Afraid Of Sleep

[NIKI]

I am so afraid to fall asleep! Nightmares are horrible, every single night. They are so vivid they feel like I am really awake living the nightmare. When I wake up, I am exhausted because I feel like I have not slept at all. The thing is when I wake I can remember what happened in the nightmare but as the day goes on I completely forget what it was about. You think that would help, but it doesn't. I wake up with all the emotions that I felt in the nightmare. Scared, anxiety and fear. So for me *sleeping* is worse than being awake. :(

 

[Crl1983]

She really felt that people should try to act assertively in their dreams and take control of them.

Lucid dreaming can help you regain control in a good way of some of your nightmares and dreams.. but still, sometimes it doesn't work out so nicely because sometimes the people or things in the nightmares and dreams will react back to whatever you do (not always positively), and that can get scary. Overall though, I think It helps to feel that sense of control. I worked on lucid dreaming for years because I liked the idea of escaping into dreams and such. Now I can't control when it happens, It just comes naturally some nights. A thought for anyone considering getting into lucid dreaming is that for me, when lucid dreaming started to happen frequently it also started causing me to get sleep paralysis and other experiences a lot more frequently than before. I looked into this and apparently lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis seem to go hand in hand for many people. So It may or may not be for you.

 

[LawPhotos]

I avoid going to sleep too. One of the things that I do is postpone sleep for as long as I possibly can. I like to make myself get to the point where literally, the second I put my head on the pillow I am asleep. It is really more like passing out.I even have a name for it "instasleep". If I am awake for even a few seconds I immediately start thinking about nightmares and end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy. I never seem to be able to affect my nightmares by changing the outcome etc. Often I don't remember them, I just wake up suddenly with horrible feelings. If I do remember them and they are horrible then I won't let myself go back to sleep because so often I end up back in the same nightmare. Sometimes I feel like my own mind is tormenting me. I wake up and am so terrified I can't even move within the bed--can't even change my position because I am so afraid.

Abbi-like you mentioned, I have had the experience several times of waking with excruciating pain in a place that was being injured in my nightmare. The pain/soreness will stay for days and I wonder if I have acted out the nightmare and injured myself in my sleep. Lately I often wake up with scratches and bruises.

 

[larisa1891]

I am the same way, I sometimes have violent nightmares which my husband says make me scream and thrash around in the bed. He tries to wake me up but it doesn't always work.

Other nights my dreams will be equally frightening but I will only cry until I wake up. I think these are the worst nightmares because when I wake up my husband is asleep and I am alone the rest of the night to face my dream.

I have found that I have the worst nightmares are on my worst days dealing with PTSD, and will stay up all night to avoid the dreams I know wait for me. Which would be why I am up at 5AM right now...

 

[Gamereign555]

Not all my dreams scare me but usually they are pretty morbid. They usually involve violence, death, accidents, assault, or nasty wounds. Lately I seem to be running and hiding a lot, last night I was caught while hiding from somebody and he pulled me out of whatever I was hiding in by my hair yelled at me while burning my arm with a cigarette...freaky stuff.
I talked to the guy later in my dream and he was nicer, I told him he looked like my stepdad but he did not.

I dont always like going to sleep either. And the pills I take to help me sleep don't seem to have any effect to the contrary on my dreams/nightmares.

 

[shell]

I was having so many nightmares and began recovering memories just at the point were I was dozing off that I was constantly fighting sleeping to the point were I was only sleeping about 2 hours per night. I was barely functioning at work. I found my throat felt like it was closing, and my heart would start racing just as I started dozing and I would jolt myself awake. Since starting on antidepressants I now sleep well, but still jolt awake in the middle of the night with my heart racing and breathing fast, like I've had a nightmare, but can't remember anything? It's so weird, but better than the gruesome dreams I was having.

 

[SVAinVA]

I keep feeling like if I fall asleep i will have a nightmare. My nightmares scare me alot. Most of them are really vivid and it leave me thinking about them all day. My theripist has me write them down in a dream journal type thing so we can talk about them. I guess it does help to talk about them but i'm still afraid to fall sleep and have another nightmare. My boyfriend tries to be supportive and listen to me when i talk about them and he will talk to me when i wake up in the middle of the night. I still cant help being afraid to sleep and have the nightmares. I know that i wont have one every single time i fall asleep but it's not enough for me i guess. Any one else know what this is like?

SadBunny: I can relate to this only too well. I wish I had an answer for you, but I did want to let you know I suffer from the same. When I try to sleep at night, I have such vivid and horrific nightmares, I wake up screaming- and I have never experienced anything like this. So now I am up all night and sleep during the day. I feel exhausted ALL THE TIME.

This is a horrible thing to endure, and those who are victims of workplace bullying and suffer PTSD---there needs to be accountability for the criminals who caused this. And perhaps for those who chose to look away.

Anyway, I know EXACTLY what it is like. Scares the hell out of me and I am helpless to it. Which is why I stopped trying to sleep at night.

 

[toots]

I am afraid to go to sleep incase the armed robber is coming back and I cant hear him and stop him from killing us. I sleep during the day if I sleep at all.

 

[Dalmaoma]

So went to bed @2;30am and fell asleep with some music in 30 minutes but I'm now awake almost 6 hours later because of a nightmare AGAIN! so I have 2 questions here.

1. Does every1 wake up like in those movies where your lying in bed and your eyes just pop open?

2. Does every1 have to fight for their lifes in their nightmares?

Thanks in advance

I can so relate to what you're saying. If I manage to drift off, I'm startled awake by a sudden sound and feel as though I'm jumping out of my own skin and these nightmares are horrible. Running away from some stranger hot on my trail with the only intent of killing me. I fear the time when I stop running.

 

[Layla]

I sometime have horrific dreams, with some really nasty stuff happening to me, but they're not 'night mares'. They are just plain old dreams with nasty contents. They don't scare me when I wake up, but they start to frighten me and I think about them throughout the day until the next night, where I have another dream. This has only recently started though, but I think I agree with all of you, it's always someone else trying to hurt me and running away.

 

[kimba]

Getting to sleep is tough and once something wakes me that isn't nature calling, it takes hours to go back if at all. Once the sky starts getting light, if I am awake, that's it. I can't do room darkening stuff due to trauma circumstances. I alternate between taking nothing some nights, Unisom others. Nightmares about being chased, lost, or nearly killed- even being the sole survivor in a wreck of some kind are my dreams. Even when I sleep, it isn't restful.

 

[cat]

Before therapy & emdr I used to have horrendous nightmares & would avoid sleeping. This was ok until i got to the stage where i was only sleeping 1-2hrs in 24 & it was having an impact on my therapy sessions & recovery. My T suggested i ask my gp to prescribe Amitriptyline, taken at a low dose it re-sets your body clock, aids sleep, & you dont remember your dreams, it doesn't prevent nightmares but it certainly takes the fear out of them. It is not a sleeping tablet so doesn't knock you out completely making it easier to get up the following morning.