Nightmares which affect daily mental health

Marra said:

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new here & not great at communicating so here goes.. I'm 60yrs old, diagnosed autistic 8yrs ago and also diagnosed with Complex PTSD. I care for my two autistic adult children at home. I dream every time I sleep, even if I dose off for a moment I dream- it sounds impossible but it's a fact.

Everybody dreams whilst their body sleeps, with some remembering more or less of them than others, and some with more or less intensity than others. There are of course those who recall nothing of their dreams, and those who recall seemingly everything ~ just as you do.

Marra said:

At night when I sleep I have huge epic dreams which are complicated, emotional, distressing and when i wake up every morning I am distressed, shocked, frightened. It takes until mid afternoon or evening for these feelings to ease and then when I sleep again the dreams happen and it's like a reset' in my mind & on waking I'm back to being very distressed etc.

Would it be incorrect or correct of me to assume that you have done analysis work in respect of your dream life, such as for instance on repeating or variable themes, or those that are more or less troubling, and so on and so forth.

Marra said:

This has been happening daily/nightly for as long as I can remember, decades.

Do you perhaps have a cut off point to your memory, such as like some people cannot remember before their third, fourth or fifth year or even later in some cases?

Marra said:

I've been seen by 2 psychiatrists and a psychologis have tried different therapy methods to try and control my sleep and 'influence' my dreaming, and have even tried prescribed Prazosin at various strenths to try and ease the dreams but nothing has had any effect.

In terms of influencing your dreams, would this have included Priming (whereby you imagine what you would like to dream about or subjectively insert as a narrative structure into your dreams) as you go to sleep, and or playing music whilst you sleep?

Marra said:

I understand why the dreams are happening- my mind has alot to pricess and this is happening while i sleep- but what i need is fir the dreams to ease off in intensity or even just stop. As you can imagine I'm beyond exhausted every day. Does any of this sound familiar to anyobe else?

To some extent yes, for a period in the mid nineties, which started intermittently increasing until it became almost incessant. I also went through stages where my dreams were more real than my hours awake, which was as fascinating as it was confusing.

Marra said:

Does anyone have any advice?

What worked for me involved in part dream analysis where each person of the dream represents an aspect of your self or selves, with buildings representing your relationship with your body and so on and so forth. I drew and discussed aspects of my dreams in this format with my shrink to begin with, and got into regression therapy and transcendental meditation, which altogether resolved the issue ~ along with a bit of Acupuncture also (nearly forgot that one).

One thing that really helped to begin with in respect of the intensity was ‘grounding’ work, which in the first instance involved going to the local Spiritualist Church and then onto Reiki and Crystal therapists, and doing a bit of ‘Primal Scream’ therapy, which involved firstly going out into the wilderness and yelling off my stress until I could yell no more (made my throat sore too!). Thereafter I yelled into a pillow on my sofa so as not to disturb others, and because I didn’t and still don’t like going out and about all that much.

A possible consideration also perhaps, is that your feelings may have been as it were trapped in the confines of neurotypical narratives, so communicating with neurologically divergent people may help you to decompress better come to terms with how you feel, so as to be more adequately and appropriately facilitated, identified and affirmed in respect of your individuality ~ rather than so much your role as mother and so on and so forth, as is more or less standard procedure in the neurotypical ‘whirled’.

Marra said:

Thank you for reading this.

Thank you for writing it. 

Marra said:

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new here & not great at communicating so here goes.. I'm 60yrs old, diagnosed autistic 8yrs ago and also diagnosed with Complex PTSD. I care for my two autistic adult children at home. I dream every time I sleep, even if I dose off for a moment I dream- it sounds impossible but it's a fact.

Everybody dreams whilst their body sleeps, with some remembering more or less of them than others, and some with more or less intensity than others. There are of course those who recall nothing of their dreams, and those who recall seemingly everything ~ just as you do.

Marra said:

At night when I sleep I have huge epic dreams which are complicated, emotional, distressing and when i wake up every morning I am distressed, shocked, frightened. It takes until mid afternoon or evening for these feelings to ease and then when I sleep again the dreams happen and it's like a reset' in my mind & on waking I'm back to being very distressed etc.

Would it be incorrect or correct of me to assume that you have done analysis work in respect of your dream life, such as for instance on repeating or variable themes, or those that are more or less troubling, and so on and so forth.

Marra said:

This has been happening daily/nightly for as long as I can remember, decades.

Do you perhaps have a cut off point to your memory, such as like some people cannot remember before their third, fourth or fifth year or even later in some cases?

Marra said:

I've been seen by 2 psychiatrists and a psychologis have tried different therapy methods to try and control my sleep and 'influence' my dreaming, and have even tried prescribed Prazosin at various strenths to try and ease the dreams but nothing has had any effect.

In terms of influencing your dreams, would this have included Priming (whereby you imagine what you would like to dream about or subjectively insert as a narrative structure into your dreams) as you go to sleep, and or playing music whilst you sleep?

Marra said:

I understand why the dreams are happening- my mind has alot to pricess and this is happening while i sleep- but what i need is fir the dreams to ease off in intensity or even just stop. As you can imagine I'm beyond exhausted every day. Does any of this sound familiar to anyobe else?

To some extent yes, for a period in the mid nineties, which started intermittently increasing until it became almost incessant. I also went through stages where my dreams were more real than my hours awake, which was as fascinating as it was confusing.

Marra said:

Does anyone have any advice?

What worked for me involved in part dream analysis where each person of the dream represents an aspect of your self or selves, with buildings representing your relationship with your body and so on and so forth. I drew and discussed aspects of my dreams in this format with my shrink to begin with, and got into regression therapy and transcendental meditation, which altogether resolved the issue ~ along with a bit of Acupuncture also (nearly forgot that one).

One thing that really helped to begin with in respect of the intensity was ‘grounding’ work, which in the first instance involved going to the local Spiritualist Church and then onto Reiki and Crystal therapists, and doing a bit of ‘Primal Scream’ therapy, which involved firstly going out into the wilderness and yelling off my stress until I could yell no more (made my throat sore too!). Thereafter I yelled into a pillow on my sofa so as not to disturb others, and because I didn’t and still don’t like going out and about all that much.

A possible consideration also perhaps, is that your feelings may have been as it were trapped in the confines of neurotypical narratives, so communicating with neurologically divergent people may help you to decompress better come to terms with how you feel, so as to be more adequately and appropriately facilitated, identified and affirmed in respect of your individuality ~ rather than so much your role as mother and so on and so forth, as is more or less standard procedure in the neurotypical ‘whirled’.

Marra said:

Thank you for reading this.

Thank you for writing it.