Violent Nightmares

[blueangel371115]

I've been having violent nightmares the past few nights and I'm scared. I wake up in the middle of the night, whimpering and scared. I don't know what to do. I hate feeling helpless or waking up in a sweat. In the dreams my family is being attacked and I'm being taunted and threatened. Help!

 

[Reclusive]

I'm sure other people will have better advice for you than I do. I have the same kind of dreams and they can get pretty gory, too. For me, it helps a lot to share the dream with someone else, or at least write it down. Gets it kind of out of your brain that way. I still have them every night, though, so I don't know how much help that's going to be.

 

[Heather]

Hi Blue -
Try this it might help. My therapist suggested this for my daughter when she has bad dreams. Right before you goto sleep think about what you WANT to dream. Picture in your mind where you want to be i.e. the beach, park, Who is with you? What are you doing? Having a picnic, eating lunch..... What does the day look like? Is it sunny out? Or is it nearing sunset? Try and be as specific as possible.

Sometimes thinking about what you want to dream about right before you fall asleep will help the thoughts seep into your subconcioous. Hopefully, you will end up dreaming about what you were thinking rather than having bad dreams. It works for my daughter. Maybe it'll work for you as well, never know.

Hopefully, this helps. Wishing you a peaceful nights sleep without nightmares. Heather

 

[blueangel371115]

thanks guys, I'll try that. I read for atleast an hour at night to get my mind on another track and that seems to help.

 

[rjtransient]

I have the same problem. Anti-anxiety medication seems to help, but only in the sense that the dreams aren't as vivid, or I don't remember the details as clearly when I wake up. When I'm awake, I write it down, deconstruct it to get the images out of my head.

I like the idea of reading before bed or using Heather's mental imagery technique. Giving myself something more benign to worry about during the day seems to reduce the violent nightmares. After I forced myself to take up new hobbies and go back to college, the dreams start to reflect the day to day reality. The form doesn't change (meaning, I still have upsetting dreams) but the content does. I can't stop the nightmares, but I can give my subconscious new and less scary material to work with.

I'm not sure if this helps, but I wish you luck. If you can talk to someone about the nightmares, that might help, too.

 

[blueangel371115]

yeah , i was on buspar and that seemed to help but I wanted to try not taking it. I'm going to a new therapist som maybe I should go on it again.

 

[blueangel371115]

I had another one last night, probably due to the days events. Luckily, I was able to wake myself up. I had to power-down for a bit but after that I was fine. For the first time, I was able to wake myself up.

 

[Vee Lagrome]

I have a huge problem with this. In my nightmares, the gore is just incredible. When I have these kinds of nightmares, I usually wake up sweating, crying, and feel the need to throw up and my entire day is just ruined. I have tried the mental imagery and it doesn't seem to help very much. Some of these dreams start out very happy, like one started out with me and my husband holding hands and running through Disney World (where we had our honeymoon), and then we get separated and I witness all this violence and gore. It's crazy. The clonazepam I take does seem to make them less violent, but I still have them. I think it might be the suppressed rage, which, as my therapist has talked to me about, is the mask for the feelings of loneliness and sadness. When I identify my anger in that way and think about my emotions and what I'm feeling and why, my dreams tend to be a little better.

I remember when I tried this, I still had a nightmare, but it was just so ridiculous - I was playing pool volleyball with my husband (and this was extremely important because it was saving the world somehow) while a giant toy army guy (the green ones with connected feet) was stomping around in the pool trying to find us (but he had terrible eyesight, so we would simply move out of the way when he walked by). I woke up from that feeling anxious, but I mean, that's just kind of funny, I think. So, I recommend emotion-searching + drugs. Hahaha.

 

[Missy]

Been there.

I tried IRT, and it worked pretty well. Also, I notice that if I talk about my abuse that day, I'm less likely to have nightmares.

http://ptsd.about.com/od/treatment/a/Imagery-Rehearsal-Treatment-For-Nightmares-Related-To-Ptsd.htm

Of all of the crappy things about PTSD, this is #1. Can't even get some time off while you're asleep...

 

[Froggie]

still have nightmares, but the combination of meds and therapy has helped me put a distance between that nocturnal memorie related to the source of my problem. The other thing now is that I don't seem to fear sleeping anymore, but that's because I've been really trying hard to help myself getting help. Just that was a battle in itself. Just to all here that are trying to take care of themselves, don't loose hope, you will find a right combination : be it medication alone or with therapy ... or helpful advice combined to all the rest of the tricks. PTSD is so complexe, there is no one size fits all solution to this problem. Don't give up, being able to find just a good night's sleep is already quite a victory in itself.