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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
  • Emma said:
    Or tell me if your sleep is dull and uneventful too. All information is useful information

    Me again. There have been other Threads about "dreams" upon this Forum. But I shall Post more, and see if anyone else cares...

    To get rid of "Sleep Paralysis", I have to wear a Blindfold. The paralysis only occurs nowadays whenever the blindfold slips a little and I can see something while sleeping.

    I used to be very good at Lucid Dreaming, but nowadays, my dreams are ALL about some Government Organisation which is using me for one as a GuineaPig in order to learn how to control or suppress so-called Dreams (Thoughts below 'Alpha Frequency State').

    I also know about "Exploding Head Syndrome" and have it at times.

    I am very susceptible to smells and noises. These influence the Dreams, and if severe they will wake me. I already posted about Asthma... which is similar to bladder functions, where I dream of toiliting yet it has no effect.

    I have bad dreams almost every night. Yet can tell Dreams from Reality using certain cues I have in place upon the waking side.

    I can hear in my dreams when I am "snoring", seriously. (Can anyone else here do that?)

    Insofar as dreams being "Dull and Uneventful", mine are about everyday things yet exaggerated, and it is very rare that I dream about a thing which I do not do in reality (e.g. driving a car or swimming in the ocean.) When I do do something unusual, I dream about it and then not again.

    The environment (City) has a big effect upon my dreams, hence the many bad dreams I have. Smells, sounds, sights, that sort of thing. I do not think that dreams have the same effects or meanings for everyone. For instance, if I dream about a Snake or a Spider, I find it cute and capture it to either telephone the RSPCA or throw it out of the nearest window!

Reply
  • Emma said:
    Or tell me if your sleep is dull and uneventful too. All information is useful information

    Me again. There have been other Threads about "dreams" upon this Forum. But I shall Post more, and see if anyone else cares...

    To get rid of "Sleep Paralysis", I have to wear a Blindfold. The paralysis only occurs nowadays whenever the blindfold slips a little and I can see something while sleeping.

    I used to be very good at Lucid Dreaming, but nowadays, my dreams are ALL about some Government Organisation which is using me for one as a GuineaPig in order to learn how to control or suppress so-called Dreams (Thoughts below 'Alpha Frequency State').

    I also know about "Exploding Head Syndrome" and have it at times.

    I am very susceptible to smells and noises. These influence the Dreams, and if severe they will wake me. I already posted about Asthma... which is similar to bladder functions, where I dream of toiliting yet it has no effect.

    I have bad dreams almost every night. Yet can tell Dreams from Reality using certain cues I have in place upon the waking side.

    I can hear in my dreams when I am "snoring", seriously. (Can anyone else here do that?)

    Insofar as dreams being "Dull and Uneventful", mine are about everyday things yet exaggerated, and it is very rare that I dream about a thing which I do not do in reality (e.g. driving a car or swimming in the ocean.) When I do do something unusual, I dream about it and then not again.

    The environment (City) has a big effect upon my dreams, hence the many bad dreams I have. Smells, sounds, sights, that sort of thing. I do not think that dreams have the same effects or meanings for everyone. For instance, if I dream about a Snake or a Spider, I find it cute and capture it to either telephone the RSPCA or throw it out of the nearest window!

Children
  • in reply to Disambiguating Cynosure

    I've experienced that exploding head only once that I can rememver as a kid, maybe 4 or so

  • in reply to Disambiguating Cynosure

    The blindfold is interesting. I wonder how that works! I can't wear anything to bed (mask, headphones, etc.) because I move so much I shake it off and it gets painfully tangled in my 2.5ft mane of hair.

    I've never heard myself snore in my dreams, but I do hear things around me that get incorporated into them; whole conversations from the radio/tv, my alarm, the pets. Maybe I don't snore. I do sleep-talk though, according to my other half who writes my "dreambabble" down and sends it to me. It ranges from nonsensical ("Oh my god, EVERY candlestick") to downright creepy ("It should be in your blood by now").

    A change in environment will usually incorporate itself into my dream; e.g. if I'm camping I will usually dream about being in a forest.

    I would agree about dreams being different meaning-wise depending on who you are. If I dream of snakes it's usually MY snakes I'm dreaming about, so that would be a pretty mundane and uneventful dream for me Stuck out tongue everyone's subconscious is built around their own life experiences, I suppose.

  • in reply to Disambiguating Cynosure

    HaHa, im laughing at me not you by the way. 

    i read 'exploding head syndrome' and was greeted with a mental image of an exploded head, then i read on to the fact you get this sometimes and wonder how you can survive your head exploding. So i derail to google to find out what this exploding head is and find the funny side in my thoughts. 

    What a misleading name - misleading for me anyway.

    Liz