To find my dreams exhausting?

[friedaddedchilli]

Anyone else find their vivid dreams shattering? I constantly have "trying to get somewhere and everything against me" dreams. Feels like I'm fighting all night! I wake up still half in the dream and feeling absolutely drained.

Try doing relaxation exercises/audio stuff as you fall asleep. It may convince your brain you aren’t in fight or flight after all!

I get this too, but not that much at the moment. I remember it being really bad when I was pregnant.

Mine tend to be either wildly exciting (but scary) adventures, or deeply emotional situations - blazing rows with my mother, mainly.

Absolutely exhausting, and with the after effects of nagging uncertainty about what has and hasn’t happened the next day.

Oh I have intense dreams like that all the time.
Sometimes I will wake up and be thinking how exhausting and horrible the dream was but then go back to sleep and the same blimming dream will carry on.
Honestly.... stupid brain. Gimme a break 😂
I have recurring dreams. I have had them since I was a child. Sometimes in my dreams I am even telling myself "oh not this boring dream again...when will it finish" so I am dreaming about a dream while it's happening.
So weird.

Mine are usually about travelling. Catching a bus or driving looking for a parking spot. Sometimes I’m at the airport. I looked it up once and think it meant I was at a life crossroads, unsure which route to go, which does kind of fit.

They just don't remember them! Everyone dreams every night. It's more common not to remember. I always remember mine and am frequently surprised at how many people don't and claim they 'don't dream.' Uh, yes, you do.

For me its hormonal. My dreams when pregnant and when nursing were insane! Then got intense again when peri hit. So tiring. Once I started on higher progesterone doses that sorted it out. Also magnesium tabs (only started recently) seem to make me pretty dreamless too.

I frequently dream I have to go back to university because it turns out I didn’t finish my degree. But I haven’t written the essays or read the books and can’t even remember HOW to write an essay.

I’m always having dreams about needing to contact someone (often an emergency) but I can’t find my phone / can’t put the right number in/ remember the number. Or I’m trying to get somewhere urgently but obstacles keep getting in the way! So frustrating 🙁

Mine are a bit manic and exhausting, I never seem to wake up feeling refreshed these days. I am often lost on a journey catching wrong trains and my phone doesn't work. I also am perpetually house hunting through a series of increasingly grotty houses.

I did once dream that I was married to Henry Cavill, but my Dh woke me up with a coffee. 😂

YANBU I get dreams like this sometimes and it’s awful waking up feeling like you’ve not rested at all.

A common one for me is I’m driving and the brakes or steering wheel stop working and I’m driving along trying not to crash. Or I’m a passenger in the back seat of a moving car and suddenly realise there’s no one driving and I’m trying to climb into the front seat to take control but for some reason I can’t.

Im sure I’ve had ones like pp have mentioned where I’m trying to pack a suitcase but inexplicably failing at it. And getting lost in familiar places where for some reason I cannot find my way out. Also dreams where everyone around me suddenly hates me but I don’t know what I’ve done to upset them and no one will explain. It must be rooted in some sort of anxiety.

The dreams aren’t logical and make no sense but feels so vivid and real. I wake up feeling very stressed for a while afterwards. Why do our brains put us through this??

I used to have those. Everything going wrong but I just kept on going. Really stressful. I get them still if I have too much on.

So many of mine seem to involve living in an unfamiliar house, often with my parents, or finding myself in a job I left 25 years ago and struggling to explain that I don't work there any more and I'm expected elsewhere. The worst ones involve my ex being an obstructive bugger.

My dreams got really vivid when I first started taking amitryptyline bit that settled down after a few weeks. These days, post menopause, the worst precede a day of bothersome guts or correspond with bad joint pain episodes.

I could have written this! It’s bloody exhausting. Three or four themes over and over again. The car is not where I parked it or has gone missing from a supermarket car park. Or I’m trying to phone someone and none of the functions do what they should and I can never make the call. The packing one happens a lot as well and it’s always frantic - so many things to get into a too small case in a big hurry.
it’s so weird that other people have these themes too. I do wonder what the fuck it all means. 🤪🤪

I get the malfunctioning phone, as well!

I am a very vivid dreamer too. My regular is the malfunctioning phone/being unable to dial 999 in an emergency.

I’ve spoken to so many people who get that one in one way or another. It’s the most frustrating one I think!

Ugh I get it. I have recurring dreams about a previous relationship, so could be rape, being beated/thrown down the stairs, locked in the flat for weeks at a time etc. I wake up in such a panic. I have a wonderful partner now who recognises when I'm having/just woken up from those dreams and ensures me I'm safe.

I feel for you OP. I used to have extremely vivid dreams that would affect my mood and hang over me like a cloud. I would dread sleeping and it led to insomnia which obviously didn't help.
Not even scary just very vivid, but always uncomfortable. I can't explain it.
Anyway since I had kids 5 years ago they've stopped. I guess I'm just too fucking tired. I hope they don't come back as start getting more sleep again.
As a child I saw some kind of therapist for a kind of dream therapy? They helped me to 'take control' in my dreams when they were scary as a child.

I’ve had the phone thing too! Buttons just sliding away when I try to press them. So interesting that people associate this with stress. I wouldn’t describe myself as stressed but some aspects of my life are difficult and impossible to tackle, so perhaps that’s what’s coming out. The dream therapy is intriguing!

Agreed. Mine worsened after I quit drinking. I went through a rough patch and was drinking 5-6 bottles of red wine a week. Stopped abruptly and from the first night my dreams were so intense and haven’t stopped. I’ve also found myself having really awful romantic dreams about much older (and definitely unattractive) colleagues, it makes work super awkward the next day!

I had a brain injury a few years ago and since then all my dreams are in a version of this world, it's got the same places and people but they're different. So I'm basically going to bloody work and doing the school run in my sleep. It's infuriating.

Last night I had forgotten to make 100 school packed lunches (I'm a school cook) in the dream version of my work kitchen but all the lettuce was rotten and the bread kept falling into pieces.
I would like a break from it.

Less often, I'm about to go into my exams at uni but I haven't done any revision or coursework. Except it's maths I'm doing, when in real life I did Ancient History.

op this can be a sign of sleep apnea, I used to have horrific dreams and sure enough, I have sleep apnea. Some starting my cpap they have reduced massively though so that’s a bonus.

WOW I genuinely thought it was just me. I usually tell people I work with my dreams as sometimes they can involve world events/natural disasters (quite frighting really). And I have just woken up after a dream about being on holiday and having my camera stolen by a pair of twins ?!. I could actually draw a picture of the hotel and swimming pool it was so vivid.

definitely hormonal though and they’ve got worse since menopause.

Wow guys this sounds really hard! My DH has lots of vivid dreams and is a very light sleeper, I barely have any and sleep deeply. I remember dreams very occasionally, and it’s usually on a weekend when I’m lying in and I’ve rolled over and gone back to sleep, so not that deep into the cycle. I’d tend to think the Gp is right with sleep hygiene advice being important, and also prioritising going to sleep with a calm mind. Have any of you ever tracked your sleep to see if you are sleeping deeply enough? Like pp says, apnoea could be a consideration.

Same. It's been all my life. It's nice to meet others with the same affliction.

I have so many of these. The malfunctioning phone (haven’t had that for a while). And a lot of ‘can’t get home’ dreams, either on bus or train because they aren’t going the right way or don’t arrive, or I go back to my car but it isn't where I parked it. And dreams about walking around house/hotel/location that is familiar yet strangely different. Another favourite is guests arriving but I have not made the meal or even got dressed yet.

Also (this might be a bit niche because I’m a swimmer) trying to swim in a pool but the water is being drained out and I end up in a foot of water.

I feel better knowing that a lot of these are really common. I’m post menopausal and I think they have got worse as I got older, but I’ve been having a selection of those since my 30s.