What fresh hell is this?! Anxiety dreams/hallucinations

[PeckyGoose]

This is something I've had for as long as i can remember, but very infrequently - once or twice a year maybe. But over the last few weeks it's happening more frequently and over the last couple of days seems to be every time I sleep.

I don't like spiders. I wouldn't say I'm arachnophobic, but I have a strong dislike and do not want them near me. If there is one I the room, it has to be removed.

As I say, I've had it occasionally for a long time but now it's happening v frequently where either as I'm falling asleep, presumably to a deeper sleep state (seems to be somewhere around the first hour mark) or presumably as I'm waking from sleep, I'm "seeing" the room where I am, the bed I'm in, and a spider casually walking across the pillow next to my face. Then of course I wake up in a panic and chuck pillows around looking for said non existent spider with my heart pounding before I have a word with myself and settle back down. I say "see" in inverted commas because I think it's a dream - when it happens when I'm falling asleep I can see the bedroom but in reality its so dark that if it were real, I wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.

I've had a rough few nights sleep with the heat and kids not sleeping etc. so this morning I tried to grab an hours sleep in my bed and it happened as I was nodding off. Gave up. This afternoon, husband and kids were out so I tried again, this time in my sons bed as it's at the back of the house and quieter with better blackout curtains. Happened again but it was his bedding that I "saw" rather than mine, so I don't know if I'm awake or asleep or what the hell is happening when this occurs.

In general I'm not an anxious person. Quite the opposite in fact. But I have had random anxiety creeping in lately, which ties in with something hormonal going on, I'm being investigated for what they think might be early perimenopause but obviously they need to rule out anything more sinister first.

Has anyone ever experienced anything similar and if so, have you found anything that helped? It's happening so frequently now and actually affecting my already shit sleep 😩

Are you peril menopausal?
I get awful anxiety dreams even on HRT but not with the frequency and ferocity of before.

I have a lot of symptoms of, which are massively ramping up seemingly with each cycle, although am only mid 30s hence they want to do some investigations first to rule out anything else

Hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations. Have also had them during a period of anxiety (also spiders!). Worth mentioning to whoever you’ve been seeing to investigate your other symptoms, but iirc they’re not often suggestive of a serious problem.

Had this a few months back-never really experienced it before. I was incredibly anxious at the time and having a lot of awakenings. It freaked me out a bit because I knew I was awake but would just catch the end of a hallucination. Other times I'd see a vision with my eyes closed. It was usually spiders! It went away for the most part after that worst period of stress was over.

Is it possible you have a sleep disorder? I have narcolepsy and you've described my hallucinations, which can be most nights or go months with none.
I go into REM very quickly so I'm not actually fully asleep when it happens and anything I dream feels like it's real.

Yes I frequently get night time hallucinations. As said upthread they are called hypnogogic/hypnopompic. It's horrible, you have my sympathy. I've had them ever since I can remember.
I went through a spider phase, now it's usually people/faces. Sometimes super random things.
It takes ages for my heart rate to come down after.

I have the spider one. Roaming across the ceiling.

I have the spider dream have gad since childhood, theres hundreds of then running down the walls/ on my pillow. My husband has to wake me up and remind me that Im dreaming. Its so lifelike. I sometimes get him to check my pillow before I lie back down! He always does. The other dream is a person standing at the bottom of the bed in a black cloak staring at me. Its terrifying.

It does sound like hypnagogic hallucinations. I have sleep terrors (another parasomnia). Nowadays I have them a few times a year, but they tend to come in clusters; for example, three nights for two weeks. I "see" threatening beings and people in the room I'm sleeping in and wake up screaming, but I'm not completely awake. At my worst, I jumped out from my bed, stumbled, fell and bruised my arm.

Thanks everyone, seems it's pretty common, spiders particularly!

Has anyone found anything that helps or is it just a put up with it scenario?

@PeckyGoose Could you try a different sleeping position? I think sleeping on my back usually keeps me more awake and more likely to have visions like that. Although it doesn't always correlate as mine was mostly anxiety related. But if you do sleep on your back you could try sleeping on your side and see if it helps.

Yes I used to have dreams where I'd see a very real big spider in the room and would wake in a panic, but eventually I realised I was seeing the spider in a room with the lights on, when in reality the room was dark when I awoke. So that filtered back to my brain that the spider I was seeing couldn't be real. The dreams then stopped, thankfully!