Do you ever have long epic dreams?

by Elsewhere 13 Replies latest jw friends

  • Elsewhere
    Elsewhere

    A few months ago my Dr. put me on Wellbutrin to help with angziety and depression. She told me some side effects would be strange dreams and ensomnia.

    Well... here I am posting about strange dreams at 3:30 AM

    What makes these new dreams really stand out is that they are very very long dreams that seem to last forever. I have even had a few span several nights of sleep!

    Along with being long they are also very stressful. It seems like the depression and anxieties the Wellbutrin removed have been injected into my dreams! Now my dreams are very long epic dreams in which I am constantly encountering problems that I have to overcome. As an example, tonight and another night I dreamed that I was at work and in a meeting where we prepared for a conference in another city. We were given information that would be needed such as hotel information, required attire (formal) and other details. I went and made hotel arrangements, but found them to be odd in that the beds in the diagrams always appeared to be in the middle of different hotel restaurants. (WTF?). Imagine seeing a bunch of tables everywhere with one area in the middle having a bed instead of tables like everywhere else. All of this actually happened in another dream the other night.

    Tonight I dreamed about the trip to the conference and there were all sorts of problems I had to get around to just get there including spy related "scene" where I was being chased and in turn chasing a main "evil spy" in a vehicle I would describe as looking like the high-power vehicle in Batman Begins. I have to admit... it was a blast driving something with that much power! :D I eventually made it to the hotel and it was a very fancy hotel. Extremely posh with huge hallways, art, amazing wood work, chandeliers and servant staff everywhere. Everything was of the highest quality. The problems at the hotel began as soon as I walked in. :S They gave me my rooms key card and the room number (#30) and I walked down the hall watching the numbers as they approached my number... only I went around a corner at the end of the hallway to find an entrance to a kitchen where my room number should have been found. I went back a bit to see if I missed it and ended up going all over the place dragging my luggage and a stack of important papers with me everywhere I went. After a very long time of going in circles trying to find my room and noticing that everyone else was starting to come out of their rooms all dressed up for the conference I finally went back to the front desk. The beotch at the counter looked at my card and told me that I was given a utility key card instead of my room key card. Not only that, this hallway and front desk that I walked to off the street were in fact on the 10th floor and my room was on the 11th floor. (WTF? I hate illogical things in dreams) I got on an elevator and pressed the 11th floor button only to have it go all the way down to the first floor... I had gotten on a "down" elevator instead of an "up" elevator so I ended up having to ride it all the way down and then press the 11 button again to go back up. :S I finally got off the elevator on the right floor and walked down the hallway with my new key card looking for my room. Keep in mind, these were HUGE rooms so the hallways were very long. In fact I saw a member of the cleaning crew going from room to room on a motorized vehicle that looked like a cross between a Hummer and a cleaning cart. (yeah I know... weird) I eventually found my room and was shocked to find that it was the entrance to a hotel restaurant! Sure it was all fancy and posh, but my damn bed was right in the middle of the restaurant with tables and people all around eating! :S I sat down at a table next to a guy I knew in the dream (yes, he was eating with a bunch of other people) and started asking what was going on and regretting that I had chosen a "budget" room that was so inexpensive because it was actually a restaurant. He just looked at me all stupid and said: "Didn't you see all of the tables around the bed in the diagram?" I had to say yes and even now I have no idea why I chose to ignore the tables. Maybe I thought it was a joke or something. All I know for sure is that the choice was made in that previous nights dream. This guy also pointed out that I was woefully underdressed and I looked down to find that I was dressed in your classed cheap JW blue polyester suit. :S I was supposed to be dressed formal with a tuxedo and I did not recall packing one.

    I think more happened after that which I cannot recall, but I soon woke up and here I am posting about it. There were also other things that are more fuzzy that I cannot recall much about, such as spending time in an old dusty classroom studying some very complex equations in a huge, thick old book with very small type and trying to make copies of several pages using huge photocopiers... only the teacher in the class kept trying to prevent me from making copies that I needed.

    Ugggg.... every time I wake up I am glad the dream is over. It is almost exhausting going through them. Right now I am thinking about not taking the Wellbutrin anymore. I just can't sleep! I'm even taking melatonin and valerian root before bed and I still cannot get a full night sleep except for every few nights. Many mornings I am waking up with a headache and a sore neck.

  • prophesariah
    prophesariah

    (((((((((( Elsewhere )))))))))),

    I can relate to what you are going thru. I don't usually recall my dreams. However, while taking Deprakote-ER I also have dreams that replay specific themes relating to issues that I am dealing with. These dreams seem real and go on for what seems like forever. They don't keep me from wanting to sleep or returning to sleep. If I happen to wake up in the middle of such a dream, I am usually able to fall back into it.

    Have you shared this information with your doctor? If it is disturbing your rest/sleeping that much perhaps there is a need for a change of some kind in your medication. Is this the only side effect you are experiencing?

  • zev
    zev

    i was on that to help me quit smoking.

    it did the job.

    then i had to quit the welbutrin. i just figure, stop taking it, right?

    wrong.

    i had to ween myself off of it. i asked the doc whats up with that, and she smiled and said, you cant do that.

    so i weened off of it like i weened off of cafine, and for that matter cigarettes. slowly. till i just forgot to take the stuff. i'm ok now.

    i'd like to say it didnt effect my sleep. but i dont know. i dont dream much as it is, if at all. my sleep is so bad that i had to undergo a sleep study, last friday in fact.

    i'll get the result the end of next month.

    i have a feeling that my brain and my breathing (lack thereof) are waking me up. its been literally years since i have had a "refreshing" nights sleep.

  • damselfly
    damselfly

    I rarely remember any of my dreams. I have problems falling asleep but when I'm out I'm dead to the world. Little blue smurfs could have a carnival in the room and I wouldn't notice! I used to wake up in the morning with tears running down my face but that hasn't happened in a while. No idea what I was dreaming about. Here are my opinions ( for what they're worth! ) Perhaps the Wellbutrin is reacting with the Valerian and the Melatonin? I have good success with lavender and chamomile. Have a warm (not hot) bath and put ~ 6-7 drops of essential oil of lavender in the water, be sure to breathe the steam in. I've also placed a few drops on my pillow just before bed. Chamomile tea is good, get a decent blend ( do you have Traditional Medicinals brand down there? they have a chamomile and a Nighty Night blend they are fanatastic! )

    Are you drinking too much coke? or caffeine in general? If I've had too much aspartame/artificial sweetner that keeps me up as well. And makes me really snappish.

    If all else fails try counting Apostababes instead of sheep.

    Dams
    (edit for spelling~ shocking I'm sure ) ( 2nd edit for losing my train of thought in the original post)

  • Tez
    Tez

    I have really long, in detail dreams and can often remember them when I wake up.. but you have made me think now!!! I take Efexor for depression. Also I don't sleep well, but I too have had to have a sleep study and seems I have Sleep apnoea (for which I am waiting treatment)... I snore something wicked!!! so this should help stop that! much to the relief of my other half!! But the most recent weird dream is as a result of learning that one of my sterilisation clips has come away and is floating round my body!! I dreamt I had a baby boy (this would be a shock as I am now 50!!) but he had this red moustache! to start with it was very neat, but then it got all straggly and I remember thinking if I shaved it I would have to keep shaving it and he would get stubbly and not look like a baby!! Think I woke up with the shock of it!!!

  • sonnyboy
    sonnyboy

    We usually remember epic dreams when we're in a shallow sleep. I usually have them if I sleep back too late (my brain wants to wake up, but my body wants to sleep).

    For some reason mine always involve some form of violence. I'm always confronted by someone who wants to fight or kill me, and one of us has to go.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    I sometimes can remember through 3 or 4 REM cycles of sleep. There are about 5 cycles for a regular night's sleep. My memory of the earliest recoverable REM cycle is usually somewhat sketchy and the other two can be exquisitely detailed. Last night I only remember the last one....watching tsunamis come in on Waikiki Beach, taking pictures (but it was okay because the really big one was coming in the next day when I would be gone...lol). The night before I only remember the last dream as well....getting really turned on at looking at an actual guy literally made out of whipped cream....

    The longest dream I recall was one I had in 1998. I wrote it down in detail after I dreamt it, but it involved first being on the Titanic as it was sinking, then the Turkish army crashes through the window (which represented a change of reality) and attacked everyone, and then I jumped through a window and walked up a pretty hill where some friends of mine were, and I was crying reading about something in Newsweek (I forgot exactly what it was), and the song "Closing Time" was heard in the air, then I woke up and the song was playing on the radio...

  • BrendaCloutier
    BrendaCloutier

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/97236/1.ashx

    I just had a very strange one this morning ( some stranger than others! ) And yes, I've had epic dreams span nights. I also have dreams that take me back to some of the same places I've been before - that don't look the the real places they represent, just to have another "adventure" there.

    Kev is on welbutrin an had problems with odd, epic dreams and sleep disturbances for a while too. It took a couple of months of playing around with the drug - when he took it, etc, to get thru the initial side effects.

  • vitty
    vitty

    Ive experienced about 3 epic dreams, they were like action films with a begining middle and end. They were very fast and exciting and had logical scenes in them, they were also in colour !

    And im not on any medication LOL

  • talesin
    talesin

    Epic dreams. Yes, I dream a lot. They are quite disturbing ,,, here is a middling-scary one ...

    Being kept on a compound, in a room of a shack. I cannot go outside the room, I am locked in, and my food is brought to me ... when they bring my food, they threaten me and tell me wait till it is my turn. My turn for what? oh, what will they do to me? Trying to escape. I finally get out of the room, and into another ... it is a kitchen with a large wooden table. Oh, I look down at the floor, and am revolted! There is a horribly mutilated black and white dog (a pit bull terrier of the English kind) crawling towards me, dragging himself along! I run, heart pounding, and escape to the outside. There is a lot of barbed wire! They are chasing me! Oh, can I find my way out of the compound? I hide under some brush in the woods. Running, running ,,, oh no, there is the mean one! can't ... get ... away ... they have caught me! agggghhh, I wake up in a cold sweat, trying to scream but no sound comes out ...

    uggh ... this is one reason why I can't take anti-depressants, these dreams do not need to be intensified!

    t

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