Possible to Dream Too Much?

Factual Questions
1

Just FYI, I’m 57, male, in generally good health – not overweight, no pervasive physical problems other than neuropathy and mild arthritis.

So, doctors, is it possible to dream too much? I pass many nights – I’d have to say MOST nights – when I really am not sure I’am actually sleeping. You know, the feeling that one minute, your eyes are open and the next, it’s either the next morning or later on that night – no passage of time seems to have occurred.

I wish! With me, it seems like every night is just one long dream . . . always just on the edge of consciousness . . . just streams of dreams (hey, good song title) that don’t seem to begin or end.

Of course, at some times I obviously MUST be sleeping, but many, many nights I just seem to be half awake ALL THE TIME, even though most nights, I often “wake up” from these dreams to find myself, three hours after I turned out the lights and got into “sleep position,” which is always the same EXACTLY in the same position that I “fell asleep” in – neither hand has moved, neither leg, NOTHING.

Okay, I know, next question: do I take sleeping pills? Well, yes. I take Diphenhydramine hydrochloride, which most of you will know is the active ingredient in Benadryl – basically, an antihistamine that is shamelessly marketed both as an antihistamine and then, in a completely separate package, as a “sleep aid.”

And if it’s branded, as in “Sominex” or “Nytol” then they just jack up the price to at least a third more than the “house” brands – which contain exactly the same ingredients. And apparently, continuous use even over periods of years – which it has been now – isn’t addictive or destructive.

But my question is, can this be bad for me? Can dreaming too much be harmful? I know NOT dreaming at all is extremely harmful – just ask Michael Jackson, who thought he was sleeping when he was given Propofol but was actually completely anesthetized, way beyond the possibility of REM sleep, which went on for months and months, which resulted in very bizarre manifestations during his waking life.

But can the opposite – dreaming too much – or at least as I perceive it, anyway – harm me? I don’t necessarily feel weird during the days, like overly tired or sleepy – but I just fret that those “dreamless nights” where you close your eyes and then it’s suddenly morning – seem to elude me completely.

2

54 year old male here.

About twice a month I fly on 500mg of B6. This works about 80% of the time. It creates intense, vivid, and many times lucid dreams. And tons of them. So many dreams some overlap into one another which is hard to describe but a bizarre sensation. On occasion it also causes extremely mean spirited frightening nightmares.

It’s a wild ride. Upon waking I feel like I’ve just sat through a 9 hour 3D movie. It generally takes all day for my brain to process all the dreams I had the previous night. I believe all those dreams help my critical & creative thinking skills, and my thought processes relating to personal as well as every day problems.

I’d do this every night but I’ve discovered using high doses of B6 too regularly leads to nerve dysfunction in the extremities. This goes away a few days after regular use is stopped, but it’s uncomfortable and scary while it exists. Using once every 2 weeks does not cause this.

In conclusion, I am not a doctor, this is not medical/psych advice, but IMHO dreaming too much is not harmful.

3

I really hope so because I have always had many dreams every night since I was a little kid.

Or maybe that just explains a few things… Bawahaha

4

I supposed there is a greater chance you might get Incepted.

5 
 Thats interesting to hear about the B6 I have always had very wild and lucid dreams until recently, now I have insomnia but when I do fall asleep it is very deep sleep and I am not aware of dreaming. You only do this twice a month? If done too often can it be harmful?
6

Several relevant things about the normal sleep pattern:

  1. Typically, right after falling asleep, people go into the deepest sleep of the night. After this they go through a series of cycles, lasting an hour or so each, in which they come up into lighter sleep and then go back down into deeper sleep. With each cycle, the trough is less deep and the peak is closer to consciousness; towards morning, the peaks may reach consciousness (i.e., waking up and falling back asleep).

  2. REM sleep, during which most dreams take place, occurs during the lighter parts of the sleep cycles.

  3. We typically only remember the dreams we actually wake up from.

So, your cycles are probably less deep than normal, which may mean that you spend more time in REM sleep, or perhaps that you simply spend more time in the region of semi-consciousness in which you are able to remember dreams. By definition, you’re not aware of the periods during which you’re in the deeper portion of the cycles, so it seems to you subjectively that you’re doing nothing but dreaming.

IANAMD, but my guess is that, if you’re not experiencing any major side effects during the day, you’re probably OK.

7

If done too much it can cause some nerve damage, which reverses itself a few days after dosage is stopped. Everything on the web says one can do it safely much more than twice a month, but I like to be cautious.

I was using 3 times a week and eventually experienced the side effects: completely numb hands and fingers, no sensation whatsoever. It was scary as hell. I stopped using the heavy doses of B6 and about 3 days later the symptoms vanished. I went back to the same regiment and the symptoms reappeared. I’ve found doing this once every 2 weeks results in no symptoms other than wild vivid dreams!

8

Have to do it.

9

For those of us who can’t access youtube at work:

–The Electric Prunes

10

Many many years ago, a friend of mine claimed that he smoked marijuana daily primarily because “It stops the dreams”. Said that he had such persistent strong and vivid dreams that it was bothersome and sometimes frightening and that was the one thing he found that put an end to it.

I never found that to be the case for me (back in the day, of course), but then I never had the same problem of too many dreams.

11

I tried centrax to quit smoking and my dreams were not nightmares but so weird that I thought I was going insane. The weird dreams tapered off very slowly after I quit takig the drug. I think to some degree they persisted for at least a year.

12

Kamakiri: Do you take anything for your neuropathy (like gabapentin or pregabalin)? Other drugs (e.g. beta blockers, or even the nicotine patch) can also cause ‘vivid dreams’.

13

Karl,

Yeah. I guess I was “misrepresenting” myself because I also take Clonazepam and Zopiclone . . . I know, a chemist’s nightmare. But the truth is, a lot like Michael Jackson, I just WANT TO SLEEP!!!

I also drink, which obviously is a no-brainer for wanters of uninterrupted sleep. You ould call me a clinical case of “fucked-up-ness” when it comes to sleep, but the truth is, I have such a fear of not being able to sleep properly that I take drugs to GET ME TO IT!

Like right now, it’s only 9:30 p.m. where I am, but Ive felt like going to bed since about 8 – but I know that if I do, I will wake up at three! And that terrifies me for some reason. I don’t have a day job, but God forbid if I ever did! I’d be so terrified of oversleeping/not getting to sleep that my whole night, EVERY NIGHT, would be a wreck!

Even though I KNOW I don’t have to wake up at any given time tomorrow, I’m somehow terrified of either not getting to sleep or waking up at two and not being able to get back to sleep! It’s very hard to explain to people who don’t have sleeping problems, but for me, it is indeed a “nightmare!”

And every single night is the same wrestling match . . . I’m very sleepy at 8 but if I go to sleep at 8:30 I know I will wake up at 3 and not be able to get back to sleep! Then if I dare take a nap the following day, it leads me into a cycle of total drowsiness so that I can’t function at all.

I just don’t know how to get off this roller coaster.

But at least my dreams are all innocuous. No nightmares, no nothing. Just mindless thoughts wandering all over the place . . . that is what my sleep is to me these days!

14

Yeah, the dreaming isn’t really the problem here. As cjepson implied, it is normal, and, indeed, healthy, to dream quite a lot every night. What is not normal or healthy, though, is to remember a lot of dreams from every night, because this implies that you are constantly, if only briefly and partially, waking up during periods of REM sleep. Clearly you are sleeping very poorly, and I should think that all that cocktail of drugs you now revel that you are taking is only making things worse. You may well be suffering from sleep apnea, which can lead to frequent brief awakenings (and thus lots of remembered dreams. Have you been tested for that? It might be worth getting tested.

Well, if you did that, you would be getting nearly seven hours of sleep, which is really not too bad. If you went to bed when you are tired, around 8, perhaps you would not need all the sleep drugs, and perhaps you wouldn’t keep waking during your dreams. I suggest you do that. Go to bed when you are tired, around 8, and, if you wake up at 3, don’t lie in bed trying to get back to sleep, and worrying about stuff, but get up and do something (even if it is only surfing the web, or reading a book, or watching TV). If you get some decent sleep that way, you might eventually find yourself getting back into a more normal pattern of timing, but even if that does not happen, an 8 to 3 period of decent sleep is really not too bad for someone who is not tied to a work schedule.

In fact, most of those sleep drugs you are taking tend to suppress REM sleep (especially, I think, Diphenhydramine, but to some extent Zopiclone too, and very likely, though I don’t know, Clonazepam as well). However, the brain really needs a good amount of REM, and makes sure it gets it. That means that as the drugs wear off, and perhaps as you are almost ready to wake anyway, you are suddenly getting all the REM and experiencing the dreams in the shallow part of your sleep cycle, and so waking during the dreams, and so remembering them. The drugs are probably the cause of the (apparently, but not really) excessive dreaming (although apnea may be contributing too).

15

Well, golly, guess what happened, I think I just made my official transition to Vampire, because after writing the above I DID go to bed at around 9 . . . and woke at around 3.

I don’t have apnea. My partner, however, does. She is definitely part of the problem. If I’m even a smidgeon awake when she comes to bed – which can be anywhere between 2 and 8 a.m. every night – I know i Am Not Getting Back To Sleep. Even with earplugs, it’s impossible to ignore her constant heavy breathing, snoring, and moaning (she is morbidly obese).

So I suffer.

I KNOW I don’t have apnea, which I am extremely familiar with. She tells me that I sleep still as a statue, and she has come in to check on me and I am in EXACTLY the same position I was five hours ago.

I also know that I get around four or five hours’ of true sleep – so I don’t really know what I’m complaining about, except that I don’t WANT to be awake, like now, at almost 5 a.m., having had one cup of coffee already.

I just find it physically impossible to sleep more than five hours . . . and that bugs the hell out of me.

I just want to be one with the world! Up at 8 like everyone else, well-rested and chipper. But instead every night is a crapshoot and I never know where the dice are going to fall. It’s extremely disturbing, to say the least.

I mean, seriously . . . 4 a.m. and I’m drinking coffee???

16

Some studies have shown a correlation between too much dreaming and depression. Quote: “It has been shown that depressed people dream up to three times as much as non-depressed people”

Full article here: Depression and dreaming

17

I know what you mean, last night I was up till midnight so I was able to sleep in until about 3:30 am. Thats about as good as it gets. I find I can go back to bed around 6am and sleep for about 2 more hours if I choose to.

18

I’m a dreamer! I dream often and have very crazy dreams. Also, I can often go to bed with a life problem I want to solve and wake up with the answer I like best. Sometimes the dreams disturb my sleep but most often I don’t notice a loss of sleep.

Supposedly ZMA - specifically the magnesium portion helps sleep and increases dream activity. I have noticed I have more intense dreams on magnesium, but not more frequent.

The only times that dreams cause me trouble is during really stressful life events. They play over and over in my dreams while I guilt about the issues. By morning I am guilt ridden and stressed about something that is over and done with.

19

Beat me to it! :mad:

For years I thought it was “Drink”. :smiley:

20

[quote=“Kamakiri, post:13, topic:706131”]

Even though I KNOW I don’t have to wake up at any given time tomorrow, I’m somehow terrified of either not getting to sleep or waking up at two and not being able to get back to sleep! It’s very hard to explain to people who don’t have sleeping problems, but for me, it is indeed a “nightmare!”

And every single night is the same wrestling match . . . I’m very sleepy at 8 but if I go to sleep at 8:30 I know I will wake up at 3 and not be able to get back to sleep! Then if I dare take a nap the following day, it leads me into a cycle of total drowsiness so that I can’t function at all.

I just don’t know how to get off this roller coaster.
QUOTE]

You probably know this already, but the surest way to NOT get a good night’s sleep is to be afraid of not getting a good night’s sleep. If possible, you have to find a way to take the attitude that you’d like to sleep, but if you don’t, it’s OK. To not let your insomnia push you around. Remember you can’t make yourself sleep; the best you can do is make yourself comfortable. And in that regard, sleeping with someone who’s noisy is a problem… I don’t hesitate to move to the guest room when my wife snores; fortunately she understands it’s nothing personal.