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Parasomnias/sleep disorders with autism

Emma

Hi all,

A few of us were going off-topic in another thread https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/12994/diagnosis-experience-and-coping-strategies-for-obsessions and started talking about sleep, dreams and disorders thereof this morning. So, I'm now wondering if this is a common thing for autistic people.

Please share your experiences here if you have any! Or tell me if your sleep is dull and uneventful too. All information is useful information to me! Stuck out tongue



On my part, I have always had severe nightmares and hypnagogia/hypnopompic hallucinations. Sometimes the dream imagery carries on in real life for a few minutes, so I see things that aren't there (these images are never anything really interesting, often just still pictures, and vanish when I try to touch them). I commonly hear noises as I fall asleep, ranging from small explosions to voices shouting my name to snatches of piano music (the latter is actually really nice and relaxing). 

When I learned to talk, one of the first things I spoke about in any detail were my horrible dreams. I also had trouble separating the things I experienced in dreams from reality as a very young child (pre-school), often getting angry with my mum about things she had done in my dreams and even begging my my dad to repeatedly rearrange my bedroom in an attempt to confuse away a scary dream-character (which he did on many occasions, bless him). I had 4 nightly recurring nightmares, each about a different malevolent character, for the first decade of my life and got rid of them all at once after dreaming I confronted them all in a group meeting and told them not to scare me again! 

I took very naturally to lucid dreaming as a teenager, but found it interrupted by scary characters I couldn't control as I tried to refine my technique and learned to go straight from waking into dreams. As an adult I have also developed semi-regular episodes of sleep paralysis accompanied by visual, audible and physical hallucinations.
I have even had periods of sleep apnea, sometimes accompanied by dreams about drowning- my mind's response to being suddenly unable to breathe.

Basically my body and mind go haywire when they're unconscious! ^^' 

Parents

  • When I was very young most of my dreams were fighting in wars like in lord of the rings or flying around between planets,

    I mostly don't recall dreams anymore although about 6 months ago someone slit my throat and it was indistinguishable from reality I awoke terrified,  at the moment I hardly sleep at all often only sleeping every other night or only sleeping for 3 or so hours a day, I often feel tired yet also wired at the same time so I can't sleep until I am very tired.

    Actually I recall another dream now my recently deceased cat (car killed him) jumped in through the window and sat on my lap but then maggots started appearing as I patted him then he was dead, I often think most humans really have horrible thoughts about me and are talking behind my back, and can't really trust them, cats make better friends.

Reply

  • When I was very young most of my dreams were fighting in wars like in lord of the rings or flying around between planets,

    I mostly don't recall dreams anymore although about 6 months ago someone slit my throat and it was indistinguishable from reality I awoke terrified,  at the moment I hardly sleep at all often only sleeping every other night or only sleeping for 3 or so hours a day, I often feel tired yet also wired at the same time so I can't sleep until I am very tired.

    Actually I recall another dream now my recently deceased cat (car killed him) jumped in through the window and sat on my lap but then maggots started appearing as I patted him then he was dead, I often think most humans really have horrible thoughts about me and are talking behind my back, and can't really trust them, cats make better friends.

Children
  • in reply to Nick

    Those sound like the kind of nightmares I have as an adult :/ things got a lot darker in my dreamscape when I hit my late teens. I've just woken up from a really horrible dream where I was kidnapped, escaped and then got hunted down by the kidnapper over the course of days. *shudder*