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Nightmares & insomnia

Robert124
over 5 years ago

I suffer from the dual evil of nightmares and insomnia and need help.

For example, today I woke at 4am from a nightmare and I cannot fall asleep (insomnia).  I am also afraid to go back to sleep because in the past I have had nightmares following nightmares when I fall asleep after a short break.

With inadequate sleep I get up tired.  With nightmarish sleep I get up tired.

I don't have sleeping tablets at home as a precaution.  Because in my recent past I've attempted suicide by overdosing with tablets.

So I sit in bed.  Either reading , worrying or on the internet.

Any Help or advice is much appreciated!

Parents
  • over 5 years ago

    I have bad nightmares too. Always have; my mum told me that as soon as I could speak coherently I was talking about my nightmares. I've had hypnopompic hallucinations (continuing to see objects from the dream world projected onto real life for a little while after waking) since I was 6. Sleep paralysis since I was 19.

    The way I got over the nightmares when I was small was 
    A. Learning to recognise when I was dreaming and wake myself; this wasn't too difficult for me as my nightmares were the recurring kind, so I could recognise a theme and ask myself "are you dreaming?" before I got too scared for logical thought. (e.g. I used to dream about giant tsunami, my reaction even now when I see the sea or other large body of water in a dream is "Nope, out!" and waking myself)
    B. Visualisation, talking myself through a mundane and calm scenario (e.g. a journey through countryside) in a highly descriptive manner, to help with getting back to sleep after nightmare-induced insomnia.

    Nowadays I have added Audiobooks, Youtube videos of rain sounds and Familiar TV to the list of insomnia cures.

    When I was older, my dream recognition skills turned into experimenting with lucid dreaming (where you have both awareness and godlike control over the dream world), which was brilliant to fend off nightmares for a while but after learning to go straight from waking into a LD and using it too heavily (at one point I was going to college, coming home, lucid dreaming in the afternoon until dinner, eating, early bedtime and more dreaming) came with side effects for me -basically made the nightmares MUCH worse and introduced the paralysis- so that's a maybe.

    I think I just overdid it and a small amount of lucidity would be ok, just don't be an idiot like teenage-me and make it your main hobby! ^^'

Reply
  • over 5 years ago

    I have bad nightmares too. Always have; my mum told me that as soon as I could speak coherently I was talking about my nightmares. I've had hypnopompic hallucinations (continuing to see objects from the dream world projected onto real life for a little while after waking) since I was 6. Sleep paralysis since I was 19.

    The way I got over the nightmares when I was small was 
    A. Learning to recognise when I was dreaming and wake myself; this wasn't too difficult for me as my nightmares were the recurring kind, so I could recognise a theme and ask myself "are you dreaming?" before I got too scared for logical thought. (e.g. I used to dream about giant tsunami, my reaction even now when I see the sea or other large body of water in a dream is "Nope, out!" and waking myself)
    B. Visualisation, talking myself through a mundane and calm scenario (e.g. a journey through countryside) in a highly descriptive manner, to help with getting back to sleep after nightmare-induced insomnia.

    Nowadays I have added Audiobooks, Youtube videos of rain sounds and Familiar TV to the list of insomnia cures.

    When I was older, my dream recognition skills turned into experimenting with lucid dreaming (where you have both awareness and godlike control over the dream world), which was brilliant to fend off nightmares for a while but after learning to go straight from waking into a LD and using it too heavily (at one point I was going to college, coming home, lucid dreaming in the afternoon until dinner, eating, early bedtime and more dreaming) came with side effects for me -basically made the nightmares MUCH worse and introduced the paralysis- so that's a maybe.

    I think I just overdid it and a small amount of lucidity would be ok, just don't be an idiot like teenage-me and make it your main hobby! ^^'

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