Huge fear of sleeping

[sadtimes]

Hey so I usually post on the OCD forum, so hello everyone

This is hard to explain.
So for a few weeks the idea of sleeping has really scared me. I sleep talk and it stresses me out so much because I say incredibly embarrassing things that I recorded on a sleep talking app. I swear a lot, which I don't even do when I'm awake.
Here are some examples, they can be funny, which I still don't like.
"F*ck you, no one likes you" - Weird, why would I say that
"I'm not giving you a blow*** on the club roof, Spongebob" - That one made me laugh so much, I hate it but it was funny. (This sounds like I'm trolling but I'm not)

There are more that I'm not comfortable with saying.

So okay I think the reason why I hate sleeping at the moment, is because I have a massive need to control everything, I don't like being drunk because I'm not in control, I opt for local anaesthesia on dental operations because I have a fear of not being in control.

I'm also scared of my dreams, because they are often very weird, which means I don't feel in control in that aspect.

This is really affecting me, because I've started staying up to the point where I physically can't stay awake any longer and it's impacting my health.

I don't know what I can do. I'm staying for a week with friends on holiday next week and I'm terrified, I have no idea what to do. Some of the stuff I say is so scary and weird, that my friends would not be able to look at me the same.

[Davit]

Been there, turns out I was passive/aggressive and Agoraphobic. I was scared to sleep with anyone incase I said something. Once told a nurse she looked like miss piggy. Well she did. But what miss piggy looks like is in memory. Everything you say is in memory, just not as you put them together. Your first outburst could be from a movie. It doesn't mean it is you.

[MyNameIsTerry]

"I'm not giving you a blow*** on the club roof, Spongebob" - That one made me laugh so much, I hate it but it was funny. (This sounds like I'm trolling but I'm not)

Thanks for cheering me up with that one! I shouldn't laugh but I just know its going to come back to me everytime I see him anywhere now!

I've said some weird things in my sleep. I never new buy my GF told me about it. That alone made me wonder about whether I could ever say anything that would be wrong in front of her or something even about her. How would she take it? Would she think it was the "real" me and what I normally hide from her?

As far as I know, mine we not along the lines of the themse that can be seen in OCD which can be a worry for us as to how others will take them. One she told me about was how I was arguing with my self but she couldn't quite make out what about until I ended by raising my voice with 'I'm telling you it IS Vic Reeves wife'. At the time I had been watching I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and I think they must have been in it at the time, I can't remember now.

My mum once told me that she woke my dad up laughing. She was laughing out loud in her sleep! When he asked what about she told him that she was dreaming that he was cleaning out the pond from the rockery above, lost his balance and fell into the pond! I guess thats what 50 years of marriage does

If you took peoples dreams and showed them to people, they would likely be very shocked. I've had all sorts of mass murdering ones after watching action films. I've told people at work about them for some humour and it always got a laugh.

So, are you possible viewing this from the point of view of someone seeing your intrusive thoughts rather than someone seeing your dreams? I tend to think of them as the same sometimes but only from the point of view that they do not mean anything, we are not the subject of them, we are still who we are - the person guided by our higher moral systems which will not change from an anxiery disorder.

We tend to think the worst with these disorders and that we will be judged all the time, usually very negatively. This is often a Cognitive Distortion.

[Davit]

Very good explanation I think.

[sadtimes]

I still don't understand this website lmao

This is in reply to MyNameIsTerry

"So, are you possible viewing this from the point of view of someone seeing your intrusive thoughts rather than someone seeing your dreams?"

Yes very much so, the idea of accidentally saying something to do with my intrusive thoughts is scaring me so much. I've been recording myself for 3 weeks every night and I haven't said a single thing about them, yet have such a huge fear around it. Thanks for your answer it was very helpful!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Right, so can you possibly take that 3 weeks of hard evidence and use it to challenge your thoughts about these fears that you could say something? Because you have no evidence that you would?

I realise we will want a 100% risk free guarantee with things like this due to possible impact it could have but I don't think we can get things like that with thoughts, more with situations or something physical. With something like this, you can hang onto that 0.000001% chance and it just holds us back.

If we say something strange in our sleep, I would think there is more chance of those around us laughing because it is just strange but at the same time they don't analyse it to think how it could be the persons real thoughts seeping out (its not).

Its like how we walk down the street anxious and think how everyone else can see we are. They can't and they may look at us and not even register as they are busy thinking about their own things. People just aren't that perceptive and I think to spot someone showing mild symptoms of anxiety, it takes someone who's trained to spot it or has been through it.