I have a recurrent nightmare... like an almost every night nightmare...that I want to understand. I have had it for years. It started in my 30s. I am now 56. It morphs somewhat but basically it has been the same.
There are rules. The rules all have to do with either medication (taken, untaken, taken wrong) or behavior while sleeping. Things like who I spoke to in a dream or the order of events preceding sleep or how I slept (physically— on my side vs. back, number of covers.) Lately, it has been about the “rules of the sleeping game” which apparently I am playing against the world. In my twilight sleep, I seem to know these “rules.” Trust me, the waking me is clueless.
When I get “it” wrong which I do most nights I am punished by either a physical malady (hair/teeth falling out, being unable to move) or something terrifying being in bed with me, usually in my face. Recent terrors were a green and yellow sponge with liquid I had to drink, a scarecrow looking doll and my severed limbs—I could see them and knew they were mine but had no way to react. The most terrifying consequence is knowing that the next breath is my last, making me scared to breath until I wake up enough to think, “Damn, this AGAIN.”
Earlier, the missed medications were often birth control pills or “medicines that kept me sane.” (I have been on antidepressants on and off for years with a managed chemical depression. I know when it is starting and begin meds. It really isn’t a huge factor in my life.) Now that I am older, it is the medications that “keep me alive” which don’t exist in real life. In the dream there is a magic pill which I consistently forget to take, or a sequence of medications I mix up, and am punished for my transgression.
I wake up gasping and terrified. The feeling is that death is imminent due to my failure in all its glorious manifestations. Lately, if I am asleep and my husband makes a sound I scare us both by waking up utterly panicked. A few nights ago I told him to take it away, referring to some leafy abomination that was my loser award.
I tell myself it is nutty but it happens so often. I am successful in my job. I am happy in my life. I am just scared nightly. I don’t get it.
I have wondered if it has to do with sleep apnea. I am overweight and snore some, generally when I have a cold. My husband doesn’t report that I gasp or stop breathing. He says generally that if I snore, he can move my pillow and I go back to “sleepy breathing.” I have asked him if I was snoring before waking up panicked and he assures me that he had no indication of a problem.
Some nights I have it once, wake up and think “again?” and go back to sleep. Other nights it cycles and I have it again and again. I am often tired during the day. When I can take a nap, I do. I never have the dream during naps.
Any possible thoughts would be appreciated. I’d like it to stop, but if not, I would like to understand it.
