PLAGUED BY NIGHTMARES: PTSD, Dreams, & What Helped

I have nightmares literally every night... I didn’t know they were that bad until my boyfriend told me he rarely gets nightmares

ptsd-type nightmares are awful. i have them maybe once or twice a week, which isn’t terrible, but it makes me not want to sleep. i made a friend recently, and three days after meeting her, she appeared in a nightmare despite not doing anything wrong. it made me distrustful of her for quite a bit. absolutely merciless.

i have nightmares every night. i knew this was part of ptsd, but i didnt know how to stop it. my doctor said theres nothing i can do. i thought id just have to live with it. thank you for assuring me that i dont.

I started getting nightmares when I was in trauma. And I kid you not, I had them MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK! My mom would be like “do you ever not dream? Why do you dream so much? Why do you have so many bad dreams? You just had a nightmare last night.” I would avoid sleep, try calming music, etc and nothing worked! Lexapro helped for a bit (I’m still on it) but I have them a lot. And very rarely are they the weird unrealistic ones. Majority of my nightmares are either realistic, possible, or a flashback. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up screaming, crying, unable to breathe, kicking and punching the air. They come in waves for sure but I feel like now (unless I’m stressed) they’re not as bad? Like I’ll go a week or so without a bad dream and it’s so nice! But then when I get that first bad dream, I’ll have a bad dream for the next week. So it’s very flip floppy

I took a nap and had a terrifying nightmare. I ran into my daughter in the kitchen and told her about it. I just said "wow I had a scary dream." When I told her my dream she said " Mom, maybe you should talk to someone, its not normal to have as many nightmares as you do." I was surprised. I never thought of it as abnormal. I was raised in an abusive home and had many other traumatic events in my life. When she said that it dawned on me, I rarely if ever have good dreams.

As a new spouse to an amazing wife who suffered abuse in her past, I know how hard it is for her to sleep at night. Thank you for sharing !

I have been having nightmares every single night for as long as I can remember now (at least 8 or 9 years). The settings and stories are always vastly different, but they are always filled with negative emotions (fear, anger, sadness, powerlessness, helplessness, guilt, pain, loneliness, abandonment etc). I wake up super tired, emotionally drained and with my heart pounding out of my chest. Therapy, medication (Prazosin), sleep studies, meditation, yoga, different diets, sleeping shorter/longer, move to a new place, you name it and I have tried it. Absolutely nothing helps. I live a healthy lifestyle, don't drink, no medication/drugs, sleep 8+ hours a day, have a stable income, a wonderful partner.. No particular stresses in my life. No clue how to fix this, but I'm soooooooooo tired of it :(

I've heard that recurring dreams are typical for PTSD because the brain is still trying to solve the unsolvable problem. Part of me is still thinking that there was a way to avoid or change what happened. If I only were stronger, faster, smarter... Over the years I spent training in my dreams I should overpower all Marvel villains - and heroes. But I only get to the next level with new obstacles. My therapist advised me to accept what happened with all consequence. At this point I use to swear a lot.

The last few nights I've had the girl who effed with my head years ago show up in my nightmares and I'm literally non functional. Felt suicidal yesterday at work and a random lady walked up to me and said she's a psychologist and asked if I wanted to talk. I wish I got her contact info bc she's way nicer than my current therapist who is too busy for me only 20 minutes or so a week talking to her I need more time to talk

And also I've noticed napping during the day I've had much better quality sleep than at night. I'll fall asleep literally anywhere when I'm exhausted. And for all you guys camping is nice even though I still get nightmares I feel it's easier to transition out of that state of panic in the morning when waking up outside

It’s not exactly the same thing, and I’ve never been diagnosed with ptsd but when I had clinical depression I had chronic sleep paralysis, for about four years. It was a little bit on and off, I could go one or two months with nothing and then suddenly it would become relentless, suddenly one week it would happen seemingly every other night, multiple times in one night. It was terrible, definitely made me feel unsafe in my own bedroom and afraid of going to sleep. This happened in roughly 2009 to 2013 and during that time there was still not very good awareness of mental health issues so I couldn’t really talk to people about it... sleep paralysis is still very poorly understood in the medical field and it doesn’t have much of a treatment plan. The only thing I found that helped was smoking weed, because when I did I didn’t dream. It put me in a different state of mind. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore lol

Bizarre... I woke up from a ptsd nightmare and this notification was on my phone.

I have CPTSD and have had nightmares frequently for the last 5+ years. I do have lessened periods of them, but they have never fully gone away and they fuck with me very badly. I have them at least 4-5 nights a week during the grace periods, but generally they occur every single time I go to sleep, even if I just try taking a nap. I’ll get to a point after a while in a bout of them where i become numb to them and the nightmares just don’t phase me anymore, but after I get a “grace period” where they are easier to cope with, I am hit HARD when they come back again at full force. I wanted prazosin to work for me so badly; it was my last ditch effort by the time I got prescribed it. Unfortunately my body wholly rejected it. I felt like I was having a heart attack without the cardiac abnormalities; I felt like I was going to collapse at any moment, had muscle weakness in my left arm/shoulder/neck, got fatigued instantly just from standing up/ walking around, etc. my experiences were so bad I could never take it more than one time (tried it 2 times a couple years apart, second time was a Hail Mary that maybe my body would play nicer with it that time). I just entered another relentless bout, and I just have no idea what to do anymore.

I don’t get nightmares as often as I used to. But for a period of time I had them every night. They where so intense and so realistic I honestly did not want to go to sleep. I was just as afraid to sleep as I was not to sleep. A lot played into these situations and nightmares and I am very lucky not to have them as often as I did back then. However I still struggle with sleeping at night due to being afraid of getting a nightmare or whatever else. But it is lovely to know that I am not alone in that situation.

My worst nightmares/flashbacks come from traumatic O.R. experiences

Prazosin was one of the most helpful things that helped with my recurring PTSD-related nightmares! Glad it helped you!

I don't have big problems with nightmares, however, once in a while, I have nightmares every night for one or two weeks, which is so exhausting. I can only imagine what it must be like to struggle with this on a regular basis. I struggle more with visual flashbacks once the lights are off, that makes me dread going to sleep too. To all of you who struggle out there, I wish you all the best!

I've had many nightmares lately all related to the same topic (assault as well) hopefully self-defence lessons and therapy can help cause I definitely have been afraid of going to bed too.

yep! i get those too. and yes it feels bad when everything in real life is related to it.

I haven't had trauma related nightmares. One thing that did happen after what I think of as my Trauma was that I was terrified of forgetting the details. I've always had a terrible memory, and I was so afraid of forgetting any part of what happened to me because I felt that forgetting would invalidate my experience. Because of that, I worked very hard at remembering those details, going over them in my mind constantly. Thank goodness I've moved past that now.