Drinking and Nightmares

[aj47]

Not sure if this is just me but quite literally everytime I drink in the evening I end up having really bad nightmares when I sleep.

 

I know alcohol can distrupt REM sleep but I cannot think of any logical explanation for why this happens and its wierd becasue I never seem to have nightmares anytime else.

 

Any of you know why?

[prion]

don't get nightmares but if I drink heavily I wake up in the early hours feeling really 'panicky', with fast pulse etc. No idea why I'm afraid

[insane_alien]

don't get nightmares but if I drink heavily I wake up in the early hours feeling really 'panicky', with fast pulse etc. No idea why I'm afraid

 

same here but i know why i'm afraid. i'm usually in someone elses house whether i know the person or not usually defines the legnth of time the fear lasts.

[aj47]

I know what you mean, those two or three minutes on waking, trying to work out where the hell you are from foggy memories aren't a pleasant experience

[starbug1]

I don't drink and I'm just fine. Think there's a connection?

[insane_alien]

i don't get drunk often but when i do it messes me up for about a week.

[aj47]

Same, preferably I never like to go past the stumbling stage as i'm inclined to feel crap for a long time afetrwards.

 

Anyway back to the original topic, I don't think its the amount I drink that causes nightmares as even on drinking one or two beers and feeling almost completly sober on going to sleep, I still end up having wierd dreams.

 

Again any of you know why?

[sunspot]

Alcohol is useful in that it helps lower inhibitions. For most good citizens this often allows them to have less inhibition about having good fun. One no longer totally cares if they are perfect or in personna at all times. The nightmares may be result of the wall lowering to some extent. It allows things in the unconscious mind more opportunity to become conscious.

[insane_alien]

i have little to no inhibitions sober never mind when drunk. like when i turned up for a lecture wearing only a sock and a sombrero.

[jdurg]

I know what you mean, those two or three minutes on waking, trying to work out where the hell you are from foggy memories aren't a pleasant experience

 

It's even worse when you awake in someone else's house and the room you are in looks EXACTLY like a room in your house. Then when you exit the room and there are people there who shouldn't be and the rest of the house is totally different, it takes a good while before your brain recognizes the fact that you are not in your own house. That creepy feeling lasts a good long while for me. Hence why I try to not drink to the point that I can't legally drive an automobile anymore.

[Bluenoise]

It's even worse when you wake up fully cloathed except for some reason your underwear are on backwards. And the last thing you can remember is taking another drink. Then you spend the rest of the day, trying to covertly find clues about what you did.

 

It's called having a case of the "Oh-Oh's"

 

Oh-Oh's

 

Definition: Waking up and knowing you did something you shouldn't have but having no idea what it could be.

 

 

But yeah back to the previous topic, when I sleep after drinking I usually sweatalot and constanly wake up unable to fall back asleep. I dream alot too, but I haven't gotten nightmares since I was probably 14 I just get vidid dreams alot.

 

Actually even without drinking, I tend to get vivid dreams every night. It's rare that I sleep without having an intense dream.

[padren]

If I wake up in a house I don't know, I am alright if there is signs of a party. If there is just some freaked out guy poking me with a baseball bat wondering who the hell I am, then the oh-ohs start to kick in.

 

 

 

I have vivid dreams often when drinking, not nightmares. I also get something I don't know how to describe, whenever I drink too much, or when I read too much QM/physics before bed.

I tend to get "gotta think-its" where I am half a sleep, and I feel like I am on some mission to solve something. Its always wierd, makes no sense, but keeps me half awake because I worry if I fall asleep I'll not finish my "work" and if I do, it carries over and I wake up again still trying to solve it, several times through the night.

 

Those I just hate.

[DragonMom]

I know alcohol can distrupt REM sleep but I cannot think of any logical explanation for why this happens and its wierd becasue I never seem to have nightmares anytime else.

 

I think maybe you just answered your own question. Now this is just theory, not based on personal experience, but maybe the nightmares are a side-effect of your body trying to rid itself of what it perceives as a poison. Alcohol does react in the body like a poison, after all, even if a very mild one. Not all dreams have meaning, some are just mind-dumps (think trash dumps), so maybe it's just really nasty mind-dumping. *shrug*

[qwerty]

I have awesome dreams after drinking, around half the time. none are bad or nightmares. also hardly ever have a hangover, unless i drink something i dont like the taste of.

[Royston]

I usually have vivid dreams with or without alcohol, probably because I think too much before nodding off. However I've found red wine seems to bring on nightmares...though I find nightmares fascinating, so on occasion I've purposely induced them. Anyway here's a link to why alcohol affects sleep...

 

http://www.hazelden.org/servlet/hazelden/cms/ptt/hazl_alive_and_free.html?sf=t&sh=t&page_id=25427

[aj47]

I think maybe you just answered your own question. Now this is just theory, not based on personal experience, but maybe the nightmares are a side-effect of your body trying to rid itself of what it perceives as a poison. Alcohol does react in the body like a poison, after all, even if a very mild one. Not all dreams have meaning, some are just mind-dumps (think trash dumps), so maybe it's just really nasty mind-dumping. *shrug*

 

Even if your body does treat alcohol as a poison, the side effects are physical not psycological which is why I can't make the connection. As well as this alcohol fragments and distrupts REM sleep making you effectively dream less and making them harder to remember which is why I find it so confusing that all these dreams have been so vivid and memorable.

Plus I quite literally never have nightmares apart from when I drink.

 

Ah well maybe its just all in my head.

[YT2095]

I`m left wondering which is the "Abnormal" reaction here, on the Very are occasion that I do go to bed "Drunk" I don`t dream at all, at least nothing I can remember, but when I wake I feel as if I`ve had no sleep either, I`m just as tired as I was before I went to bed.

ordinarily I dream quite vividly every night without exception, but with booze...Nada.

[silkworm]

Maybe this is all because you feel guilty about drinking.

 

I feel no guilt at all and I naturally (without building up) have an abnormally high tolerance for alcohol, especially for someone my size (about 140 pounds). I drink heavily. And although I sleep a short period of time when I'm drunk when I wake up I'm well rested and collected and I've only had a hangover once in my entire life. I think that's because the whiskey I was drinking was cheap so I always reccommend the good stuff when drinking.

 

There was this one time I had this nightmare where I died in a bizarre car accident. My dreams are always very detailed, and long, and I feel things in them so naturally when I woke up I naturally thought I was dead and I didn't know where I was, which was at my friend's place. I was watching her appartment while she ran to New York for a week. The chandeller was lit and it was very intense so I moved quickly and before I knew it was only a dream I was out in the street close to naked in the cold and I had locked myself out. I don't think that had anything to do with my substance abuse that evening, but that's the only reference I can make to a bad dream while drunk.

 

I have hallucenated twice from alcohol (during a 10 month bender). They were both crappy hallucenations of brunettes in raincoats. Explain that to me.

[Royston]

I`m left wondering which is the "Abnormal" reaction here' date=' on the Very are occasion that I do go to bed "Drunk" I don`t dream at all, at least nothing I can remember, but when I wake I feel as if I`ve had no sleep either, I`m just as tired as I was before I went to bed.

ordinarily I dream quite vividly every night without exception, but with booze...Nada.[/quote']

 

This seems more logical, as in, when you're drunk you tend to forget what you said or done the previous night, so really you should have difficulty recollecting your dreams. So it does seem odd it has the reverse effect in many people.

 

I usually feel I've had little sleep if I'm been at the juice the night before...the strange thing is, the day after, I'm in an incredibly good mood, sometimes even ecstatic. I thought I'd fallen in love with one of my ex girlfriends a few years ago, only to realise that it was just a hangover ! It took me a while to notice how elevated my mood gets after a heavy night out. I'm the only person I know who gets this.

[Gurunath1985]

Hi

Hi AJ47, I am writing this now when I have just woken up by a nightmare after sleeping with 2  Large whisky and trying to search Google for any similar instance. Below are my observations.

1). The dream will be either of accident or Ghostly activity. (Life threat to dreamer or dreamer family member).

2).Dream will be very detailed.

3). When you wake up the time will be between 4:00 to 5:00 AM.

4). Whisky of less price or Good whisky and again some beer. Mixed alcohol.

This is the 3rd time I have nightmare after drinks.

[Strange]

22 minutes ago, Gurunath1985 said:

Hi AJ47

You are replying to someone who hasn’t been on the forum for 11 years. So don’t expect an immediate response

[Phi for All]

18 hours ago, Strange said:

You are replying to someone who hasn’t been on the forum for 11 years.

Wasn't he the guy who claimed a bald ghost in a purple Mini Cooper wearing 117 wristwatches caused him to have an accident early one morning after drinking boilermakers the night before?