> Awake and Dreaming, Is It Real? Or Is It REM?

[Lily]

Awesome! Thanks for the cool place Toph4er!

[Lily]

One, and I say one, of the things that bothers me most about my N. is staying focused, or on task. I have gotten to where I have to make all these lists, lists that include even daily routine things, like laundry, (eeeww) and then I have to remember to look at the list! I get so caught up in excessive daydreaming, jump from task to task with out finishing the first one, and forget I'm supposed to be doing something else, or be somewhere by a certain time. Then I look at the time, and it's like-"oh no!" Then I'm scurrying around trying to get ready as fast as possible. So, the lists help a little, I try to write them first thing in the morning, and indicate what is most important to accomplish that day. I also have a planner, and try to remember to write in that, and I also have a dry-erase calender on the frig for everyone to see what's on the agenda-appointments etc. If an appointment is for say, 10 am, I write 9:45. It all helps. And then, there is the problem of spending too much time reading and writing...LOL. My favorite hobby.

Guess I better go get dressed!

(I'll be back!)

Lily

[Lily]

I should be getting ready for bed...I am so tired, but the last few nights I've had insomnia...again. So here I am, putting it off. I like the nights much better when I close my eyes and within anywhere from 1 second to 30 seconds it seems, I'm hallucinating...and have such a relaxed feeling from sleep paralysis...it's much better than laying there and laying there and laying there. On meds I usually hallucinate around 5- 6 nights a week...(off meds-every night) and 1 or 2 nights where I go from an awake state straight to sleep. But then there are the nights when I can't get to sleep for 2 to 3 hours, but even then when I do, it never fails, I still have the frequent awakenings. At least they are not as violent as they were before meds...I am not slammed so hard into alertness. And sleep in? Ya right! I can never sleep in. I don't know why I even set my alarm...LOL! I guess for that one chance of actually sleeping till 6! I wish! I am almost always up between 4:30 and 5 am no matter what.

Alright...here I go-I'm going to bed. Wish me sleep!

(I'll be back!)

[Lily]

Asleep by 11pm last night...only woke a couple of times and up at 4:45...not bad! Thats like 5 1/2 hours...yeah!

I forgot to add to my "symptom list" sleeeeeppp deprivaaation! That was one of my main complaints to the doc when I first went. It was a lot worse then, before meds. That and of course, EDS. Both of which are better now, still there, but better.

~~~Hypnogogic Hallucination: Is it Real? or is it REM?~~~

I was moving very fast, and it was so dark out I could only see a few feet out in front of me as I watched the yellow lines and the asphalt as I whizzed over the narrow road. There was no other traffic or street lamps to give light, just darkness everywhere. Suddenly a black panther leaped from the right side of the road and sat with his back to me, directly in my path. I came to an immediate stop. He was a beautifully elegant creature, and facing away from me, I could see his coat was sleek and shiny black. As he sat in front of me, he turned his head around to face and look at me and I could see his eyes were big and bright and emerald green. Then just as quickly and gracefully as he appeared, he disappeared, leaping off to the left side of the road into the darkness.
I was awake. I had only closed my eyes for a second.

~~~
I'm off to browse other posts!

(I'll be back!)

[Lily]

I'm finding my lack of memory to be quite frustrating. Even embarrassing. Like tonight, one of my husbands friends was over visiting, and during the conversation he said something about his daughter being seven months along now...and I was like- "oh you're going to be a grandpa?! Well congratulations!" Only to be informed that he had already told us about it the last time he was here. I felt like an idiot, for getting all excited and congrating him and all, and for looking like a retard in front of him because I simply just didn't remember it. He must think I have very few brain cells.

I have never had a good memory, long or short term. I have no memories as a child until I was about six, and then it's very few. And it's like that for my whole life, even big events that I know happened, but can't remember. With the progression of my N, my short term memory has been terrible lately. Maybe I spend a lot more time in auto-behavior than I realize!

[sleeping beauty]

I think you were dreaming awake when you saw the panther. In a HH, it would have been more integrated into your actual surroundings. Or at least, that's the way it usually works with me. It takes a little practice to tell the difference-not that it matters. Neither one is real anyway. But they sure seem real at the time, don't they?

[Lily]

Sleeping Beauty-thanks for your post! So there is a difference between HH's and and dreaming awake?

I guess I thought I had been having two different kinds of HH's-because a lot of them are crazy off the wall stuff, and then others are more related to things going on that day, things I actually saw or did, and explainable.

Both of which I am able to tell are not "reality"...so I guess that's good! Athough sometimes I wonder how my brain comes up with some of the content-esp the really scary and bizarre ones.

Anyway, thanks-I think I am getting a little depressed not having anyone here in my daily life, family or friends to talk to about it, and I'm feeling a little bottled up. I just have to keep it to myself.

[Lily]

Ok, here is a funny one:

I was in what looked like a high school, standing in a hallway, and a girl was running up the hallway towards me. Suddenly she tripped over her own feet and fell face down to the floor. Her long brown hair, in a pony tail, flopped around the side of her head, and her arms and hands made a slapping noise as they smacked on the floor.

I had to laugh out loud at this one. I couldn’t help it.

[Lily]

My husband had a dentist appointment the other day, and I had a sleep attack while I was sitting and waiting for him in the waiting room...how embarrassing! I don't know how long I was out-I think only a minute but who knows! While I was out I dreamt of a tooth...LOL It was a molar I think, and someone was jamming stuff up underneath it from the side-were it goes down into the gums, with a sharp metal tool of some kind! Yikes!

[Lily]

oooh look! I'm a sleep addict now! yaaaa!

I love this site!

[Lily]

Narcolepsy has robbed me of self confidence-so many times I have chosen not to do something, because I just didn't think I could do it. College is one of those things. I just couldn't see myself being able to keep up, being able to study, or being able to complete a class. I didn't have the mental or physical energy to do it. so many times I wanted to go, but didn't see how I could with everything else in life, when it was so hard to just get normal everyday things done.

But now...my frame of mind is changing, I am getting to know myself better, learning my limits, and with the help of meds, and online courses, where I can take classes at my own pace...I am finally thinking I can do it! Even if it's one class at a time, I don't care. I have never been able to even decide "what I want to be when I grow up" because I just didnt think I could do it!

[Lily]

I really have no idea how I coped for so many years with narcolepsy-before being diagnosed. I guess I just constantly faught through it. It was such a struggle with a full time job, and all the responsibilities of running a household, and raising three kids. I was just responsible for so many things, and if I didn't do them, no one would.

One thing I did do was to give myself rewards-I would make a list of things that I needed to accomplish-then go at it. I would say to myself, ok, I'll do this, this and this, and then I can do something fun. I love to read and write, so after finishing my chores or what ever I had to accomplish, I could then sit back and read or write, check my emails or browse the internet...which did seem to help me accomplish things-except for the fact that once I was relaxed, I would always fall asleep! Oh well!

Back then I always worried about how many hours of sleep I got each night, thinking, ok, I need to be in bed by such and such time, so that I get a certain number of hours of sleep-not knowing that it wasn't making any difference what-so-ever, because I wasn't entering the rejuvenation/restoration sleep stages! No matter how many hours of sleep I got, I still felt like total crap the next day! I was still sleep deprived.

It was esp hard at work, because you are not allowed to fall asleep there, and when the EDS would get really bad, I had to struggle so hard to stay awake, and many times just couldn't help it. Then there were all the times I had sudden sleep attacks, and it would just happen so quickly, and unexpectedly. Once I was even standing up holding a dog for one of the doctors-never felt it coming-bang-asleep! My body went limp-and I woke just before falling. Oops. I fell asleep at work almost everyday, and would even sleep in my car at lunch time. UGH!

And then any kind of emotional trauma, or relationship crisis-would suddenly make me feel so exhausted I would have to sleep-no choice.

And now, it seems like my husband is getting tired of hearing it, or something, I don't know, but last night we were sitting watching the news, and one second I was watching the news, the next second I was dreaming, and when I came to, I said I was just dreaming, and he said, are you sure you weren't just imagining it? Double UGH!

[Lily]

Last night, when I laid down for bed, and as usual, not even 2 seconds after closing my eyes, the movie reel began spinning...

I saw the most beautiful country setting. A huge old white farm house and several barns, sitting on many acres of rolling prairie which sprawled out forever. Everything was green, and it was a warm and bright summer day. I saw two little girls, about 8 years old, both with long dresses-(ever see Little House on the Prairie?) The girls were running and playing, laughing with delight, their long dark hair blowing in the wind. Nice huh?

It's much better than this one, which I had another night-

It was so dark out, I could barely see around me. I looked ahead toward the area in the woods which was lit by a group of people carrying torches. Several people were gathered around and carring some sort of cart thing-I'm not sure what to call it actually. On the cart was some sort of monster, and they carried it and acted like it was their king. He was huge, and must have been quite heavy. He was sitting up, his head in the air, and his body was shaped almost in an "S" shape, and he was sitting on his tail. His skin was like that of a snail-or slug, a darkish grey, and dripping with slime. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could see his mouth, which was huge, just a big oval shape, and he was breathing slow and heavy.

I was scared, so frightened that I was trying not to look at him, trying to force myself to look the other way.

[Lily]

I am looking for a job...oh boy. Everyone here seems to know how hard that is...wish me luck!

[Lily]

I've been sick since last Saturday night with some sort of stomach virus-and I while I won't go into the gorey details of that-I'll just say I haven't been that sick in a long long time.
Knowing I just wanted to sleep all of Sunday-I didn't take my concerta. Still not feeling well on Monday, I didn't take it then either. So, two days in a row, and then last night, Monday night, I must of woke like twenty times I swear. but even worse than that were all the disturbing dreams. One of which I woke up so scared I couldn't go back to sleep for a while, and was afraid someone was in the house. I have alot of dreams that some one, or some sort of monster is after me, and they are very emotionally intense, I am very fearful, and constantly looking for ways to get away from the subject that is after me. In this dream last night-he actually caught me. This "being" seemed to be part human, part monster. He was wearing mostly black, and what seemed to be some sort of hooded cape. His eyes were very large, and very wicked. He had a huge mouth, with very long teeth. In his teeth he held a piece of glass. He was holding me down by my legs, and I was laying on my back. I don't even want to say what he was going to do with glass...it's too messed up. Thank God I woke up when I did. I feel like I am going crazy, and close to tears.

Another dream last night, was about two babies I was watching-(maybe this one came because I have two grandchildren that I watch a few times a week) anyway, one seemed quite normal, but the other was exceptionally tiny...and very very skinny, like a walking stick or something. To the point that would be impossible in real life. It was walking around and playing just like the other baby, but it was really strange looking.

Another dream, was that I was running across a field with two other people, one was a young man, who had on a jacket. the other was my youngest daughter. I was completely naked. (LOL) As we neared the edge of the field, right when we were about to run down a hill into some woods, I heard a car behind us, so we all stopped and turned to look to see who it was. It was an older model "boat" kind of car, green in color, which was tearing across the field toward us at full speed, which I thought at first was my mother. (LOL) I grabbed the coat of the young man that was with us, and pulled it off of him, and put it on so that I was somewhat covered. When the car got close enough we could see it was not my mother, but someone who wanted to yell at my daughter-something rediculous and uncalled for, so I said to her, just ignore her and lets go. So we started running down the hill into the woods. Down into the woods we went, and up to this huge tree with a face in it's trunk. The tree was angry. There were a lot of other people standing and walking around the area, and two men standing at the tree, as if guarding it. Knowing we were there, the tree announced that the one it wanted was there-and for the rest of us to stand back. Not knowing which one of us it wanted, I took a step back, and my daughter stayed where she was. The tree was happy then, and then sucked her into itself through it's mouth.

And I'm like...whaaaaaatttt??????!!!!!! OMGOSH I'm going nutso!

Another dream was that I had a bunch of company over, all people I don't know. It was my house, but not the one I actually live in real life. There were people sitting all around the living room, and the door way to the kitchen was blocked by a couch-which had people sitting on it. So, in order to get to the kitchen, I had to crawl up to, and squeeze through a small window in the wall. Once I got through there, and into the kitchen, it was a tiny room, and there were donuts (LOL) everywhere. Most of the donuts had white frosting with sprinkles. (LOL) A man whom I have no idea who he was, had come into the kitchen, picked out a donut, and ate the top layer off of it, so just the frosting was gone, and then he told me he wanted to save it-and asked me if I had something he could wrap it in. I told him saran wrap would be best, and gave him saran wrap. He wrapped it up, and then put it in the fridge-which had a clear glass door on it, and when he closed the fridge door-you could see the partially eaten donut on the shelf -and there was nothing else in the fridge what-so ever! Weird!

I don't want to go to bed tonight! UGH!