Get out of my head, Heather! I just finished a post about dreams, and then popped {I re-read that a few times to make sure I didn't accidentally write "pooped"} over here to read this. Meanwhile, yesterday I started a post about how I don't understand women who can go "shopping" ALL DAY! I likened it to torture, but a nightmare is equally accurate:)

oops, double post!

I used to have the 'spiders dropping off the ceiling' dreams all the time until I realized that they were caused by me sleeping with my eyes partially open. Eyelashes = spiders, apparently. I started using a sleep mask and, voila, no more spiders.

I would have at least a week of the freaked out nightmares every time I'd go on, off, or change a dose of medication. Same thing happens if I start or stop drinking for several days in a row. Though mine always result in me screaming in my sleep until my dog comes to wake me up -- yet another reason dogs are the BEST! (The classic was the time I was having a fight in my dream and screamed -- out loud -- "C**ksucker!" I actually woke up immediately and thought, did I just say that? I've never said that word in my entire life!)

I'm not taking anything and I got stuck in a dream last night where I was trying to order Chinese food. It took me hours to order a few simple things because the menu kept changing. Wonder what that means??

Once again, I love Tyrant. Too bad he's in Utah. Well, that and I'm not a gay man.

Funny, the picture I have in my head of you and Jon freaking in the middle of the night looks a little different :-)

any mall is a living nightmare, frankly. happy halloween.

tyrant is a babe. does saying that make me a fag hag?

Usually my worst dreams are when I'm not on anti-depressants. In fact, the way I usually know I need to go on them is I start to have really horrible dreams.
Before anybody tells me that I'm like a crazy version of Tom Cruise who needs to accept that some people need anti-depressants and that I should just stay on my meds long term: It's not that I'm against them. It's just that I have a lot of other neurological issues that sometimes make the cure worse than the disease. For me, they sometimes work and sometimes they don't.

Been there! My waking dreams used to involve turtles in the bed-- for some reason no less threatening than giant spiders. If you wake up and the image and the fear persist, they're actually called hypnogogic hallucinations. That sounds pathological, but my neurologist said they're completely normal.

Long time reader and just joined community to respond to this topic. I too suffer from depression and anxiety and am overmedicated by my dealer I mean shrink - zoloft, wellbutrin, ativan and valium. After my second child, my dr prescribed cymbalta and I had: chronic diarrhea, massive anxiety (ni9ghtmares included) and still no libido (although that could have been on account of the whole just had a baby thing). I had to go off of it and back to Zoloft which was fine for a while, then it wasn't strong enough, so in came the wellbutrin, then the anxiety, so the ativan. And NO SEX DRIVE whatsoever and Heather, like you, I want a sex drive, my H and I have great sex, but, I just want to want it!! So I asked my shrink if I could switch to something else and that's when she gave me the valium ?! I know - switch shrink. So, if anyone finds the secret antidepressent that does not suppress sex drive, do post, PLEASE.

@Givepeaceachance: How about Lexapro? I've been on it for a while now and the drive is fine! My depression is mild, but enough so that if I don't take an AD I become angry / sad / frustrated / hopeless by turns. Lexapro doesn't give me weird dreams, either - though I tend to have sleep disturbances and some odd dreams at certain times of the month. The three - four days before I get my period I can have some real odd dreams; but nothing along the score that poor Heather is having. I think my dream issues are more hormonally-driven than medication-driven.

Sounds to me like you are indeed overmedicated. Definitely switch shrinks!

As a child, I would see boulders coming toward me from a certain corner of the bedroom. I would be running for my life down the hall and into my parents' room. No drugs, mind you.

I should ask my mom {again, since it's been so long} wtf she was thinking when I'd do that. LoL

I have lucid nightmares like this A LOT, on and off meds. I always tell people that they really shouldn't try so hard for lucid dreams, they're like living a paradoxical nightmare - you know it's a dream yet you badly want to wake up because you're really terrified of the dream creatures! plus, you have no idea where your body is. the paralysis part is one of the scariest sensations isn't it!

Um, jilllovesbacon - YIPES! That sounds TERRIBLE!

And being stuck in a mall for hours and hours sounds awful. I'd find that a nightmare too. It's what my stepmom used to make me do the day after Thanksgiving. So, that was my reality / nightmare. EW.