Long Ago Episode and Present Day Troubles

by Kay
(Canada)

Hi. Many years ago I had several incidents of REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder (never diagnosed but obviously this was it). In one of them I dreamed that there was an burglar standing in the door way. I remember thinking I needed to wake up my husband (who is very hard to wake up) so I jumped on him and screamed as loudly as I could. Of course, he woke up but, contrary to my expectation, he was not pleased. He said, "Wha?" I shushed him and screamed again. He yelled, "What the hell are you doing?" I remember thinking how rude this was and huffed off back to sleep without speaking to him.

The next day there was a news report about a woman who woke up to find her husband covered with blood and with 20 knife wounds in him. She had had a dream that HE was a burglar. This was too much for my husband who moved into his own room and has stayed there for the past 30 years.

For a long time, I often woke up to find myself racing out of the house or doing something similar. Sometimes I remembered the dream (always scary and violent) and sometimes I didn't.

Now, 30 years later, I still have bad dreams that disturb my sleep (last night I dreamed that some horrible liquid was being poured on the earth and creating destruction) but I don't seem to act on them unless I am very stressed out during the day. I often have to get up at 4 a.m. because these dreams wake me up over and over. Despite being very sleepy, I eventually face the facts and get up. A couple of hours of watching tv or working on the computer, I can usually get back to sleep for a few hours. Unfortunately, I rarely get a decent night's sleep because of these dreams which become much worse under stress.

I am also moody during the day and I think this is related. If I don't keep busy I have what might be called "waking nightmares". I get started on negative thoughts and have trouble stopping them. Usually, again, some time on the computer or going for a walk will stop them but not always. At night, of course, this process is harder to control.

I think my father had and my son has something similar as they have both complained about poor sleep and being constantly overtired.

I have used Dilantin, Tegretol and Lamictal for this problem, with success, but always quit taking them after a year or so because I thought it was a psychological problem and I "should" be able to get over having nightmares and "waking dreams" on my own. Maybe that's not going to happen, huh?