactose intolerant). I enjoy my dreams, to the point if I say a key phrase I can stop, rewind and play it out differently if I didn't like it.

Nemophilist

3,085 posts

188 months

Monday 15th April
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Did you clean the mould with bleach or vinegar?

Its possible there is still some spores in the air and if cleaned with bleach, it wouldnt have actually killed off the root of the mould and also make it appear gone, its not actually gone at all.

Do you sleep with the window closed or open? Is your heating on overnight or your house/bed too warm? Are you wearing polyester pjs at night?

All can affect sleep and cause vivid dreaming.

You could try taking magnesium to see if that helps or have epsom salt baths before bed but if there is a mould/heating issue or potentially something else going on this should be solved first.

Defcon5

6,304 posts

198 months

Monday 15th April
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Do you take any supplements or drinks with taurine in

popeyewhite

21,369 posts

127 months

Monday 15th April
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In my experience unpleasant vivid dreams are often a result of emotional duress/anxiety. There's a fine line between vivid dreams and frankly dreams that are a bit scary. Nootropics don't help either. You think they raise serotonin but you can crash hard...

StevieBee

13,570 posts

262 months

Tuesday 16th April
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It's possible that you have a melatonin deficiency. Melatonin is a hormone that we need to do sleep. With less of it we sleep less deeply. It's not uncommon and can normally be sorted through diet. Try adding lots of nuts and seeds to your diet, particularly walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seeds.

Simply put, dreams are your brain doing a system check after undertaking its nightly re-boot. It does this by reenacting and creating scenarios that it draws from your memory. All of this happens in your subconscious.... unless you are sleeping lightly in which case more of it takes place in your consciousness; hence the more vivid dreams.

oddman

2,787 posts

259 months

Tuesday 16th April
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Dreams occur during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. You're actually paralysed at this time to prevent you acting on the dreams (hence the experience of not being able to run away in some dreams). The purpose of REM is thought to be the mind sorting through experience and laying down stuff that needs to be in long term memory and binning stuff that isn't. Obviously if people are going through a difficult time and have issues that are not easy to resolve then recurrent dreams can occur whilst the mind takes its time to process the memories. That's why PTSD is characterised by nightmares - the information to be processed is too much for the usual sorting and filing mechanism.

Everyone dreams but you only tend to remember them if you wake (even if partially) during them.

I suspect that it's not so much that your poor sleep is caused by dreaming but that you're experiencing more dreaming because you're having poor sleep. You're probably waking or partially waking before you've had enough sleep. Hence having the feeling of unsatisfying sleep and increased dreaming.

All the general sleep hygiene advice should apply rather than theorising about why the dreams are happening. Don't rule out sleep apnoea. If you are snoring, it's a possibility. It's probably a reasonable idea to track and diary your sleep. Even writing down dream content can be a way of taking control. Smart watches are reasonably good at tracking sleep. If you're stuck, a referral to a sleep clinic wouldn't be ridiculous

WyrleyD

2,051 posts

155 months

Tuesday 16th April
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Metazepam also causes very vivid dreams, I take this on occasion as an insomnia relief (not my choice but my GP refuses to let me have Zolpidem which my GP in France used to prescribe for this, it worked very well).

SpudLink

6,444 posts

199 months

Tuesday 16th April
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StevieBee said:
It's possible that you have a melatonin deficiency. Melatonin is a hormone that we need to do sleep. With less of it we sleep less deeply. It's not uncommon and can normally be sorted through diet. Try adding lots of nuts and seeds to your diet, particularly walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seeds.

Simply put, dreams are your brain doing a system check after undertaking its nightly re-boot. It does this by reenacting and creating scenarios that it draws from your memory. All of this happens in your subconscious.... unless you are sleeping lightly in which case more of it takes place in your consciousness; hence the more vivid dreams.
Following this thread because I am sometimes prone to vivid dreams (usually unpleasant).

I wanted to respond to the bit in bold. Many of my dreams are certainly not from any memory. A few weeks ago I dreamt I was in a crowd watching the ground spilt open, exploding lava, I felt myself die, then woke up when I realised I was still aware and the dream logic collapsed. Obviously that's not something I've experienced, or a fear that I have, or something I think about.

This has to be random stuff I've read or watched over the course of a lifetime being assembled into a new story. But not a memory.