advice on getting rid of nightmares..

[crunchyplanets]

Is it even possible?

I get them about 90% of the time.

Last night was about a serial killer stalking me. I ended up stabbing him about 20 times with a small knife, and I ended up drenched in blood. It was horrible.

I always wake up, and stay awake for at least a half an hour to an hour, until finally going back to sleep.
These nightmares are seriously affecting me.

Does anybody have any tricks, or is my only help a sleep study?

 

[socko]

How was that a nightmare? You won and killed him. I have dreams like that all the time and usually don't even wake up for more than a minute.I suggest you learn lucid dreaming so you can change the content.

Is it even possible?

I get them about 90% of the time.

Last night was about a serial killer stalking me. I ended up stabbing him about 20 times with a small knife, and I ended up drenched in blood. It was horrible.

I always wake up, and stay awake for at least a half an hour to an hour, until finally going back to sleep.
These nightmares are seriously affecting me.

Does anybody have any tricks, or is my only help a sleep study?

 

[crunchyplanets]

Well, I've looked up lucid dreaming before and I seen that it can cause sleep paralysis to happen. I had sleep paralysis once, and I don't want to try something that might make it happen again. It sucked. It was after another nightmare and because I suffer from hypnopompic hallucinations I seen something from my dream holding me down.

To me, it was a nightmare. He was trying to kill my kid, too. And it felt like I was trying to get away forever until I was finally able to kill him. Then there's the blood. I mean it was squirting out of his neck. I hate blood.

I don't always get to kill people. Sometimes I get my throat slit, or other things.

I do appreciate your input, though. Thank you

 

[socko]

Sleeping on your side or stomach should prevent sleep paralysis. It does for me anyway. You can learn to prevent sleep paralysis other ways too, or at least when it happens, you can learn to get out of it fast if you learn lucid dreaming.

Also, sleep paralysis can be the beginning of a lucid dream. Hypnogogic hallucinations can be the beginning of a lucid dream too. If you find yourself in sleep paralysis and you realize what's happening, you can take control of it. So, if you learn lucid dreaming, you will sort of open that gate to sleep paralysis. But once you learn to handle paralysis, it will no longer be an issue.

With lucid dreaming, you can sort of explore your own psychology. You can do things like confront the zombie which probably represents some subconscious fear or worry. You can ask it what it wants or what it represents

 

[JessFR]

I used to be in your shoes, nightmares constantly, I still have them in episodes, where ill have none for weeks, then have them so often I don't want to sleep. Usually like yours I'm attacked in some way. Like the others suggested, I looked into lucid dreaming. Apart from drugs to suppress dreaming, which isn't really a realistic long term solution, I don't know if any other options.

Lucid dreaming has helped, if I can become lucid in a nightmare, I can sometimes leave that dream and enter another, or leave that dream and go to another environment of choice. Or if I can't leave the dream, I can turn it around on the attacker. Arm myself in the dream or weaken the attacker somehow. It's hit and miss. Another possibility is to wake yourself up from inside the dream.

It's an option, not a perfect option, but an option. Lucid dreaming is something that came naturally to me, and then I looked into it, rather than the other way around. Looking into the subject helped me learn techniques to improve the effectiveness of your control of the dream environment and maintain lucidity.

 

[Drderms]

I don't think there's a magic tea you can drink to make it not happen but you can defintly research skills such as training your mind to have good one

 

[wheaters]

5-htp can help with sleep and prevent nightmares. Although it has been said at the higher dose range (150-200mg) it can cause them. 5-htp is non toxic legal and OTC. Even buy it off amazon if you like, just don't mix it with ssri's? don't quote me on that. Just thought id'e drop a quick message!.

 

[manboychef]

why what happens if you mix it with ssri's?

I get sleep paralysis quite frequently. If I have it once, it happens over and over and it is terrifying. You try to scream but all the comes out is a muffled utterance...you try to move but you can't. There is some malignant presence in the room just out of view so you try desperately to turn your head, but all you can do is move your eyes.....ugh, I hate those. Especially because they come one after the other....and I take sleep meds, so as soon as I can force myself to wake up, I end up not being able to move again.