Hi all,
I know several people have mentioned vivid dreams. Since we are all on many different medications than one another, it makes me wonder if the dreams are medication related or just another crazy VM symptom? I had quite a night with them last night.
There was a night a couple months ago that I was startled awake by the loudest dog bark Iāve ever heard, seemed to be right next to me in bedā¦ we donāt have a dog and I havenāt been around a barking dog in years! Another time I literally heard a āzapā in my brain, like an electric zap so loud that it woke me in a slight panic. Anyone else have these strange anomalyās?
I had an increase of dreams while on Doxepin, some of which were really weird. I would sometimes dream about food which I found funny cause I did have a pretty healthy appetite while taking it. Amitriptyline may have given me auditory hallucinations. I would hear real faint music, like it was coming from another room. When I investigated I could find no source for the sound. Very weird. Luckily I fell asleep quick while on it and didnāt have the noise in the morning. I wondered if it could have been an increase in tinnitus that I interpreted as music. Who knows. I am not on any medication now and am not having weird dreams or sounds and am actually sleeping quite well.
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No medicine! Good for youā¦ thatās wonderful! Hope you are doing well? I am pretty fresh into Amitriptyline, so that may just well be a culprit. The ādog bark and zapā were both when I was just falling asleep. The vivid dreams are deep sleep dreams. Brain is an incredible thing!
I am doing so much better than I was. I am actually having moments where I feel normal. Itās fleeting but itās something. I may still need medication but decided to take a break for a bit and try supplements. Theyāve been so much easier to tolerate.
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Itās the Amitriptyline almost certainly. It can give you the odd unpleasant nightmare too, but these were rare for me.
The jolting wake-up could be symptoms.
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āNightmaresā are actually listed in three commonest side effects in the patient leaflet in my Propranolol pill packet. Iāve always dreamt quite alot but itās been many vivid dreams virtually every night since I got on Propranolol. No ānightmaresā to date. Fortunately. Helen
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Hi there, yes I dream every night, very vivid and colourful. Thankfully none that are nightmarish or frightening even as I moved up in dosage. Listed as common side effect of venlafaxine.
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I dream like 3d colorful movies, I even realize when I am dreaming that I am dreaming and can manipulate the story, if that makes sense. Nothing weird there, people that believe in psychoanalysis and dream interpretation and also connecting with the unconscious knows how to do this. I was (and I am) into dream interpretation although these days I donāt do a lot because I am not sure what is my āfreeā unconscious and my āmanipulatedā (by med) unconscious. But more seriously though, I read in several peer reviewed articles that, at least, antidepressants, such as venlafaxine, altered the sleep cycles, making the deep sleep shorter, and increasing the REM sleep, which is when we dream, so we dream more on these meds. I started wearing a sleep tracker, and apart from the first hour and a half at the beginning, I spend all the time in light or REM sleep. No wonder why I am so tired in the morning!
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Yep, I had lots of zapping coming off Paxil. Itās fairly common as the brain adjusts to changes in doses. Feels pretty scary, but quite normal.
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So interesting! Last night I dreamt I had a tooth crack and breakā¦ I do have TMJ and grind like crazy, so when I took my nightguard off this morning I was certain I would find a crumbled tooth. The dream was real feeling!!
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Erik, yesā¦ that brain zap was so intense I woke up with such a start and almost hyperventilated! Strange thing the brainā¦
Yes to the dreams! I have very vivid dreams. I can literally feel like I can touch things in my dreams. I tell my hubby and I feels like he thinks I make things up. I talk about things that happen in my head and people look at me like Iām crazy. I feel like we feel things differently. I tell my Neurologist and she confirms what I say and says yes she has heard of this or that from other patients. Itās crazy.
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Jocelyn, indeed it is crazy! I guess our brains are in hyper mode whether we are awake or asleep. So glad your Neuro understands!
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Hi. You mentioned doxepin. Were you on this in an effort to prevent the migraine or strictly as a sleep aid? Just wondering if it helped with the symptoms.
I took it to prevent migraine. It helped for a while and I tolerated quite well but it stopped working unfortunately.
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Thanks for answering. Sorry it stopped working. I was on it before my dizziness started for sleep help and it also stopped working for me for that reason. I was thinking maybe try it for the other symptoms but itās too bad it doesnāt work for long.
I had vivid dreams virtually every night for over two years with the Propranolol. No nightmares, just long vivid dreams that I could remember when I woke up. Iāve always dreamed a lot anyway so it didnāt really bother me too much in fact many were very entertaining if a little ridiculous. Not sure when their regularity ceased exactly but sometime beginning of the third year on meds I guess. Hadnāt had any for what seems like many months then last month or so just occasionally they seem to have started creeping back in. Not regular, just occasional. Last night off we went again. It wasnāt until much later on today I made the connection. Three, possibly four times in the last month or so Iāve forgotten to take my third dose of Propranolol of the day, ie my drug level dropped by one third, and last night was the most recent miss. It seems the dreams occur following such a miss (I can definitely link three occurrences to this now) so perhaps itās alterations in brain chemicals that causes us these vidid memorable dreams all along. Helen
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Then again along comes another experience and further thoughts come to mind. Any drug increase seems to bring on vivid dreams again but otherwise just normal occasionally remembers dreams until just recently. For a while now I am having the No Can Do/impossible to meet the deadline type dreams virtually every night and they become increasingly more The Looking Everywhere for Something of The
Greatest Importance and unable to find. Last night it was a job application that should have been there and wasnāt and I think I may just have hit in why. I am obviously looking for a Solution. Last evening I was reading about the Corvid-19 situation so in my subconscious I must be seeking a Solution. My brain is trying to make some sense out of the current situation it seems.
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