Nightmare Prevention?

[4sidedcube]

Hey I am new to the site. I was doing some browsing but I am not the most adept at navigating forums. I have a recent diagnosis however I am told I have had ptsd quite a while. (how they know is beyond me) I am definitely still in the learning stages but wanted to ask something that I haven't been able to find much on. I wanted to know if there is anything that has worked for anyone regarding preventing nightmares that is not Rx based. I wake up every morning soaked and cold from them. I would love to have some ideas. Even if it sounds crazy maybe I can get a placebo effect lol.

 

[DLadi]

I just had a conversation about this very subject with my dad. We were talking about my bf who is a sufferer and my dad (78 & a vet) said that he had the nightmares but he didn't experience the terrible things that my bf has in the past. He took sleeping pills for years until someone told him about Melitonin (sp?). We all have it in our system so its not really an additive. You can find it with the vitamins. You should take it the same time each evening and it builds up so if it doesn't work like lightening the first day or so.. don't give up. I don't know if it will help your nightmares but you should sleep better.

 

[kers]

Welcome to the forum. There are a lot of great people and some great information here.

The best way to reduce nightmares is to address your trauma. As you resolve the traumatic things that have happened to you, your sleep will improve markedly. However, there are things you can do in an effort to improve your sleep in the meantime. I've linked to two helpful threads.

[DLMURL="http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread4874.html"]Sleep Management and PTSD[/DLMURL]

[DLMURL="http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread2308.html"]Sleep Relaxation, Calming Breath Exercise[/DLMURL]

I have had some success with rewriting my nightmares, which is also sometimes called "lucid dreaming." You visualize a different ending to the dream, which can help resolve the situation in your head and reduce the nightmares. The New York Times had an article about this on Halloween, so check out that site to read it.

 

[shari]

Well this is an Rx solution, but it is not addictive, not a sleeping pill, not an antidepressant etc. What is this miracle drug.....Prazosin. It is actually a blood pressure medication that acts as a beta blocker. There are no side effects, other than a possible drop in blood pressure the first time you take it. It has made my life a whole lot easier. One pill at night, and I sleep so much better. It makes everything easier to get good sleep and relief from being retraumatized every night in my dreams.

 

[Kunoichi]

I have had continuous nightmares for the last 3 weeks with only one night without one. I am going to talk to my therapist about it and i have tried all the coping methods mentioned in the above links....but with sleeping aids/medicines, I know they help you go to sleep but do they actually stop the nightmares too?

I'm worried I wouldn't be able to wake up from them :(

 

[kers]

Different sleeping meds work on different things, so it depends--talk with your doctor to figure out what you want to target and what your concerns are. I take a sedating anti-depressant at night, and it has reduced my nightmares as well as my hypervigilant wake-ups. I can wake up just fine from it with my alarm clock, but I've upped my dose and I'm groggy for the first hour or so of the day. On the other hand, when I wasn't sleeping much, I was groggy and irritable all day every day, so this I can live with!

I tried a lot of non-medical stuff before I sought additional help, partly because I needed to be sure that nothing else would work before I felt comfortable taking that step. For a lot of people, other strategies work just as well as medication.

 

[pandora]

I too, used to take a beta blocker and no longer need it....atenolol but I will take it if I know i am going into a stressful situation...helped to decrease my nightmares and rids me from tremors. Good Luck!

 

[4sidedcube]

thanks for the ideas. I meet with my therapist tonight. I am often trapped in nightmares. I know I used to take glyceine (sp?) and that seemed to help a lot with memory but i seem very distracted and out of touch lately. When I meet with her tonight I will definitely bring up some of the ideas from here. I didn't see anything on printing off bits or pieces from posts but I will hold off on doing any of that until i can get in touch with someone who can let me know if that is ok. :dontknow: I certainly would never break confidentiality even by using a username. Thanks again

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

I use dream interpretation to heal my nightmares. I still get them every once in a great while (when really stressed) but that is better than having them 3 times a week, not to mention the bizarre ones on top of that.

I have a dream group here if your interested. In my experience it took about 2-3 years of doing the dream work before the nightmares stopped. It's not a quick fix and I don't think anyone on the forum has tried it.

The dream groups I belong to have members that were abused and have frequent nightmares, and through dream work their nightmares have stopped or slowed way down.

Carl Jung was a psychologist who studied dream interpretation and I read he was able to help the Vietnam Vets with their nightmares using dream interpretation.

The theory behind it is that writing your dreams down makes you face the trauma. The interpretations tell you what or how you feel about the situation and then you let yourself feel it to see if the interpretation is valid. Therefore you benefit by writing about it, then letting yourself feel the pain.

No Rx for this one, just time.
Tammy

 

[shari]

Prazosin does not help you get to sleep. Have to do that on your own!!! However, once you are asleep, you cannot remember what you dreamed. It also stopped the hyperviligint wake ups. The first few weeks I took it things were not perfect. When I fell asleep, I still immediatley started in with the dreams. However, about the time I would normally wake up with a start (3 am) and have trouble ever getting back to sleep , something different happened. I fell into a deep sleep and woke up in the morning!!

The first time this happened I was so suprised. It got better and better over the next few weeks and now most nights I can go to sleep and wake up in the morning without feeling like I have been battered to death by dreams. Wierd since it is just a pill for high blood pressure.

 

[Roo]

Interesting thread ... and timely, since I'm going thorugh a resurgence of nightmares and night terrors, since a sibling OD'ed on alcohol and Percocet (and survived) 2.5 weeks ago. I take Imovane for a chronic insomnia disorder ... the only time I can seem to fall asleep naturally is during the day.

There seems to be something about the nature of falling asleep that jars a mind long attuned to trauma -- in my own situation, night + sleep = ALARM!

There was a lovely period, right after I got together with my husband; for our first four years I slept like a baby, all snuggled in with him. Then I took a new job which was insanely stressful and which ran me ragged. Then there were next-door neighbours from hell for 2.5 years -- violent, brutal, drug-abusing, etc. Oh goodie. Sleep shot to hell; body and brain on constant alert. Exhausting. It all moved me into a resurgence of PTSD which I'm about to enter hospital for ... I understand there are drugs available which can suppress dream activity -- I don't want that, as I believe dreams are important communiqués from parts of the mind we can't access during ordinary waking consciousness. I figure that the horrific dreams (often about being paralyzed, unable to call out -- utterly helpless) will resolve themselves as I gain back strength and some semblance of balance :smile:

What helps me? ... Getting of the computer at a reasonable hour ... hot chai or milk w/ honey ... a bath with soothing oils like melissa or pine ... lovemaking ... cuddling ... reading a soothing/inspirational book ... gentle stretching/yoga in the evening.

I've had sleep disorders all my life, and suspect that they may have arisen because I spent the first three months of my life in a NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) -- two months premature. There's probably no way my infant brain could set down normal patterns for sleep, given that environment. Later abuse which sometimes came down on me in the middle of the night sure didn't help.

I no longer fight insomnia or despair over it. Fortunately I am off work right now on a long-term disability claim, and may never go back to work; I can sleep when my body needs to. How I (hopefully) get back to a more natural sleep cycle remains to be determined during my hospital stay. My first order of work there will to regulate as best I can my sleep cycle and appetite ...

Best of luck to you, 4sided...

Roo

 

[Darkhorse]

Thanks for the thread will try these ideas :)