Disturbed sleep/weird dreams/confusion

[aeroz21]

Does anybody else have very weird dreams and sometimes wake up feeling quite disorientated and confused? I have been having disturbed sleep the past week where a lot of the time I just feel half asleep. Then when I am all the way asleep I have weird dreams. The ones that worry me the most are where I am doing things around my house, then it confuses me when I wake up because it was so vivid and real. Then I worry that I'm going to 'lose control' while I'm awake and then end up in this weird dream state I seem to have created while I'm asleep the past few nights!

Am I making any sense?!

[JaneC]

Could be a side effect of your meds aeroz. I take a different one from you but I think it's quite common. Don't know what the solution is, sorry, but try not to let it worry you too much x

[aeroz21]

I'm hoping it is the meds & that it will fade away out of this phase soon, because this is so unpleasant. These dreams are so weird and vivid that it confuses me even when I'm awake.

[unspoken]

Yes I have this exact symptom. Afraid to say that it started when I started taking sertraline, almost 6 months ago now, and I still have vivid dreams. They have got a bit less disturbing but they are still vivid. For a long time I was waking up feeling low and depressed or anxious because of the dream I'd had. The past month or so I've been feeling quite a lot better though and my dreams are still vivid but now some of them are funny or random rather than upsetting or scary. I do have moments where I think I did something, but it was actually just in my dream. Like I was going to top up my Oyster card (public transport pay as you go card) because I'd been travelling on the trains in my dream and had run out of money. It took me a while to realise it was just in my dream.

Still though, compared to most of the side effects listed in the leaflet, this is a fairly minor one. I was prescribed amitriptyline 10mg as well which makes me sleep more deeply so I take it occasionally when I am really struggling to get proper sleep.

[aeroz21]

Dang, 6 months? I'm relieved to know that someone else has had my exact symptom, so thank you for that, but I'm also quite put off now that you say you've been experiencing this for so long. I'm going to see my mental health team advisor later and I'm going to ask if I can switch to fluoxetine which really helped me in the past. All I remember that doing was raise my anxiety, but that was it. I didn't have any problems like this. It's scaring the crap out of me, I have to say... .