nightmares

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i not sure if this is iin right place.. I just thought I'd talk Because, am frustrated. Because my nightmares. I get them a lot. And from everything. Like it can only be 5 seconds of something scary in television and i spend my night having nightmares and waking up all the time. Like . I saw like few minutes of this show "the walking dead" and i been having horrible dreams about it. I HATE sleeping Because dreams.. I also sleep with lights on and i can't sleep if am alone at home. Nights makes me freak out. How can i stop it???

Solutions are different for everyone. In my family, and this includes both the Aspies and the bipolars, it's about the brain chemistry. All the women in my family have nightmares, if we sleep on our backs. We train ourselves to sleep on our stomachs, then work up to sleeping on our sides, and we practice lucid dreaming by redirecting the way a dream is going, if we notice in time. For instance, I always know my dream is becoming a nightmare if I am inside a house, and weird things start cropping up in odd places (usually like sinks on the ceiling or staircases that lead into nowhere-sort of like the Winchester Mystery Mansion). You can How-To instructions on lucid dreaming all over the web. It also helps to reduce the amount of sensory stimulation you get, right before trying to sleep. So meditate or block out excess noise about 30 minutes-1 hour before trying to sleep.

I often have what technically aren't nightmares because I don't wake up suddenly with my heart pounding, but they are not pleasant dreams either. For example The week or so I have been getting pains in one of my back teeth when I clench them after waking in the morning (am I grinding them in my sleep?), and just the other night I dreamed that the same tooth started falling apart in slices as if someone had cut it up with a laser! I have dreams that my parents and I have been camping out somewhere and it's time for us to pack up and leave but it takes forever and I can't find anything or there are literally huge piles of clothes and things for me to pack. And then there's the one where I find myself in a home with no memory or idea of how I got there and I want to go back to my apartment but apparently I moved out but don't remember and someone else may have moved in it already. I often have lucid dreams but they're not always so great either because they go on for what seems like hours before I wake up and when I do I feel very groggy and like I never slept at all. Also I usually feel like I'm some kind of zombie or on some awful drug in the dream, I'll be wandering around and my eyes are closed even though I can see and I try to force them open but can't, and usually I'm several miles away from home and the only way I can get back is by walking but it takes forever and weird things keep popping up to slow me down, like cows or trailers, or I suddenly find my self about a kilometer back and have to start over again. Maybe it's because of my medication I have to take before bed to HELP me sleep. I used to be on a higher dose but I would get very sweaty at night and then be freezing in the morning because the room was actually cool and I once had a really bad dream that my legs suddenly stopped working and I fell to the floor and had to drag myself to a bed....

In spite of all this, I like to sleep. In fact I wish I could just sleep for weeks and do nothing else, mainly because I wouldn't eat. If only we could hibernate in the winter, we'd lose a lot of body fat...

Definitely limit how much visual stimulation you get before bedtime. I always read children's books before bed, because otherwise I get disturbing dreams. Doing things like a warm bath or shower, warm milk or herbal tea, reading something harmless helps to wind down before bed. Also avoiding caffeine. I used to have nightmares fairly frequently, also night terrors where I would get out of bed and sleepwalk and injure myself. I do have complex PTSD and sometimes I scream and then don't remember doing it.

You want to end your nightmares and your avatar is a horrific picture of a hand on fire?

Me too. If you know when you're about to have a nightmare try to divert it. My nightmares used to always start if I was walking up a dark hallway to my childhood bedroom. To avoid it starting, I just would walk into the bathroom or into the laundry, or say out loud in my dream "I know that this is turning into a nightmare!"

I have nightmares also, but they're usually triggered by something. If I go to bed stressed or upset, if I'm sleep deprived, if I eat certain foods or I watch something on TV that's scary they'll happen, so I try to avoid these things. It helps to know that if I am stressed and wake from a nightmare to think 'oh, I only had that because I'm worried about the exam' or whatever. If you think about it as a reaction to a problem in your life (e.g. stress) it makes it less scary.

Are your nightmares similar? Do they have recurring themes? Do they start off like normal or are scary from the word go? If you're not stressed or you just have them and don't know why, keep a journal beside your bed and write them down. You may find recurring people/situations, and then you can dream about resolving the situation. E.g. if you dream about a mass murderer knocking at your door, write it down, and think 'next time I have this dream I will not answer the door/have a shotgun/I will answer and it will just be kids playing a prank. This worked for me when I all my life had recurring nightmares about a particular 'monster.' Last year I managed to destroy him finally...

my nightmares are never the same, and it can be really ANYTHING to start them. Scary thing on Tv, scary sound, picture, word, smell.. Anything. Only when i knowi will get a nightmare is when i have high fever. And they never start in same situation, always different. I used to have nightmares about bears almost every night when i was younger, i never really found out why... They were horrible and made me become so scared of bears i didn't even walk my dog in forest. They have stopped now, i don't really remember when, but i never want them Come back.

As a previous poster mentioned, this could be the result of brain chemical imbalance. You can consult a psychiatrist about it or try some aromatherapy or teas which have calming effects.

You may be surprised but sometimes just finding the right smell (incense, flowers, etc) can have a potent calming effect that works while you sleep. Teas are also known to help with this.

I hope this helps you some.

Also when my Aspie daughter was very small, and used to have nightmares, I would sprinkle a little baby powder on her pillow. She had a positive association with that smell from babyhood, and it would soothe her and help her to sleep.

Well. Everything that has something to do with horses calms me. The smell, sound, pictures. But my mom would freak out if i took my riding stuffs in bed.. She hates horses

Have you thought of trying before bedtime...

... NOT watching scary programmes?

... Reading something from the era of Beatrix Potter or the Bronte sisters?

... Listening to "New Age" or Enya music?

... Having a bit of chocolate?

Possibly use a piece of cloth, do a rub down of the horse, then take that to bed with you. When the scent starts to evaporate, repeat the process.

Learn how to start lucid dreaming every night. Its impossible to have a nightmare when you know its just a dream. Get a wristwatch and use it whenever you wanna know what time it is. Write "am I dreaming?" on the watch and every time you see that, genuinely check to see if you're dreaming. After a month or so, the habit will be embedded in your mind so you'll start doing it in your sleep and as a result, you'll start becoming lucid in your dreams. I'm pretty much immune to nightmares because I lucid dream all the time.

Interesting. I have nightmares when something relating to counting happens before I go to bed (I used to have nightmares about people counting down as if something bad would happen when they got to zero) or a scary song gets in my head so I understand there. If you find horses comforting, why not keep something small relating to horses just next to your bed? Maybe a photo of one or something? Look at it before you go to sleep, and you don't have to tell your mum, just keep it in a book or under your pillow maybe.

Also try other things to relax, like read a book (not a scary one!) before you sleep, or listen to music that you know won't affect you?

Wondering if Emmy tried any of the above & if it helped