Dont Remember Nightmares

[buck89]

I suffer from ptsd form my deployment to afghanistan in '12 i dont remember my dreams but my wife has a hard time sleeping in the same bed because of the nightmares was wondring if anyone else had this problem

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think you are lucky not to remember your nightmares. I take Risperdone that causes me not to remember my nightmares and I get a good nights sleep.

I wish your wife some peace about your nightmares. They are a bitch when you remember them. Mabe someone will come along and help you better but I had to respond.

 

[Sighs]

My partner often has nightmares about his deployments. Sometimes he remembers them and sometimes he doesn't. If he is very restless he keeps me awake. By the same token, when he is struggling to sleep as he often has insomnia due to his PTSD any tiny move or sound I make keeps him up.

After some arguments about it his therapist suggested that every once in a while we sleep in separate beds. Not all the time, but if one or other of us is really tired that we simply say "Darling, I love you and I love snuggling up to you in bed but I'm exhausted and just for tonight I'm going to sleep in the spare room." Seems to work.

 

[Friday]

A qualified yes.

- Nightmares & remember
- Nightmares & don't remember
- Panic Attacks in my sleep

I do / have done all 3. There's this different feeling, can't really describe it, between a nightmare I can't remember and a panic attack without a nightmare.

At one point they were so bad I was afraid to sleep.
I was still flight qualified at that point, so I couldn't take anything for them.
More than once I had a friend choke me out, or knock me out... So I could be unconscious / get some "sleep" that way.
The I was back on base, got a sleep chit (and grounded, but hey, I was on base), and tried meds to sleep.
I found not all meds are equal.
Some made the nightmares worse, but I was paralyzed / couldn't wake up. Oh hail no. No, no, no, no, no. Not doing that again, ever.
Some gave me blissful sleep. I caved. I think the sleep dep affected my cognition ;) That or it could have been Pete sitting on my chest and shoving it up my nose. The 6 of is did stuff like that on a regular basis, so I'm not exactly sure. My fault or his, though, I did eventually find a few that worked.

Eventually, I thought the nightmares just went away.
But I couldn't sleep sleep with anyone, for a long time, or risk their ending up black and blue.
Or/And I'd wake up drenched in sweat, sometimes with bruises from smacking into my rack or the wall.

After an even longer period of time, I noticed the difference between waking up mid or post panic attack, and waking up after a nightmare I didn't remember. Surreal. That's what I was trying to describe earlier. There's this surreal quality to life when it's a nightmare I don't remember. Like I may still be dreaming. And my other life is the real one, and this one is the dream. And I can't remember the other one, because I'm dreaming. Takes a couple hours to wear off.

 

[shell]

I was waking up panicking, drenched in sweat as if I had been having a nightmare and not remembering anything for several months before I started to get flashbacks and got memories back that I previously had no memory of. I now recall my nightmares, I tell myself before I go to sleep I want to remember. I write them down as soon as I wake up.

Sometimes nightmares can help tell us things, and I have learnt alot from my nightmares sometimes, by understanding them more I have made them stop. I had relentless nightmares every night for about three years, but by addressing the messages they are trying to tell me, I am now only having about one every two or three weeks. My nightmares weren't always a replay of my trauma, but they often had a similar theme.

When I understood the message and started to address what I refused to face, they stopped.

 

[tired of the fight]

@FridayJones,


Wow, you put it into words perfectly.