Sleep problem: Vivid dreams & waking up exhausted
Posted , 98 users are following.
Dear all,
Im experiencing the following situation which perhaps some of you can advise me better.
History
Back in 2005, I experienced a sleep disorder condition that lasted everyday for almost a year. I would sleep with ease, but would remember my dreams very clearly and wake up feeling not rested and tired through the day. Prescribed medication did not help. I tried all means i.e. exercising, meditation, melatonin etc, all did not work. But after a year of torment, the condition just randomly left me after a year when I started full time work & undergrad studies.
Over the years
I do still get this problem especially when Im overseas for short / long trips. It seems quite random as sometimes it happens, sometimes it don't.
Present
The same issue revisited me and its Day 6 already. Same thing, I would go to sleep but having very vivid dreams (not nightmares) and wake up feeling tired / unrested. Sometimes halfway through the dream, the ringing of telephone etc (in reality) would suddenly wake me up and it feels as if someone had just pulled you out of the dream. Can anyone advise? Im out of ideas
7 likes, 172 replies
Drmess zeroX14
Posted
Camrapp zeroX14
Posted
My dreams are super vivid and scary. They aren't exactly 'good' dreams. They are actually terrifying. I have that same problem but my dreams are actually very violent and scary. In one dream my brother would take people out of there beds and skin them then eat them so I had to tear his head off to stop him. I don't understand what my dreams mean. If I used an emotion to link it to it's definitely fear.
sparrow- Camrapp
Posted
hi camrapp, i was thinking about that too today, about how to describe the 'mood' of the dreams i have, and for me i think it's: 'anxiety, and insecurity' (perhaps anxiety and fear are very similar things, don't know really)
KellySusanna Camrapp
Posted
If people are chiming in, I'll say that I've always described mine as dark. I've gotten fairly good about knowing it's not real life usually, so I don't usually wake up bothered. But they're very dark and sometimes I just want to wake up and escape them. I can rarely wake up without some outside help though. Dark dreams aren't always the case. Every now and then my subconscious gives me a break and there's something light. A few weeks ago, I very vividedly dreamed up a detailed movie trailer for a nonexistent movie. That was funny. But it's actually these little things that trick me and sometimes I can't quite tell if something happened or if I dreamed it.
12345becca zeroX14
Posted
Hi!! Not sure how to tell you to correct this, but I would love to know myself. I have the exact same problem. I dream so vividly and in such explicit detail that when I wake i fell as though I didn't sleep at all. I'm drained and exhausted and just want to sleep. Ive struggled on and off with this for my entire life!!!
becky_76331 zeroX14
Posted
I have had similar problem before at least five years on and off now however even if dreams are vivid they are very bizarre the most of are things that just would not happen in the course they do leave me waking up more exhausted and when I went to bed. I figure 99% of it is just stress because I seem to get passed the right job to pay all my bills and never need any financial help ever again. I don't dare try medication is then I'm afraid I would sleep too much and not be able to attend to the responsibilities I have.
esther13095 zeroX14
Posted
I can't tell you how happy I am to find this discussion! I have been searching for answers to my problem for so long. I have always had vivid dreams and trouble waking up, no matter how much sleep I get. When I'm pushed to get up out of bed quickly, it hurts my head and my body aches. I also get really angry and don't act very nice to those around me. I've had a sleep study done and they didn't find anything wrong with me. They have suggested I get my iron checked, but it's been checked many times and it always comes back normal, just like all of the normal yearly exam blood tests. My brain and my eyes feel like they are asleep when my alarm goes off or when my daughter tries to wake me. All I want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. I do take medication for anxiety, depression, and for ADHD. However, I've been suffering with my sleep issue since I was a child and I didn't start taking medication until I was 26 years old. In my research I've found that depressed people tend to suffer from heavy dreaming, because they are trying to sort out what is troubling them. However, I wonder if the lack of deep sleep is causing the depression, which then in turn causes the excess REM and so on and so on. I also read in one article of a small study where they found that people who have ADD have a brain that doesn't fire up the way non-ADD people's brains fire up - that it takes 30 minutes to an hour to fire up. I've read that sleeping too much can cause all kinds of health problems and now I'm following a study that might show that not enough sleep can cause the brain to not rid itself of all of it's toxins. I'm waiting to find out if it matters which state of sleep the person is in for the brain to rid itself of toxins. If a person has to be in a deep state of sleep for the brain to clean itself, then I'm in trouble, because I'm pretty sure I get too much REM. The theory is that if the brain can't clear itself, then certain proteins build up, which causes plaque that causes alzheimers. I'll follow up when I know more about the results of the study. For a long time, I took a multivitamin, fish oil, B12, D, and brain supplements - Ginsing and Ginko. My husband, who teaches science, convinced me that all of the supplements don't do anything. One day I stopped taking them and I haven't noticed a difference, so I guess he was right - my pee was expensive. Another thing I've done in the past is excercised. I find that when I excercise, I am exhausted all the time. Frankly, I'm afraid to work out, because of how I feel. However, my doctors keep telling me I need to lose some weight (I'm overweight - not obese). I used to be skinny for a long time until I had one baby after another (3). Even then I suffered from the same sleep issues, so I know it's not my weight causing my problems. Another thing I've done is ate extremely healthfully - fresh fruits and vegetables and protein. I even tried eating a veagan diet for seveal months. Both didn't make any difference in my sleep issue. After my brain wakes up, I'm fine the rest of the day (not tired). My medications help me with my depression, anxiety, and ADD. I do deal with stress, because I run a business and because of problems my son is having. But, like I wrote, I've had the same sleep issues since I was a child, so what I'm dealing with has nothing to do with the reason behind my sleep problems. Some rare days I have to take a nap. That's usually on days where I'm getting sick or I didn't sleep all night. I HATE taking naps, because I go into such a heavy dream state, that I can't wake up. My dreams are so vivid and scary and when I get woken up by my husband, it's very upsetting for me. I usually have adventurous dreams - like an action packed dream where I'm leading a group of people out of harms way. Sometimes I come across an article that has some answers that I want to try, but I don't bookmark it, to come back to it later (I kick myself). One article was about that study on wake delay and ADD. Another was actually a forum like this one where one person wrote that her doctor prescribed gabapentin for excessive dreaming. She wrote that it helped her have more deep sleep. My husband happened to have some and told me that it has a lot of off label uses. I tried 300mg and it helped a lot! I felt more rested and I couldn't remember my dreams as much. At the same time, I was using a sleep cycle app that measured when I was in light sleep, so that the alarm could wake me up at the same time. That app helped me wake up at the "right time", which was better than being ripped out of a dream state when my alarm woke me up at a specific time. When I added the Gabapentin, it became even better!!! I feel more rested. However, when I take the gabapentin without using the sleep cycle app and I get woken up by my daughter, I feel agitated and groggy. Another thing that makes me agitated and groggy is when I sleep too much (12 hours) and then wake up natuarlly, even when I take the gabapentin. I was reading a study that showed that people who sleep too much tend to have more and more vivid dreams as they continued sleeping longer and longer. So, to summarize, what I plan on doing (more like want to do) is go to bed at the same time every night, use the sleep cycle app so that it wakes me up within a one hour window at my lightest sleep - between 8 to 9 hours of sleep, and take the gabapentin. I will check back in to let you know how I do.
esther13095
Posted
I'm replying to myself to update anyone who read my long post. The Gabapentin seemed to be the answer to my problem, but I'm back to feeling tired in the morning even though I had plenty of sleep. The app shows that I'm in more deep sleep when I'm on gabapentin. I'm back to square one where I have no clue.
I used to think that my exhaustion was related to my eyes, because they were so dry and felt so heavy and tired. I would have to apply so many drops of eyedrops. I was told that many of my meibomian glands are clogged, which causes dry eyes, because the meibomian glands don't release enough oil onto the eye and therefore the eyes dry out. There's treatments that work. I'm going to try to be consistant with those. I'll report back how those go.
esther13095
Posted
Here's another update. When I get sick, my body screams to sleep, so that's what I do. This last time, however, I must have slept 21 hours for two days. I woke up here and there to take medication for my chest congestion and to deal with all of that yuckiness. I ate very litte. In that sleep, I had so many vivid dreams, that it could be someone else's month worth of dreams.
apu91247 esther13095
Posted
girl-charley esther13095
Posted
Hey Esther,
Reading about your experiences has been interesting. My doc also gave me gabapentin to try. The way he described it's function to me was that it wouldn't make me dream less, but would simply "cause my dreams to have less of an effect on me", ie, cause me not to remember as many of them/remember them as vividly-- he was exactly right. Whenever I would wake up in the morning (after taking 200-300mg before bed), I would still feel sleepy/groggy, like I had dreamt a lot, but I was amazed at the fact that when I thought about it, I could really only remember one or two images/scenes as opposed to entire stories/plot lines. I was ecstatic! Just the fact that I couldn't remember them helped me to convince myself that maybe I wasn't dreaming as much-- sort of like a placebo-effect-type-thing if that makes sense... because I know how many dreams you remember has nothing to do with how much you actually dream-- but regardless, I felt like it helped.
However, I still wasn't where I wanted to be, ie, I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment, and if I did, like you, I knew I was doomed in terms of trying to have a productive day because I would be OUT.
So, my doc decided to have me try Provigil (modafinil).....
I tried 100mg, then went up to 200mg. It only really helps if I'm already having a good day, like I got up at a decent time, showered, and I already have coffee in me. But if I was tired and just tried to take it in the morning to get me going, it wouldn't do a whole lot. Because a lot of times I would start to get real sleepy mid-day, like to the point where "If something doesn't change soon, I'm gonna have to lay down," and I would take some, and I'd be okay for another hour or two, but then I wouldn't be able to stand it any longer and I'd lay down, and I'd fall asleep as easy as if I hadn't taken anything at all.
Here's where things get weird though...
So, I've technically been on Provigil for ~5 months now. Yet, I have yet to use it for the entire length of the prescription..
The first time I got it, I didn't take it every day-- I wanted to save it for the days I really needed it (in case I wanted to take more than my initial 100mg dose on days when I really had to get stuff done). Within the first week, I took it maybe 3-4 times. About 10 days into the prescription, I open the bottle to take one and there are 9 pills left in the bottle (when I should have had ~26 left). I was baffled. I would rack my brain to try and think of where or how I might have lost some, if I put the bottle in my purse and maybe didn't put the cap on all the way, and maybe some fell out somewhere..? But then I thought about it, and the bottle had not even left my bedside table, much less my apartment.
This same series of events happened the second time I got the script.
And then the third. I was furious. It actually caused a pretty big fight between my boyfriend and I because I kept asking if he had been taking them. I told him "I don't care if you want to take them, but please tell me so I don't constantly think I'm going crazy!"
Eventually, I sat down and did the math (once again) with him. I told him, "Okay, I got 30 of them 10 days ago. I've taken 5 of them since then, and somehow, there's 6 left." He goes, "Babe, you've taken more than 5." I ask him when. He tell me he can't tell me exact days and times, but every once in a while he'll see me wake up, lean over, and take one or two. Then, he says, I'll get up and I'll go do stuff for a few hours, like do the dishes or clean, and then I'll come back to bed and lay down (this is like middle of the night, early morning-- between 2 and 6 am). He said one time when I got back into bed, I just laid there, half laying half sitting with my back against the wall with my eyes closed, and he goes, "Are you okay?" He said without opening my eyes, I just said, "Yeah, I'm just so tired," and I rolled over and went back to sleep. Did not remember ANY of this any of the many times it's apparently happened.
There have been other instances where he's woken me up to ask me something important, and I've gone back to sleep after, then later, when I wake up, I would get upset because he did the thing he asked me if I could do and I had no recollection of him asking or me saying yes!
Long story short: the gabapentin made me do things in my sleep that I didn't remember-- INCLUDING TAKING THE MEDICATION I NEEDED TO HELP ME STAY AWAKE DURING THE DAY!!!
Soooo.... essentially, I was taking something to help me sleep better so I could be more alert during the day, which in turn, caused me to basically sleep-eat the medicine I needed to ALSO help me sleep during the day! HA!
Now, I've stopped taking the gabapentin...
But I'm still eating the Provigil in my sleep...
Back to the drawing board.
Going to try a thing with strobe lights someone mentioned to me-- something about how the different types of lights and the different frequencies at which they flash (like the sleep sounds out there that affect your brain, making you enter certain sleep stages and such faster), puts the brain into a deeper sleep.
Anyway, just kind of wanted to share my roller coaster ride of an experience with gabapentin since this is one of the few (one of the first? don't know, havent scrolled all the way through in a while) times I've seen it pop up on this forum.
Keep us updated on your progress and good luck to you!
girl-charley
Posted
Correction: "to ALSO help me *stay awake* during the day!"
whyso48276 esther13095
Posted
Does Gabapentin work?
anafin7 zeroX14
Posted
Hey! So I completely understand what you're going through and my reply to your original story is a little delayed, but I'm hoping someone on here can help me.
I've been stuck in the same problem for about 3 weeks now. Ive read all about things that can cause vivid dreams and exhaustion, but the problem is that I don't have any causes that have been listed. I'm 19 and I have never taken any medications, I don't have any kind of medical problems, I'm not pregnant, I don't do drugs and have never done so to have any kind of withdraw symptoms that may result in vivid dreams and exhaustion. I don't know what's going on. The only thing I do know is that my period has been all over the damn place. 40 days, then back to 30 days, then another month and a half before it comes back. I've never been this irregular and I don't know what causing it. Maybe it relates to the dreaming? Messed up hormones? But then what would cause that? Someone help! I'm so tired of being tired...if that makes sense.
esther13095 anafin7
Posted
I hear you! There's no sleep diagnosis for us. Sure, people will look in to insomnia, but not into the problems we deal with, which results in the same thing: being tired and not getting enough sleep. I wish I could give you some answers. I'm trying to figure it out for myself, too.