Waking Myself Up To Escape a Bad Dream

[Midnite]

Sometimes I wonder, does the trauma alone lead to ptsd or those reoccurence of nightmares everynight after the trauma contribute too?

 

[Deleted member 93]

Hope when you heal yes the symptoms are practically not there once you learn your boundries not to push you over. Managing. Except during PMS. I am convinced you can be at your best put PMS alone fill up the damn PTSD cup of stress we can handle! So one week a month take extra care. A perk for the ladies. ugh.

 

[Deleted member 93]

The nightmares are a symptom of, not a cause.

 

[Marlene]

Thanks, guys. Just that it happened for the first time the other day and kinda freaked me out.

*sigh* Are we having fun yet????

 

[mac]

Waking Myself Up To Escape a Bad Dream

I'm not successful at doing that. When I start having a nightmare, I can't seem to get out of it. I have to ride it out and survive. I have to do everything... run, fight, kill, hide, sometimes save my family... to survive either war zones, natural disasters, unfriendly cities, workplace stress and/or alien beings (similar to that movie 'war of the worlds'). It can be real exhausting. When my wife and I used to sleep together, she told me about all the flailing and whatnot. This is why I'm not inclined to fall asleep, or go to bed early... I stay awake as long as I can so that I am hopefully too tired to be affected much by my dreams. My dreams are usually so realistic that they negatively impact my mood once I'm awake again. Sht, its 04:50am, I still haven't gone to bed.

 

[Borderline]

I can waken myself from one of the nightmares I have. I used to think I was waking near the start of the nightmare. However I am in such a state that I must have been dreaming for a long time before waking, I seem to forget the dream.
I have nothing within arms length of my bed as I lash out in my sleep. One other thing I have found I need, is some light in the room, as when I waken I need to see something familiar to "tell" me I am back into the "real" world.
After these nightmares I dont usually go back to sleep as I am hyper, totally fully of stress hormones.
I recover quicker as I get older, especially now I am starting to learn about my PTSD.

 

[maus]

REM sleep

I have had nightmares all my life, terror, trying to wake myself up, thinking I made it out in one piece, and finding myself still asleep but awake in my nightmare realizing this after I finally did wake up. I seem to groan and move around in bed struggling to wake myself up.
Now for 3 years, (because of my trauma happening again), I can’t sleep at all. So no more nightmares (rarely) for me anymore. I started sleeping again now for 1 year or so. I sleep 2 hours the light superficial alpha sleep, after that I wake up, so I don’t slip in the deep delta sleep or REM sleep in which stage the dreams/nightmares occur. I fall asleep after that immediately and wake up again after 2 hours. So I do "rest" but don’t "recover". After some days I crash and sleep more hours. I don’t remember nightmares. I used to jump out of bed, scream, hurt myself etc. That’s gone now after this trauma happened 3 years ago.
I wonder if I found a remedy to prevent REM sleep, and therefore nightmares, subconsciously. Do I wake myself up before it goes wrong?