Sleep being disrupted by dreams!

[GraceMarks]

I'm currently suffering from sleep deprivation caused by the fact that I have incredibly vivid and detailed dreams which make me wake up in the early hours. I then have trouble getting back to sleep, and only manage to doze on and off until my alarm goes off, then I spend the day feeling like a zombie. Sometimes the details of the dreams themselves are unpleasant and kind of linger in my mind, but normally they're incredibly dull and revolve around being late for appointments and classes.

Just for background, I try not to eat in the late evening - I usually finish my dinner at around 6.30pm and then go to bed at 10pm, and read for a bit before I put the light out. I always watch a bit of telly and try to choose reading material that's not too demanding. I don't have an especially stressful job or lifestyle, I just have the same niggles that everybody has to deal with.

I'm nearly 40, a bit overweight, and I think I'm perimenopausal, but tbh I've always been a prolific dreamer and I have always been able to remember them. It's only now that they've started affecting my sleep to this extent. Does anyone have any tips for toning dreams down, or else clearing my mind so they don't hang around afterwards?

I probably wouldn't mind so much if I was being transported to a magical dream world every night or getting to go to David Bowie concerts or whatever, but last night the dream was about not being able to find the classroom my exams were being held in. I haven't done any exams since I was 21...

Ahh this is me too. I’m just going to follow for all the suggestions

I always ask are you on any medication? Do you drink alcohol? I used to have similar problems till I tackled my drinking which had surprisingly crept up and up.

Feel your pain Op and Why. Interested to hear any tips. Not every night but I dream every other night, haven't done my homework etc. I am 51. I also have some more unpleasant dreams such as strangers/burglars in the house that I can't get to leave. Some of the dreams linger for a couple of hours and just start the day badly as well as the broken sleep. I deliberately don't read or watch anything scary as that gives me horrible stressy dreams.

I'm worse if I'm too warm in bed — have you just started having the heating on?

I’m on lithium and occasionally take a small dose of olanzapine but I’ve always vivid and often recurring dreams - don’t drink alcohol very often at home tbh, not even once a week.

My dreams just stay with me forever sometimes until I figure them out. It’s annoying because my brain is so slow and dull during the day then these surges of activity when I should be resting 😕 they’re not always overtly horrible but they can be unsettling

Also have lots of sleep paralysis and those semi dreaming hallucinations that I’ve forgotten how to spell.

Oldmum55 I'm not on any meds other than a daily vitamin and I don't really drink - maybe 5 units per month if that.

PolkadotsandMoonbeams I don't have any heating at home. When it gets properly cold I sometimes have a freestanding heater in my bedroom on a timer so that it comes on for when I get up, but I haven't got that out yet. I am often too hot in bed, though, which I put down to the aforementioned hormonal issues. Could be that?

Westwing1 oh god yes, the intruder dreams. I had a lot of those when I had a dodgy neighbour whose flat had an adjoining door to mine. It had been plastered over but it wasn't very thick so I always used to dream that he'd broken it down, and it was an entirely plausible scenario so I would wake up paralysed by fear that it had really happened! He's gone now, thank god.

Have you tried writing down the dreams when you wake from them? And maybe talk them over with any dream obsessed friends (I only have one in my life) that sometimes helps me dispel them a little. But often they continue to gnaw away at me

WhyDidIEatThat I did keep a dream diary when I was a teenager. Back then, most of them were about embarrassing myself in front of pop stars that I fancied at the time, turning up to school wearing only my pants, and the occasional nightmare about teeth and falling. All pretty standard for an adolescent.

I don't do it now because the dreams are usually so tedious and repetitive, and I think I would find it unhelpful to getting back to sleep if I had to switch the light on and start writing. But then again, I'm not getting back to sleep anyway so perhaps it wouldn't make much difference. I might try it and see what happens. I certainly wouldn't subject anyone else to hearing about my endless subconscious inability to catch a sodding bus...