Hi Nusha -
Thank you for writing your thoughtful account.
Are you taking any medications? In particular, any anti-depressant medication? Anti-depressant medications are known to cause the occasion of nightmares in some people. If so, you should report your dreams to your doctor and ask her or him to try switching the type of anti-depressant. Some medications give people bad side-effects, while others have no adverse consequences at all.
If you are not taking anti-depressant medications, have you considered trying them? You obviously are very bright and an astute assessor of your own condition, and you have reported that you do not have the typical background profile for a person who suffers nightmares due to emotional distress. Also, you report that your father and daughter are known to have nightmares, which suggests a family or biologic predisposition. An imbalance in hormones may be causing the nightmares, especially as you do not identify any psychological stressors that precede their occasion. Depression is much more common in women than in men, because the female hormonal/endocrine system is so much more complicated than men’s. I would recommend that you speak to your physician about trying some of these new, very specific acting anti-depressants, to see if they do not give you relief from the nightmares.
Do you ever notice a coincidence between your menstrual cycle and the nightmares? If so, this again is an indicator that your dreams are caused by hormonal fluctuations - not unlike Nocturnal Panic Attacks, which are similar to what you describe, except that they occur out of non-dreaming sleep.
As for the rest of your history, it is natural for children to have imaginary friends and to pretend they are other people. I don’t find this unusual. Your vision of the child is unusual but you also were quite young. Imaginary friends and characters are real to children until they develop more reality discrimination ability.
The nightmares are disturbing the quality of your life to the extent that I think you should definitely seek some type of relief from the medical community. Why don’t you visit your doctor, and ask him about the situation with medications; whether you should try different medications or simply start taking one to see what it can do.
Best of luck and I hope you will write in a follow-up report!
Back to the original question
Back to list of common dreams
