[query.dreams]

[wispfox]

Anyone have any suggestions for making me dream less? It seems to go along with having a restless night, and it's really becoming a problem from the perspective of getting restful sleep (and not waking up in a really annoyed/melancholy/frustrated mood - the melancholy seems to be purely dreams-driven, but the other two are almost certainly from sleeping poorly). I _think_ it's an aspect of wintertime and my melatonin subsystem being fucked, but I'm not sure.

Valarian tends to not work for me, at all, if I'm having trouble getting to or staying asleep. At most it makes me sleepy.

Melatonin at least gets me to sleep, but if I'm restless will not keep me there for very long, or very deeply.

Benadryl and similar make me sleepy, but not sleep and not stay asleep.

I really don't want a perscription med to help me sleep, both because they are geneally addictive, and because I've found that any meds which have a side effect of having me unconscious most of the time make for really poor (although generally dreamless) sleep. Worse than if I slept on my own (only real example of this I have is strong painkillers, like Percocet).

Suggestions?

Comments

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you are not getting beyond dream state into restful REM, that is a sign that your body believes getting beyond there is dangerous to you in some fashion, usually. It is normal to dream and fade to REM, but if you are getting more and more restless, you should seriously consider asking your doctor about a sleep study to make sure that you don't have a real biological problem that is preventing you from getting enough oxygen to your brain if you go into REM sleep, for example. If you are prone to sinus drainage at all, that would make the winter potentially much worse for you.

Dreading sleep, delayed onset of sleep, restlessness, tiredness and constant dream sleep are all indications of a potential problem, as do sleep induction drugs working at first but not for the night. My mother in law has some friends who just lost their son to a stroke because he had sleep apnea and was in med school, and so spent that he fell asleep at his computer without his CPAP machine and got too little oxygen which triggered a stroke and heart failure. It can be a really serious problem to ignore that vaslty increases your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Good luck. The first pass test is really easy. They send you home with a little doodad to wear on your index finger overnight which tracks your blood oxygen level and tells them if there appears to be enough of a problem to want to bring you into a sleep lab for more testing for a night.

If you get the testing, you will at least know if that was a problem. And if it wasn't the problem, look into food sensitivities. It is another common reason for sleep struggles when there isn't anything structurally wrong.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

If you are prone to sinus drainage at all, that would make the winter potentially much worse for you.

I am, somewhat, although it seems about the same year-round. And fairly mild. I _do_ note that this feels different than the time period during which I had a nasty head and chest cold and was constantly starting awake because my body didn't think it was safe to sleep. I'm actually _sleeping_, now, although not well.

I've always been convinced that it's related to SAD, partly because it seems to not really be related to temperature so much as light levels. And my SAD, and difficulty sleeping, have _always_ been much worse as the winter progresses.

Usually, what seems to be happening is that my normal 'ignoring' flags get less good. So things I can't control which I normally ignore get into my head and dreams and won't shut up. And, melatonin subsystem being fucked is also a SAD thing, where the normal level changes during the day and night aren't nearly as dramatic as they should be.

However, all of that said, I see no reason _not_ to try what you suggest, if it is really as simple as that. And, very certainly, there could (and probably are) multiple things going on.

(another thing in my head: no one I've shared sleeping space has indicated that I sleep in a way that indicates that I'm having trouble breathing. And I have shared sleeping space with someone who almost certainly _does_ have sleep apnea, and hearing him start breathing again was always very startling. Perhaps I should ask people, anyway)

Yeah. So I guess I'm saying that I don't think it's sleep apnea, but will check; strongly suspect it's related to SAD.

Thanks!

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

I _do_ note that this feels different than the time period during which I had a nasty head and chest cold and was constantly starting awake because my body didn't think it was safe to sleep.

Having had a nasty head and chest cold and sleep apnea, they feel nothing alike really, though they are sort of more or less degrees of the same sort of problem. But I never registered panic or gasping or physical discomfort or full consciousness startling or anything like that like I have with a cold. I just tossed and turned and dreaded the fact that I wouldn't sleep soundly and would toss and turn all night because any small noise or movement of the cats or whatever could mean I felt like I spent most of the night more or less awake. I tried everything to put myself to sleep, but beyond an hour or so, all of them were irrelevant.

(another thing in my head: no one I've shared sleeping space has indicated that I sleep in a way that indicates that I'm having trouble breathing. ...)

My dad was obvious. He would inhale and then "ptooooooo" and then stop for a random period of time while you waited for the next inhale. My sisters and I were not (his was a very very pronounced case of it). We knew even what to listen for, but all of us have it, and I could never detect it in either of them, nor has anyone I lived with ever said it about me. Because it can manifest in so many different ways, someone you live with may well think of you as snoring, but not otherwise parse anything as a problem, for example.

And from the video that they showed me in the sleep lab, they made it pretty clear that the combination of symptoms you described are usually (like, the vast majority of the time) a sign of a sleep disorder, but that people try all manner of drugs and other solutions, sometimes even perscribed things by their doctors because people are so prone to deciding they know it is a factor of stress or SAD or other such things, and doctors are not thinking to send them for testing.

I dreaded the answer and avoided it for a long time, but I spent every day with ADDesque symptoms and the winter was miserable with the combination of drainage and sleepiness from weather and light it added to the problem with the sun cycles. Eventually I started trying to get meds for ADD, which I also have, but my doctor is really really good, and she wanted to be sure that it wasn't another findable problem like thyroid or sleep problems before she would prescribe ADD drugs for me.

I thought I would hate the CPAP maching. And there's times where mushing the mask just wrong means a jet of air in my eye or something that is sort of annoying, but I no longer wake up tired or feeling like I went 12 rounds with an angry gorilla in my sleep which is how it would sometimes manifest for me on non-sleep-walking days. I fall asleep vastly faster and more soundly, little noises and motions don't disturb me like the used to, and if I toss and turn at all, it is usually because I ate something I shouldn't have like milk products and it is the gas keeping me awake.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Hmm!

Ok. Many thanks for the information. I shall see about calling my Doctor today to see what needs to be done to get this checked.

Does the fact that I don't always, or even most of the time, have this problem affect your suspicions any? *curious*

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

It's still a possibility since most people who have sleep apnea aren't aware of it themselves because you brain only wakes you as far up as it has to to get oxygen, so it can go through cycles or even seem not to be there. The sleep apnea was present all the time, for me, but changes in weather and physical exhaustion and other things like what I ate for dinner could dramatically affect how much I was aware at all that something was up during my sleep.

During the winter I ate heavier and thus greasier foods which meant a few more tosses and turns as my gi tract flipped me the bird. I didn't stay up as late to push myself to total exhaustion which would make me manage to ignore my restlessness effectively, so getting more hours of sleep seemed consistently like getting much less sleep because I was closer to the surface and less physically exhausted overall to help prevent my awareness of the problem. In the winter I had more blankets and much more temperature fluctuations here in CO, in my sleep which made me more likely to be adjusting that, too, thus increasing the amount of time spent at least semi conscious and getting me even less sleep. Etc. All of the other factors during the winter made the problem an order of magnitude more apparent to me than it ever was during the summer just because each other minor problem increased the times I shifted and resettled by something like double their original amount from the sleep apnea, thus I was vastly more zombie like during the winter from that much less sleep than the rest of the time.

It seems like enough of a possibility that it seems definately worth at least the initial test since that part is easy and if it is clear from that that you don't have it, you can move on to other possibilities like food sensitivities and such, knowing that for sure.

Human bodies are puzzles of successive approximation to try to find answers. And I personally believe in trying to disprove the most dangerous first, so that I have less to worry about, at least, as I proceed trying to figure out how to get back to approximately normal function. I have found that many people and even many doctors start the other direction, but that tends to lead, at least to me, into the land of escalating worry and much long term delay in finding a livable solution. So if it is an easy test, I would rather not dick around with only one thing at a time, if I can test more and solve it faster, and when there really isn't a good reason not to test for the more too.

Among other things this philosophy meant that I could see the best gall bladder surgeon in the state rather than having to have emergency and much more invasive surgery which would require much more recovery time. Had my doctor not agreed with me that we should get things figured out as quickly as realistically possible, it would have gotten to necrosing before I figured out what was going on, at which point I would have been at much higher risk.

The same was true of the ADD. If it had been a thyroid problem and we never bothered to test for that, the thyroid problem could have become cancer and been fatal. Best to know as best you can that you're not just ignoring something important for something easier.

It may well turn up that it's that you're allergic to something in your bedroom or your system is mad at you for eating certain things like dyes that keep you wired. It might be an atypical reaction to SAD that could be solved by making yourself spend more of the daytime in full spectrum lighting. It may be that you and your mattress just don't agree some set of the time, or that you're exhausting yourself more during the summer and thus sleeping more easily. But whatever it is, attend to the dangerous ones so you can be sure that you aren't putting yourself in long term danger. You don't deserve to die of something because no one took it seriously enough.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

It seems like enough of a possibility that it seems definately worth at least the initial test since that part is easy

Oh, indeed. I've an appointment for early January to talk to my doctor about it.

might be an atypical reaction to SAD

Atypical? Hmm. Ok. Never struck me as even remotely atypical, so now I'm wondering what the typical reactions are...

making yourself spend more of the daytime in full spectrum lighting

I already do this, because I _know_ I have SAD problems, whether or not this particular thing is one of them. Also have a light box. Not sure if I sleep better or not with than without, since until this year I was _way_ more aware of the seratonin things. This is the first year that that part is at least mostly under control.

But whatever it is, attend to the dangerous ones so you can be sure that you aren't putting yourself in long term danger. You don't deserve to die of something because no one took it seriously enough.

Indeed. And again, thank you!

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Now I have another question. I tend to have a low level headache when I'm sleeping poorly. Possibly relating, in your experience? (have had a low level headache for four days, with fluxuation in how easily I can ignore it)

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get them. Basically my jaw joint and surrounding muscles start trying to hold themselves in strange positions to make breathing easier at night. The tension from the muscle taughtness means it doesn't relax and the spot around the nerves in my jaw joints gets inflamed which starts a headache further up. They sometimes turn into migraines for me. I am more prone to them when using a pillow because my jaw starts trying to compensate for the constriction of airways that the pillow or the position it puts me in is causing.

A more common pattern for SAD is depression and sleeping all the time. It may not be atypical, precisely. That may have been a bad word choice on my part, but it's not the most common pattern I am familiar with, either.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

SAD patterns:

I do get the depression, although the SAM-e appears to be handling that this year. I also get the needing more sleep than normal, even when I'm _not_ having trouble getting to sleep. So I guess I somehow thought that the sleep problems related somehow, since I already had sleeping weirdness and they tended to happen at the same time (both needing more sleep and being less able to get it).

So. Huh. Interesting.

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a logical conclusion to come to. That's part of why I spoke up. Sometimes our bodies just like confusing us. :)

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, you're welcome. I started following your journal because people kept getting to me through you, probably from Ysabel my spouse. I figure even if I am only right once, that is one less stroke victim in the world, so I share. And *hugs* you have my sympathy in spades with the problem.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I started following your journal because people kept getting to me through you, probably from Ysabel my spouse.

Probably - she periodically would post things you'd posted that I liked enough to point to.

Only reason I haven't added you myself was because I just don't have time for more people who post long, but fascinating posts. (note that I wouldn't add my_self_ if I were in that position, because I tend to post too often, rather than necessarily long posts)

I figure even if I am only right once, that is one less stroke victim in the world, so I share.

Indeed! And that's an excellent way to think about it.

sympathy & hugs: thank you. :) *returns the hugs*

[amaltheae.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. You just don't love me enough. *melodramatic sniff*
I _only_ carried you for 9 months, and nursed you and er...

*grin*

Anyway. You're welcome.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*gigglefit*

Right! That! :)