Nightmares
Do you experience nightmares as part of your narcolepsy symptoms and do they affect you even after waking?
This symptom developed after my N2 progressed into N1. I experienced lucid dreams before I knew what they were. I just knew I wasn't awake, but I was aware. I digressed into a deep depression and soon met what being human meant to me. It was a very interesting journey into my chemical machine.
I have hallucinations that seem real to me. I can shout out for my daughter only to realize that I was dreaming. My dreams are never good. They usually have me trapped some place on a mountain with no way to get down. Sometimes there is a man coming into my bedroom. I am always in distress. I sometimes get up during these dreams to do something like answer the door only to find out I'm just dreaming and no one is there. I cannot remember having a pleasant dream. I shout out quite often. The dreams seem to be coming more often and are more vivid than in the past. I don't know if I am awake when I get up and walk around. Sometimes I think the dreams are real and don't find out until I'm awake and talk to someone and find out that it didn't happen. It is an interesting phenomenon and can be funny sometimes.
I have extremely vivid and complex dreams, sometimes peaceful and other times what most would consider a nightmare... Here's the odd thing, years ago while trying to master lucid dreaming I seem to have made my brain understand that what is going on is only a dream, so even scary stuff in a dream is just like watching a scary movie. I no longer worry about what's going on in the dream, I just go with it (or often times try to control it, Ie. a lucid dream). I would like to know if other people with narcolepsy do the same thing or similar.
If you don't know what lucid dreaming is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream
Hi
, hopefully, others in the community will chime in with similar experiences. If you don't mind sharing, how did you master lucid dreaming? Others in our community have mentioned nightmares and lucid dreaming but I haven't seen much about mastering lucid dreaming. Thanks, Allison (Team Member) , you and I are in the same boat. I took my time to understand what was happening and used my dream constructs as conduits to particular feelings and insecurities. Understanding the means behind the manifestation help one to identify what ideals to change or accept. Coping with these experiences is one part of many in dealing with an overactive imagination. No matter the experience, I maintained my resolve to keep myself grounded and not to succumb to delusional thought processes. "All that I experience is only ever me," I would tell myself. I developed subsets of beliefs, much like bubbles of logical thought processes, to help aid in maintaining a god complex when lucid and sub-lucid. I'll post a story about it when I have the time to sit and type it out. I'm glad to see that you've made great strides in your self-awareness.
I suffer from night terrors due to sleep paralysis with my narcolepsy/insomnia. It used to be pretty bad. I do t have them as often but is still scary when it happens. My kids are grown now so is more terrifying living alone and having to deal with this. I was diagnosed 32 years ago and has been a long, tiring road.
