Vivid dreams /:

[luci]

I have been having mega scary, extremely vivid dreams relating to my anxiety's. They tend to base around my more extreme anxiety's (tsunamis, my abusive ex, people hurting my son)

These dreams hang around me for a few days while I try to make sense of them they are very traumatising, I can feel the fear, sadness.... every extreme emotion in them and it can set me in a state of depression/agoraphobia for a few days....

Does anybody else get this? Any tips on coping the day after?
Any advice is greatly appreciated

oh I am on citalopram 30mg

[BrownCow]

Water in dreams usually points to emotional uncertainty. A tsunami may be a sign that you are taking too much on at once and it's overwhelming you.

[ankietyjoe]

I'm not convinced trying to make sense of them is a worthwhile pastime.

I am awoken by vivid dreams on a regular basis, although they're not so much disturbing any more. I used to lay there and think about them afterwards, but it doesn't really serve much purpose for me. I'd rather think about something else and go back to sleep.

[nicola1980]

Hi could it be the citalopram causing them? Ever since i started my medication, venlafaxine, i have vivid dreams every night, some mornings i wake really shook up by them, i know its the medication causing them as I've never suffered with them prior x x

[Rennie1989]

I remember getting vivid dreams when on Citalopram. How long have you been on them for?

[PanchoGoz]

I get vivid dreams too. There is a website on my other thread "dreaming too much?" that explains why depressive rumination causes this. It is your body flushing out these emotions.

[kutuup]

I get frequent, extremely vivid and EXTREMELY disturbing nightmares quite often. I often have vivid memories of them most of the next day too. Last night I had a dream where I went to a party and met this really lovely girl and everything was going great, but suddenly the dream turned into a bizarre nightmare where everyone at the party started dying extremely violent deaths in horrifying detail. One girl was shot with a shotgun at point blank range for some reason, and I saw EVERYTHING, others were crushed by debris from a plane crash a few days later. Again, I saw everything in horrible detail. Then one of the girls at the party started tracking the survivors down and injecting their brains with some hideous, debilitating mental illness with a massive needle, including me. In the end the only person at the party left was the girl I met and had a thing with, and I went on a mission to save her, despite now being heavily disabled. During my search for her in some massive city, the dream just kind of stopped and became a mess of horrible images until I woke up.

It sounds crazy writing it down, but when you're dreaming it, it's TERRIFYINGLY real. In a way I sort of marvel at how your brain can create such vivid and real experiences that never happened. I'm a computer programmer, which might be why it interests me so much. We can make computers simulate things pretty realistically nowadays, yet we have this lump of meat in our heads that can simulate complete reality in photo realistic detail to the point where we can't tell whether it's real or not given the resources available when we are asleep. It's unbelievable how unspeakably powerful your brain is.

Anyway, moving away from geeky stuff lol, your dreams are essentially your brain organising your thoughts into long term memory. It's comparable to the process a computer goes through during shutdown, it takes things in volatile memory and stores them in hard memory. When your brain does this, a side effect is you seeing a mashing together of conscious and subconscious thoughts as they get placed from your volatile memory into long term memory. If you are anxious or depressed, those thoughts can often be unpleasant, right up to horrifyingly disturbing. I know first hand how unpleasant that can be, and the hangover it can leave you with. But trust me, no matter how horrific they are, even though they sometimes physically hurt, dreams cannot hurt you. You are always safe. You can absolutely feel physical pain and fear in dreams, but you are in no danger of real injury. I'm lucky in that I usually am aware that I'm dreaming (or realise it after a while), so I'm less afraid. But dreams can be incredibly frightening and painful, like in the dream last night, when that girl stuck the needle in my head, I could physically FEEL it like it was real. But no matter how real it feels, it CAN'T hurt you, that's physically impossible in every way. What you dreamed never happened, no matter how real it felt or continues to feel. You were watching a movie, just a SUPER messed up one. You are always safe and it cannot hurt you.

For all the games/movie fans out there, I tend to think of it this way: (NERDY QUOTE ALERT lol) "Sometimes when you go to sleep, you go on a little walk, and when you go on that walk you go to a place, called Silent Hill" XD

---------- Post added at 04:13 ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 ----------

I will also add that that quote was probably the only good thing in that movie, it let the games down in every way possible lol, but we're not here to talk about that :P

[luci]

Thanks guys glad to know I'm not alone, and yeah I probably shouldn't be trying to make sense of them but some are so violent/graphic that I start to question myself as a person.... like how could I have these awful things in my brain? If that makes sense? But from your answers I have a little more clarity.... so thanks a lot :) Yeah I was thinking it could be the citalopram, I have been on them over a year but my dose has just went up by 10mg :/

[Andria24]

I get them at the moment, though mine are completely surreal and not so much frightening as just plain weird. That said I'm a writer (in my other life) and I have a phenomenal imagination anyway so I think any dreams I have are always going to be a little off the beaten path.

And mine have started since I started meds (flux) so I presume that's why I'm getting them - a side effect.

[luci]

Yeah I presumed it was down to the raise in my cit dose. Its the scary/realistic part that I dislike the most :(

[debs71]

I have had this each time I have restarted Cipralex, and it is freaky and frightening, but totally par for the course.

I remember having extremely vivid, clear dreams when I first started meds 10 years ago. I could literally touch and feel things in my dreams, and they would wake me with a scary start....awful. I also had weird things happen, like I would wake from my sleep, and think I could see someone standing in my bedroom, like I would see the outline of them in the dark.....it was bizarre, but simply a trick of the mind. I thought I was going crazy.

I do also think that when our minds are highly stressed, it invades and disturbs our dreams, so it could be six of one and half a dozen of the other hun. x

[luci]

It just helps to know Im not alone.... I thought I was some kind of freak and I was sick in the head because of the things I was dreaming about. I was scared to tell anyone incase they thought I was a bad person

[theharvestmouse]

The only sex I have had in nearly 5 years has been in dreams. Yes I dream about it a lot. :mad:

[debs71]

The only sex I have had in nearly 5 years has been in dreams. Yes I dream about it a lot. :mad:

Aww, Harvestmouse.:hugs::hugs: