Seeking Suggestions For Handling Vivid Ptsd Nightmares

[Yoda53]

Hello Community,

I have very vivid nightmares every night to the point that if I looked on a calendar of the last three years (how long they've been going on), I could recall nearly- if not all- of the nightmares I've had.

They are always of me getting hurt. At first it was unlikely things, like there was World War III and I was shot by a sniper. Then they were still unlikely, but rather than having random people (like the sniper shooter), they involved my close friends and family. For example, I dreamed that my friend set a building on fire when I was inside of it. For quite some time now, my nightmares are likely situations and have people close to me involved, like being raped by my therapist. Of course, people close to me hurting me like that- even if the setting or situation in the dream is likely to happen with those people- is unlikely. But the dreams are so vivid that when I wake up, it is sometimes hard to distinguish my dream from reality. The dreams used to have a strong impact on my relationships- if someone was in my dream and then I saw them that day, I would cry or feel very anxious. Now I have an easier time with telling myself that I trust these peopleand they will not hurt me.

The dreams stopped for a while when my psychiatrist prescribed me prazosin (aka Gods miracle for my PTSD), but soon I no longer needed it because I got good at lucid dreaming. Now, however, it has been hard to take control of my dreams because I'm having suicidal thoughts that make me anxious.

I hope that painted a picture of my situation. I am seeking suggestions on how to handle my nightmares. They are causing anxiety in my close relationships again, and I don't like it.

-Yoda53

 

[pixel]

I hear you.

When nightmares gain enough strength to pulverise your daily coping strategies, its time to battle-axe the skeletons.

If you can talk, TALK.
Drain the poison out of your system. Get to the source and extract it.

Talk about your earliest experience where you feared you were going to die. Your system is telling you its time to acknowledge this. You don't have to accept it, just acknowledge.

You need to spew it out. Specifically.

Find a listening ear and get to the nitty gritty. Dig deep and leave it to air dry. It's not the time to fix it, just give a nod to your past and you could find the nightmares will stop or at least move from R-rated down to PG.

 

[Yoda53]

Thank you very much

I hear you.

When nightmares gain enough strength to pulverise your daily coping strategies, its time to...

 

[Silver.]

When I have very emotional dreams about specific people, I too carry those feelings around, and at the person in the dream. It's hard to separate sometimes that those are just dreams, and this person did not do such and such.
I do meditation before I go to bed. It helps calm my mind and makes the night terrors/nightmares/sleep walking a bit less.

I also do a lot of dream recall, so as soon as I wake up, I write down what I have dreamed. Through doing this for years, most times I am able to stop a nightmare and wake up out of it (not always, sometimes the PTSD wins out). But it certainly has made sleeping a lot easier.
I hope you can find some resolution that works for you x

 

[EveHarrington]

Hi, are you in therapy? I found that my nightmare issues improved the more I healed.

 

[joeylittle]

I can sometimes manage my nightmares by spending time doing almost any kind of visualization exercise before I go to sleep, or while I'm laying there working on going to sleep. Doing some kind of progressive relaxation, or listing to binaural beats and visualizing the same kind of space that I use when I need to picture something coming out of intrusive memories...just putting energy into de-stressing, really. I think, when one is using any kind of sleep aid, this is extra-important, because it's possible to go to sleep still being mentally stressed/agitated, and (for me anyway) that would pretty much guarantee that I'd have a bad night.

Also, it's sometimes a pain in the neck, but getting religious about no screens 2 hours before bed - I believe it helps.