Dreams after starting medication

[Mango2]

Just wanted to ask those of you taking anti-depressants, and specifically Citalopram, if your dreams at night have changed since you started?
I've been on Citalopram since 2006. Started the first year on 20 mg but have been on 10 mg the last 9-10 years.
Ever since I've started I've very often, at least a couple of times a week, had dreams about abandoned warehouses, farms, old empty houses, or that I'm in a big forest walking around. Also there's always a strange "atmosphere" in my dreams, that's rather hard to explain.
Before I started on the medication my dreams were "normal". Mostly they were pleasant, once in a while I'd have nightmares, but probably not more than anybody else.
I remember when I'd have the type of dream that was almost like a small adventure, and you'd wake up in a good mood.
Now, when on the meds, I almost never have any scary or nasty dreams, but still they're weird as explained above, with that strange atmosphere...

So whats your experience. Have your dreams changed? For the better, for the worse?

[panic_down_under]

Started the first year on 20 mg but have been on 10 mg the last 9-10 years.

Taking what is a sub therapeutic dose for most may not be wise. Antidepressants have no direct effect on anxiety, or depression in the way say aspirin has on a headache. They work by stimulating the growth of new brain cells (http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/depression-and-the-birth-and-death-of-brain-cells/99999) (neurogenesis) to replace cells killed, or prevented from growing by high brain stress hormone levels. The therapeutic response is produced by these new cells and the stronger interconnections they forge, not the meds directly and this requires a minimum level of the med in the system to initiate and sustain.

The problem with taking sub/borderline therapeutic doses is neurogenesis may be interrupted whenever plasma levels drop below the amount needed to sustain it which could lead to the second issue, the growing evidence that antidepressants become progressively less effective every time they are stopped and restarted. Two studies, Amsterdam JD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27805299), 2016 and Amsterdam, 2009 (http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/226611) found the likelihood of antidepressants working after each restart drops by between 19-25% (see also: Amsterdam JD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18694599), 2009; Leykin Y (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469884), 2007). This applies whether returning to a previously taken antidepressant or a different one. Taking a low escitalopram dose for months may create a similar situation as stopping and restarting it. While the neurogenesis interruptions will only be of short duration, they will probably occur much more frequently.


So whats your experience. Have your dreams changed? For the better, for the worse?

Many report having more vivid dreams when taking antidepressants. I suspect the meds don't actually change the nature of the dreams, but lighten the depths of REM sleep making it more likely we become conscious of them and better able to remember them. I used to have some beauties when on imipramine. Glorious wide-screen Technicolor extravaganzas that would have made Cecil B. DeMille envious. Sadly, a med changed ended them.

If the dreams bother you then you could try switching to escitalopram (Lexapro). It is essentially the same med as citalopram sharing the same active citalopram 'S' isomer, so there are usually no issues from the switch, but the small variation in chemistry can produce subtle differences in their side-effects.