Anyone wake feeling exhausted after seemingly dreaming all night

Posted by mazeppabob @mazeppabob, Jul 26, 2022

I never wake refreshed/rested. It has been like this for as long as I can remember and I am 77 now,
My sleep medicine DR called it EPIC dreaming. A rare disorder with no known cause or treatment. His only suggestion was to prescribe Modafinil (a stimulant) taken in the morning to perk me up.
I have tried CPAP and other meds to no avail.
I wonder if this is really that rare.

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@kirstiep22

Hi @mazeppabob
I have just woke up from another one of my dreams absolutely exhausted. This happens to me all the time. And then I found your post. Can we talk? I'm sorry I've literally just signed up here to speak to you so I have no idea how we communicate privately?

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I'm sorry I don't either. If someone does they can tell us. One of my dreams last night was that someone that didn't belong in bed with me was sleeping there and I could actually feel the presence of someone next to me. Not my husband. Next dream same night. I was being taken on a tour of my girlfriends new kitchen. I could see every countertop and cabinet. I keep waking up with headaches during the night that have been diagnosed as Hypnic headaches but now I'm wondering if the headaches are from the intense dreams.

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@kirstiep22

Hi @rockysoftis
You said your son suffers from a sleep disorder which resembles epic dreaming. Please could I ask exactly what it is he goes through with the sleep disorder? Does he struggle to sleep, does he have such vivid dreams that he wakes up exhausted? I really want to know if I'm suffering from similar. Thank you

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@kirstiep22 He does not have any issues falling asleep. The dreams come around the end of his sleep, 8-10 hours after he falls asleep. He wakes up so exhausted that he goes back to bed in two or three hours and sleeps for 6-8 hours. Because of this cycle, he has no circadian rhythm.

I hope this helps.

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@potatobug

Every morning when I was a child I would wake up and over breakfast tell my mom my dreams, I would go on for an hour, finally one day she told me to stop lying , that I was making it up. I’ll never forget that. I’m 43 years old male, Every night I dream the most incredible crazy adventures, meet and interact with people I’ve never met, I’ve never had a recurring dream. I explain it like this…
“If you took a Wes Anderson, Magnolia Pictures, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski Films, horror, drama, sci-fi, porn, daytime tv including commercials, Epic Shit, Low budget shit, and throw a mishmash of every other film, wildest thing you've ever thought of, and then max that by a million, shatter it into a billion pieces, throw them in a kaleidoscope.
And as I fall asleep even before l'm really dreaming, the kaleidoscope starts turning…I wake exhausted every day, they are giving me Modafinil and that helps but other than that I’m an anomaly. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. I wish there was a medication that helped me get into slow wave sleep but there isn’t. I’ve tried everything from meditation, to gabapentin, exercise, everything..nothing has ever come close to helping me feel rested. It’s a gift I feel but many days I wake and wish I hadn’t dreamed so much. I love them but it’s wearing my brain out and really starting to catch up with me…

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It's a relief to see that I'm not alone in this. I've been waking up tired nearly every day for the last 30 years, and it's really starting to get to me. Last night I dreamt the craziest stuff, and much of it involved me running, jumping, swimming, and fighting. The insane complexity of the dreams was very well covered by your description. I had the entire cast of Star Trek TNG running around with me last night as we fought aliens, shapeshifters, zombies, Celts (at one point I was suddenly a Roman general fighting Celts). The dreams shatter and blend, or sometimes cease and start from a random point, and I'm always moving, always running or swimming, fighting and trying to stay alive. Sometimes I form intense emotional attachments to people in my dreams, and the dream seems to go on for weeks and months, all in one night. It gets so bad that I spent my waking moments missing these people even though they are figments I'm not likely to encounter again as the dreams are always changing and are never quite the same twice.

Honestly I was starting to wonder if I was going insane, or perhaps had been all along.

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I have stage 3 esophageal cancer and definitely have had sleep issues, I would aspirate and wake up choking and vomiting so sleep scared me until I would pass out for minutes and wake . It was a very serious and stressful couple of months until I got better

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@potatobug

Every morning when I was a child I would wake up and over breakfast tell my mom my dreams, I would go on for an hour, finally one day she told me to stop lying , that I was making it up. I’ll never forget that. I’m 43 years old male, Every night I dream the most incredible crazy adventures, meet and interact with people I’ve never met, I’ve never had a recurring dream. I explain it like this…
“If you took a Wes Anderson, Magnolia Pictures, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski Films, horror, drama, sci-fi, porn, daytime tv including commercials, Epic Shit, Low budget shit, and throw a mishmash of every other film, wildest thing you've ever thought of, and then max that by a million, shatter it into a billion pieces, throw them in a kaleidoscope.
And as I fall asleep even before l'm really dreaming, the kaleidoscope starts turning…I wake exhausted every day, they are giving me Modafinil and that helps but other than that I’m an anomaly. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. I wish there was a medication that helped me get into slow wave sleep but there isn’t. I’ve tried everything from meditation, to gabapentin, exercise, everything..nothing has ever come close to helping me feel rested. It’s a gift I feel but many days I wake and wish I hadn’t dreamed so much. I love them but it’s wearing my brain out and really starting to catch up with me…

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Hey this is exactly how it is for me! My dreams are epic movie masterpieces and I have several in a night! Sometimes they are pure fantasy/science fiction type dreams with people I’ve never met, and other times they are more personal and nightmarish, family members dying and
Then the dream recurs, and each time I remember that this happened before in another dream but I still cannot break that barrier of being fully aware that I am dreaming. It’s like I am there in the background as a witness, and I can sometimes control or change things, it’s funny how I cannot fully wake my conscious mind up! I have always wondered why I dream this way as friends/people that I talk to do not experience the same thing. I think that my brain is just too active, i can never switch off. And like you- I feel the dreams pulling me in as soon as I nod off! And can wake up and go back into it also. It has always felt as though the dream side of my life has the strongest pull and a very strong effect on my waking world.

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@inkysquid

Hey this is exactly how it is for me! My dreams are epic movie masterpieces and I have several in a night! Sometimes they are pure fantasy/science fiction type dreams with people I’ve never met, and other times they are more personal and nightmarish, family members dying and
Then the dream recurs, and each time I remember that this happened before in another dream but I still cannot break that barrier of being fully aware that I am dreaming. It’s like I am there in the background as a witness, and I can sometimes control or change things, it’s funny how I cannot fully wake my conscious mind up! I have always wondered why I dream this way as friends/people that I talk to do not experience the same thing. I think that my brain is just too active, i can never switch off. And like you- I feel the dreams pulling me in as soon as I nod off! And can wake up and go back into it also. It has always felt as though the dream side of my life has the strongest pull and a very strong effect on my waking world.

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Yeah I get that, I fall asleep for awhile and dream, wake up over and over again. Sometimes it's aspiration that wakes me up, Cancer fatigue me happens whether on chemo or not. Always looking for healthy energy boosts

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@inkysquid

Hey this is exactly how it is for me! My dreams are epic movie masterpieces and I have several in a night! Sometimes they are pure fantasy/science fiction type dreams with people I’ve never met, and other times they are more personal and nightmarish, family members dying and
Then the dream recurs, and each time I remember that this happened before in another dream but I still cannot break that barrier of being fully aware that I am dreaming. It’s like I am there in the background as a witness, and I can sometimes control or change things, it’s funny how I cannot fully wake my conscious mind up! I have always wondered why I dream this way as friends/people that I talk to do not experience the same thing. I think that my brain is just too active, i can never switch off. And like you- I feel the dreams pulling me in as soon as I nod off! And can wake up and go back into it also. It has always felt as though the dream side of my life has the strongest pull and a very strong effect on my waking world.

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Has any doctor suggested a sleep study for this? Every time I mention this to a doctor they have never heard of it and that's what they suggest. I did a home study some time ago and it was normal but not the one in a lab. Honestly I don't know if a study works for this dream situation. I think it's only to see about your breathing.

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Very small amount of cyclobenzaprine at night helps me go in and out of deep sleep without the dreams and nightmares following me into awareness.

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@conesi919

YES! @mazeppabob I have experienced this exact thing my entire life as well. I am 37 now and this has been lifelong for me. I have never met anyone else with this experience. It does seem to be quite rare especially because no doctor I've ever talked to has even really believed me and thinks I am exaggerrating or just plain wrong about my own experience. I would also guess there is a level of it being hereditary because my father struggled with the same thing. He tried sleep doctors and they couldn't figure anything out and brushed him off. It's pretty exhausting for sure. I also don't believe it is induced by stress or anxiety because, like you said, it's lifelong every night which seems odd to say we have been stressed every day since birth. Same with it being a side effect of medication. I don't take any medications. I have actually tried sleep medications but nothing makes it stop. I don't have much valuable insight to answer your questions otherwise but really wanted to connect because you are NOT alone with this. I'd love some answers as well but this does seem rare and underresearched.

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Mine is related where I go into deep sleep, and then come back out and remember my nightmares and a small amount of cyclobenzaprine allows me to go into deep sleep and my dreams do not follow me awake much.

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@kernell

Mine is related where I go into deep sleep, and then come back out and remember my nightmares and a small amount of cyclobenzaprine allows me to go into deep sleep and my dreams do not follow me awake much.

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I awake so tired and it is as if I have a dream hang over. In a recent dream I said to my friend, “ I hope this is a dream!” I use a cpap machine and still wake up exhausted.

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