Anyone wake feeling exhausted after seemingly dreaming all night

I'm taking Prazosin to calm my dreams. I'm still titrating to get to the right dose. It's been helpful, but at this point I'm still yelling in my sleep. I've heard that Prazosin has helped people with nightmares.

Jim

Praying for both of you. This must be terrible.

The only time I ever have any constant dreaming is when I take an antihistamine. I can dream the same dream over and over. When I quite taking it, the dreams stops. Strange.

I pray you both find relief. Blessings....

I have had this for twenty years. Only once in a great while do I have a dream that has me screaming out loud. Most have to do with my life somehow. Last night I dreamt my cousin told me she just came back from a family trip to the Andes. We live in Northern California, she isn't an adventurous person, she is in her seventies, and we haven't spoken in twenty years. If I get up during the night and go back to sleep I'll have another dream. This goes on all night. It really is exhausting.

I have severe insomnia. I frequently wake up exhausted.

Since this is a medical message board, I feel a little weird about offering advice from a spiritual perspective.

But I have done spiritual techniques to help with nightmares. And they have often been effective.

One of the things that can happen through meditation practice, is that we can become aware that we are dreaming, while we are dreaming. I think some paths call this "lucid dreaming." That really comes from shamanistic practices. Mine experiences were not, they were from monastic practices in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

So, if you do become conscious while dreaming, you can control the dream.

I have done that a few times. I don't really like the experience, but it does give you control over the dreaming.

But what I have done more frequently, is that when I enter into a nightmare, I can do techniques which bounce me out of the dream and then I wake up.

One thing is to become conscious enough to pray while dreaming. That usually bounces me out. And, just simple, direct prayer like, "Oh, Lord, please deliver me from this dream."

Another thing is to imagine Jesus next to me, while in a dream. That also works. That is a monastic practice, used in conscious prayer while awake. But, I have also found it helps to save me from horrible dreams.

Then there is an ancient practice, which is simply called "Sleeping with a Prayer." Typically, these are prayers to The Virgin Mary. Now, I use this to help me fall asleep when insomnia is bad. But I have also found that it does help to give me better dreams.

I have also done affirmations. That may be a little weird for people. But sometimes, when I need to wake early, I will do an affirmation to support that. And I have noticed that it helps. I find affirmations hard to make work, but I have had some success there. So, it is kind of like trying to impress upon the subconscious mind a kind of suggestion. What I have impressed upon my mind, is this kind of pressure to wake up early. But I imagine something could be done to break the chain of these intrusive dreams???

I would imagine there are all sorts of meditations to do before sleep, that might help. There are different forms of meditation. This would be to use gentle meditations. There are meditations for concentration and willpower. My understanding is that they would just cause more insomnia. One type of meditation is to simply think of some beautiful scene in nature. And, as the mind wanders to a different subject, you just bring it back to thinking of the beautiful, calming scene in nature. That might, over time, give you some kind of input into the subconscious processes going on, which are causing disturbing dreaming??? That would be my thought, anyway.

Then, I have certainly played Gregorian Chant music in the background while sleeping. That helps. Generally, all calming classical music helps. I like Mozart and Beethoven, among others.

Another thing I use to go to sleep, are just history lectures on You Tube. I literally try to bore myself into sleep. But what I have noticed is that they affect my dreams. I start to dream about the history being spoken. So, perhaps that can break the chain of these negative dreams that folks have? I don't know. I also have played You Tube audio tapes of the Bible. That does seem to help with the insomnia and when I dream, the dreams do seem to become related to the passages being read.

I would certainly check and make sure there is plenty of good ventilation. Anything medical gives me worse dreams. Back pain, eating right before bed. Medications too.

Of course, I would check to see if there is some sleep apnea contributing to the problems with the dreams...

I am not sure if I have Epic dreaming but for the past 4 years since developing insomnia and anxiety I have intermittent nightmares where I will scream in my nightmare and actually let out a loud scream which wakes my poor husband. Often I wake suddenly from a dream with my heart rate elevated and a bit of panic feeling. I am 70 years old and I can relate to how you described it as soul destroying and life altering. One thing I wonder whether if it is a coincidence or not, all this started when I got on Wi-Fi 24/7 whereas before that I did not have good cell service where I lived (before I was married) and had a landline. My husband spends a lot of time on his IPad and therefore insists on Wi-Fi although we do shut off the Wi-Fi at night. Please know that you are not alone in this awful sleep disorder and depending where you are, perhaps find a Naturopathic doctor who may be able to help. I think there are many more out there with similar symptoms and hopefully we can get together and figure this out. I will keep you in my prayers.

Just came across this discussion after waking up from another night that felt like a whole year of dreaming! Not sure why I waited so long to Google the issue, which has been annoying and exhausting me for years.

My first question: wondering how many of you have a history of serious childhood trauma, e.g. domestic violence, sexual abuse, etc.? I always had vivid dreams, but they went into serious overdrive the past few years as I began to come to terms with the abuse I suffered decades ago. Haven't really been dreaming about that issue specifically, but plenty of scary and stressful stuff. (I know anxiety can play a part in this issue. No question I have a good bit of that, too.) Tired of feeling so tired when I wake up in the morning!

This is EXACTLY how I dream!! Short nap in the car, falling asleep at night- doesn't matter! I am immediately dreaming! They aren't usually nightmares, but they aren't recurring themes either. Very vivid and most often of places I've never been and people I've never met, even though in my dreams I know where I am. Sometimes they feel like lucid dreams, and I am aware I'm dreaming again, but not always.
I always thought I was some kind of unicorn with this sleep habit, until I recently met somebody else in real life who does this. I got so tired of hearing from others that "you CAN'T be dreaming like that because you're not in REM sleep, you only THINK you're dreaming..." Really?? Pretty sure I know when I've woken up from a nap in the car where I've been asleep for MAYBE 15 minutes, that I'm NOT in REM sleep but DID have a dream. I'm relieved to hear you say the same thing, but filled with anxiety to hear most sources say this could be a precursor to Parkinson's 🙁 And then REALLY frustrated to hear that there is more than likely no research being put into figuring this out because it is supposedly such an obscure thing. I honestly don't know what to do with this information, but I feel like it needs a better name than "Epic Dreaming". Sounds like a silly Hollywood name. I'm not even necessarily looking for any treatment, because I can't say it really bothers me after all these years, I would just like to know why it happens, AND it appears I have somehow passed this trait down to my teenage son!

I’ve also had this since I was young; I don’t take any medication, but I force myself to get up and walk around. The problem is when I go back to sleep the next night or if I’m still tired and take a nap; I will sleep a few hours but dream days passing, thereby facilitating total exhaustion. I find it is particularly worse when I am subconsciously stressed.

I create an account just to reply to this thread. I grew up thinking everybody experience the same sleep until I shared to my friends and found out this was abnormal. I once experiment by setting up random alarms at several random nights and yes I was dreaming all the time, from the moment I drift into sleep to waking up. I also don't know if I wake up tired or not because I have been like this my whole life, so there is no bar of "refreshness" to refer to. I just seem to have super low energy compared to an average adult without having any mental disorder (not sure if it's sleep-related or just a personality thing).
Thank you for sharing. It is somehow comforting to find out I'm not alone. Also, glad to hear you live to this age healthy (I suppose). I hope there is more research to this and we get to somehow improve our sleep quality.