Extremely messed up lucid dream

[Stay.Blazed.420]

I dunno if this is the right forum but i've never had this vivid of a dream before. I took 50mg of seroquel last night. If there is a more appropriate forum could a mod move it?

So last night I had a nightmare and when shit started getting really messed up and weird i became aware that i was dreaming.. Everything was trying to convince me i wasn't dreaming and that it was real life but i kept pinching my arm and felt no sensation.
I was at a mall and since it was nightmare-ish circumstances i wanted to wake up. I did not like the environment or setting at all. I DEMANDED to every person in my dream that i wanted to wake up. Everyone kept telling me 'no, you are not dreaming', or 'this is real' etc.. A couple times i almost lost my self-awareness but i kept pinching my arm every 5 seconds. I was lucid enough that i knew i could lose the lucidity if i didn't keep myself aware so i was constantly pinching myself. I started getting frustrated how i couldn't wake myself up.. I started punching people and attacking them saying 'WAKE ME UP' and they wouldn't fight back or anything they would just say 'this is real'. Weird thought started running through my head while in the dream like 'maybe i can't wake up because i'm in a coma?' or 'what if this is real?'. I just kept pinching myself to make sure i didn't feel anything.
Eventually it got to the point where i was getting mad because i couldn't wake myself up. I smashed a beer bottle on the ground, picked up a chunk of glass and attacked some guy at the throat. Nothing happened. Nothing gruesome either just nothing. This whole time people kept saying 'you aren't dreaming' etc.. I remember there was a point in my dream where i stopped attacking this person and thought 'wait what if i'm really doing this?' and i became scared thinking i just went psychotic and killed a real person. Everyone in my dream was always staring at me.
I came to the conclusion in my dream (i've never been so self-aware in a lucid dream in my life) that the only way for me to wake up was to kill myself. I took a big chunk of the beer bottle and tried slashing my own throat. But i STILL could not wake up! I started panicking why I could not wake up, because for most people - you would wake up by this point!
I found a screwdriver, and i jammed it into my face just below my right eye. My whole face went numb and had no feeling. I lost control of my body and i fell to the ground. Then I saw my own body laying there, bleeding from a screwdriver sticking out of my head.
Finally I woke up 4 and a half hours after i fell asleep. I was extremely tired when i woke up, and pondered writing this all down, but it was too vivid for me to forget. I didn't want to fall back asleep right away in case I fell back into the same dream.
When I did fall back asleep, i dreamed i was in jail. Another nightmare. Except it wasn't lucid that time...

Is the seroquel what caused the nightmare and made it so i couldn't wake myself up? I find it cool/weird that my subconsciousness tried to trick me into losing my state of awareness in my dream, but i wouldn't let it fool me.

 

[Darksidesam]

Sounds intense anyway.
The fact that you knew you was pinching your arm and at the same time the Lucid dream continued must have been quite scary

 

[Dave]

I couldn't tell you whether it was the seroquel or not, but sweet merciful Buddha was that ever a messed up dream.

(Say, have you checked out Blogs yet? If you're into dream logging, that would be a great place to do it. Jus' sayin' is all )

 

[suessmayr]

Seroquel has been known to cause bizarre, vivid and unpleasant dreams. Was it your first time with seroquel?

I'd say that basically everyone has one of these terrible dreams at least once in their life. I think it would be reasonable to see how you go with the seroquel again.

 

[Ixchellian]

I've tried a lot of different things to try an help me sleep..... amongst them, seroquel and trazodone.
Mein Gott..... those were some of the most vivid and memorable dreams I've ever had.
However, with trazodone at least, the dreams subsided after a few nights to their normal ferocity. I didn't continue with seroquel at all, having had some other uncomfortable feelings on that stuff.

 

[Stay.Blazed.420]

nope, not my first time with seroquel. but usually i take 25mg but i took 50mg because my prescription was upped. Knocked me out in ~40 minutes. I woke up sweating from this dream. I don't understand how i couldn't wake myself up, whenever i go lucid it's usually hard to keep myself IN the dream. I have to do the spinning thing and rubbing my hands together to keep my mind focused on the in-dream feelings if i start to regain consciousness . I tried so hard to wake myself up.. I know i didn't describe much, but the dream felt like it lasted forever.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Stay.Blazed, your description of what you experienced sounds like sleep paralysis. I suffer from sleep paralysis all the time, and it can be so vivid and realistic, and absolutely terrifying. There are many psychiatric medications that can cause sleep paralysis as a side effect, one of which is Seroquel. I also find that MDMA and opiates also cause me to have sleep paralysis for a few nights after taking them.

So yes, it was most likely the Seroquel that made you have these nightmares.

There's nothing to be concerned about though, it doesn't mean that anything is damaged in your brain or anything like that. Sleep paralysis can be scary but it is 100% harmless. Even though people might think or feel like they're dying during sleep paralysis, it cannot harm you. For people like myself who have sleep paralysis often and are very familiar with it, it can actually be quite enjoyable

 

[Stay.Blazed.420]

it definitely was NOT sleep paralysis as i have experienced that many times.. i just lay in my bed unable to move and hear wooshing sounds and see shit.. this was a full-on lucid dream.

 

[nuttynutskin]

I have my share of sleep problems at times. Lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, insomnia, fucked up dreams... You name it. I've killed and assaulted people in my dreams, woken up to throwing punches or kicking the wall lol. Anyways, sounds like it's probably the meds. The first time I took wellbutrin I had some really weird lucid dreams. Something to do with eating mushrooms, and a cat with a tail that fell off lol. Basically you'll just have to weigh your options as to whether you want to scale back the meds or change them, get off them, etc.

 

[andreas]

Iv had strange dreams even from taking 5-htp but nothing like what you guys have discribed, I would say it could be the meds

I had really strange dream for months after drinking ayahuasca, but they seem to have subsided some what now.

starngest thing though i had a dream the other night where I called out to god for help and waves of light came down and my mood when from anxiety to almost total calm and some of my schizophrenic symptoms have subsided since

A friend of mine who aslo drink ayahuasca has had sleep paralysis...he said you can pray and that can help, doesnt have to be formal lines just asking for help untill u get strong enough to fight them your self... Iv had sleep paralysis to but it was short, twice in one night...1st time i felt two hands pushing down on my shoulders, 2nd time two hands around my neck and i kicked the covers off and went nuts like I was going to kick this invisibe dudes ass man I was pissed

Dont know if many off you believe in any of that spiritual stuff

 

[suessmayr]

Sleep paralysis...that's that thing that all the people who claim to have had UFO sightings supposedly had. Sounds terrifying.

 

[n3ophy7e]

it definitely was NOT sleep paralysis as i have experienced that many times.. i just lay in my bed unable to move and hear wooshing sounds and see shit.. this was a full-on lucid dream.

Don't be so quick to dismiss that it was sleep paralysis mate

SP can be manifest in ways much more intense than just "lying in bed unable to move and seeing shit and hearing wooshing noises". I've had well in excess of 200 sleep paralysis experiences, and most have consisted of full-on hallucinations of me actively doing stuff and whole scenes playing out with people that I know or people that I don't know and fears that I have and realistic situations that could occur in my life, as though they were all 100% real. And then eventually after all the terror and panic I realise it's not real, and I realise that it's just SP again, and I can gradually work my way back to reality. This can go on for several attempts to "get back" before I wake up.
Sounds to me like something very similar to what you experienced, no?


Either way, regardless of what it was or what caused it, yes it was scary and very vivid, but no harm has come to you because of it, right? No doubt it was a profound nightmare, but you're okay.
Are you prescribed the Seroquel? If so, are you going to continue on the 50mg dose?

Sleep paralysis...that's that thing that all the people who claim to have had UFO sightings supposedly had. Sounds terrifying.

Huh?? I've not heard of this. I'm intrigued though!

 

[8L4YN3]

^This person is refering to the fact that a HUGE amount of alien abduction stories sound like they are simply Sleep Paralysis. The sense of a presense in the room, then inability to move, the terror and the pressure in the chest. Symptomns of SP as you know, but yeah heaps of alien abductions sound like the person was just purely having SP.

I've also heard other stories where SP has been interpretted as some kind of spirtual phenomina, i knew a lady who died from lung cancer, and about a month before she was diagnosed or perhaps longer before, she had a dream where she was completely unable to move and sensed some being pressing on her chest. She came to believe this was some spirit telling her of her cancer or something lol.

But yeah my point is the huge amount of people that arent aware of SP, that interpret it as being something spiritual. Although i've never met anyone who was aware of what SP was, and then subsequently had one of these spiritual experiences, instead they just tell of the SP experience they had lol. So it definitely seems people who arent aware of SP when they suffer it, frequently interpret it as spiritual contact of some kind.

 

[nuttynutskin]

My initial thought was that it's not sleep paralysis either, but that's just based on what I've experienced. I also have had the "wooshing" like sound whenever I've had sp, but never interacted with people or things like in the orinal post.

 

[charcoal]

Occasionally I've had weird dreams on seroquel but not at the dosage you mentioned. 50mg doesn't slow me down at all, sometimes I need 500mg. Mind you I get bizzare, exhausting dreams similar to what you described often, sometimes for weeks at a time leaving me tired all day. They are often total nonsense, partially lucid, extremely stressful, scary and nightmarish. I'm on a lot of psychiatric medication including olanzapine (Zyprexa) but have had these dreams most of my life. My mother is always horrified when I describe slipping and sliding in the blood everywhere in some of my dreams, smelling blood and guts, blood pouring from my mouth, etc. Fact of life for me, kinda fucked up....

I'm actually heading towards a career in paramedicine.....lol?

 

[n3ophy7e]

^This person is refering to the fact that a HUGE amount of alien abduction stories sound like they are simply Sleep Paralysis. The sense of a presense in the room, then inability to move, the terror and the pressure in the chest. Symptomns of SP as you know, but yeah heaps of alien abductions sound like the person was just purely having SP.

So it definitely seems people who arent aware of SP when they suffer it, frequently interpret it as spiritual contact of some kind.

Ahhh right okay, yes I totally understand what you and seuss are talking about now!! Sorry I was drunk when I replied to seuss' post and didn't quite get it. But yeah I'm totally with ya now.

And I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, a lady colleague at work told me a story of a ghost who visited her in the night when she was a child, and the whole time she was explaining it to me all I could think was "That was totally sleep paralysis" Every aspect of her story was a textbook symptom of SP! I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't a ghost though, and that there was a scientific explanation for it...as she clearly enjoys believing that it was in fact a ghost.

But yeah my point is the huge amount of people that arent aware of SP, that interpret it as being something spiritual. Although i've never met anyone who was aware of what SP was, and then subsequently had one of these spiritual experiences, instead they just tell of the SP experience they had lol.

Yep, absolutely. The amount of people that I've discussed SP with, and hadn't heard about it ever before, and have then thought about it and said "You know what? I think I've had SP before...I just never knew what it was though"

 

[charcoal]

Sleep paralysis is awful and I've had it a number of times (medication related) Usually I'd see dead, gray, bashed up bodies talking to me, sitting around my room. My eyes were open and could move around but I was, obviously, paralyzed and hallucinating (the "bodies" end up being just things and furniture). I knew what was going on though so with great mental force I could always wake up the rest of me after 5 or 10 minutes.

 

[zaggy]

Damn dude I can relate on the intense dreams..I've had a series of dreams where I've been horrifically harmed but for some reason in all of them I remained calm. Things like walking on a broken leg, being cut in a square around my solar plexus, and watching my arm explode in a war zone, being shot and burned, etc. But I just flexed and moved it around and looked at the bone and blood and whatnot. Sleep paralysis is another thing lol I won't get into that. 8(

Just try to ground yourself after those dreams.

 

[paranoid android]

Sleep paralysis is pretty scary that's for sure and Ive pretty much woke up screaming from a few of them. Where i live we call it the old hag . this might be due to the fact that you often see stuff out of the corner of your eye but since you usually can't move you can't quite see it. For me it's always been like there is a old witch in the room but i could quite see it most of the time. It's terrifying as fuck that's for sure

 

[Ixchellian]

I've been thinking about this..... and the few times I've had SP happen, which has been around 10 occurrences, over the 20 some years since it first happened......

It really seems to me that every time it'd happen and I'd become aware & alarmed, the episode would last longer and become very unsettling.
However, the last few times I had SP, I knew what was happening.... I actually tried to embrace the paralysis, to turn it around and possibly even fall back asleep. Except when I did that, the episode would seem to end very quickly, and I'd end up wide awake fast....
About a year ago was my last SP experience, and it was brief indeed. Actually....... It rather upset me more that it didnt last longer, and I couldn't go back to sleep. It was on a day that it wouldn't have hurt to have slept in on..... 8)

The only comparable feeling I know of, especially when first becoming lucid and having the "presence", being watched, or being restrained sensations when going into SP..... is when I've taken a serious dose of DMT. It wouldn't surprise me at all, if there's some odd biological connection between SP, and the effects we get off of DMT and/or curare-type drugs.....