I'm plagued by bad dreams...why?

[Gravity1]

I have always had a lot of bad dreams, ever since I was a child. They often have themes that repeat; some have been repeating for over 30 years now! But recently my dream life has gone crazy - every night all night feels like one stressy dream after another. I wake up feeling emotionally drained. Really bad ones can really colour how I feel all day. The weird thing is, there isn't anything particularly stressful going on in my life to explain it. I am peri menopausal, maybe thats what it is..? Anyone else have any thoughts? Its driving me mad!

I think my bad dreams are caused by my hormones. I can only sympathise as I have no idea how to prevent it. It is vile. I notice it particularly when premenstrual and when pregnant/post natal.

Ditto, Gravity! I take anti-depressants and have for a long time, but over the past few months my dreams are constant nightmares, really vivid, often horrific or harrowing, always intense and dramatic and they do have a huge impact on my mood for the day, I carry the after effects with me and can't shake them off. Also have recurring dreams that I'm very familiar with now. I am on HRT but don't think that is the cause. These nighttime experiences are really getting me down and it's a rare night that I'm not plagued with these. I find they're also very draining as you feel as if you've been through something so intense in your sleep, so am much more tired than I used to be as a direct result. Would love to find a solution/expalanation! Probably a sign I'm completely bonkers, which would fit :)

Am likewise reasonably bonkers citrus But interesting that you are menopausal too. I haven't been finding my peri-menopause very easy so I kind of latched onto it as a possible reason for the even-worse-than-usual dreams.

op. You might want to put this in general health or even chat or menopause to get more traffic

CitrusSun
Is it possible that your ADs or HRT stuff is triggering them? The leaflets with them may say something about it?

fwiw, I very occasionally take a tonic. But I cant take it for more than 3 days. Else I start getting very vivid and emotionally draining dreams.