Living the nightmare

It's 12.57am....it's 1.14am....it's 2.45am....many of my draft posts have started this way recently, all describing why I'll purposefully try to keep myself awake at times during the night. Sounds bizarre when you consider that I desperately crave a good quality nights sleep, doesn't it? Sounds even stranger when I say that this is a response to dreams, nightmares. Hang on, what? Dreams? 'Nightmares'? Most people can understand the negative effects of say hallucinations or sleep paralysis, but dreams? Come on, I'm kidding right? These are all typical reactions by those with average sleep patterns. However, say it to another PWN and the response is very different, because they know / understand....


An extract from a 2.45am rambling...
"I wake sickened by the scene that has just played behind my closed eyes. The pillow is soaked - how long was I crying for? The pull for rest is greater than my conscious disgust at both the dream and myself for being capable of such horrific scenes. I slip back and find myself watching the same disturbing scene again. 'Rewind' and 'play' buttons that I have no control over."

An extract from a 1.14am rambling...
"Eyes fly open. Images of the scene I hoped to have forgotten burned into my minds eye. My cheeks are damp and another side of the pillow is soaked. I feel physically sick. The disgust sticks to my skin and the questioning begins...what kind of person has threads of such thoughts buried in their mind for a dream to weave together? The pull for sleep is stronger than before and no sooner than I wake, I'm thrown back to that same disturbing scene again."

Another extract from the same 1.14am rambling....
"No, not again. Nausea has built, as has the anxiety and repulsiveness towards myself. The same dream, the same strength of feelings, despair. A sleepy arm tries to comfort "it's just a dream, go back to sleep". This is the last thing I need to do. He doesn't understand. Most don't. My dreams are filled with realistic emotions, feelings. The sadness and despair I feel when asleep is as real as the disgust I feel upon waking. My mind is defaulted to process it as such." 

The reason why my dreams disturb me so much? I feel within them. I experience emotions in much the same way I do when I'm awake. They are far from the average mish-mash of images that most people experience, instead they play like entire episodes or films. It's almost like watching a sick reality-style horror movie, with the people I care about as the 'stars'.

I've been plagued by these night time disturbances for years now. Most PWN plunge straight into REM sleep within minutes, and consequently our minds have a tendency to take our concerns, worries and manifest them into dreams. If a previous nightmare is on my mind, its likely that I'll revisit the scene over and over again until I forcibly stop the cycle. I've learnt that keeping myself awake with the aim of using another part of brain helps with this. Suduko works well as a distraction technique for me; forcing my mind to fully concentrate upon a puzzle which requires a methodical and logical approach. After two or three of these puzzles, I can close my eyes safe in the knowledge that my mind is distracted and won't automatically revisit the horrific, unwanted visions that I have taken steps to escape. I do consequently have a lot of dreams about suduko, but this is much preferable to the alternative!

It's my opinion that if frightening and sickening night time experiences (nightmare, hallucinations etc) are constantly experienced, they can have a deep, emotional impact upon people.

I believe that a few years ago constant, repeated night time disturbances affected my confidence to parent my children. Hindsight's a wonderful thing and I can see the logic of it all looking back now. How a vulnerable woman (as most are in the early post-natal days in my opinion), off meds (due to concerns of how they could potentially affect the baby) and as a result experiencing an increasing amount of dreams, nightmares, visual and audio hallucinations (all central to one theme...an intruder coming into her home and abducting her children), would begin to doubt her self-worth and identity as her children's protector.  My post natal illness began with anxiety. A need to check on my children after every disturbing episode, for my own reassurance. Every experience mounting up a self-disgust that led to one question..."What kind of person is capable of such horrific thoughts?"  And so began a cycle...

I made the mistake of confusing the content of dreams with conscious thought. I lost the ability to rationalise that the two are very different, with the first being nothing more than a mixed bag of data absorbed over time from various stimulus....TV, newspapers, internet; the slightest exposure to information that we may not have even registered at a conscious level. None of these are ever completely under a persons control. You can make an efforts to avoid certain TV programmes, films, news stories; however information will still sneak through, sometimes unnoticed. So for those reading who can identify with this post, I give you two words that can have enormous power..."Me too".  A "me too" to the statement..."I believe my night time visions, hallucinations, nightmares are mainly responsible for some anxiety issues I had previously."

To quote Julie Flygare, "you're not alone" , lots of PWN have experience nightmares with heightened feelings, which suggest that they are the result of a physical illness, not a sick mind.