I'm so so so exhausted. The last month or two, I have been sleeping terribly. I didn't realise it until fairely recently, but I am having nightmares each night of people getting killed. Last night I dreamt of someone getting their hands cut off with a chainsaw. the night before, someone lieing on their back being stabbed to death by someone with an expressionless face.

The dreams themselves don't have me scared and I do not wake up in a sweat or heavy heartbeat, but I have a lot of trouble falling back to sleep after it. I'm getting to the point now where it is hard to survive a whole day at work, and going out at night is an effort not really worth it.

Any advice? I would like to avoid drugs if I could.

Don't eat a heavy meal before bed
Stay away from caffiene at bedtime
Do a bit of light reading.
Make sure it is completely dark.
Milk and cookies before bed.
Wait around for the Estelbar quest to reset.

Ok thats just freaky... I've been having very similar dreams as well... damn those late night holoween comercials.

I always drink atleast a pot of coffee before bed...

One night I drank like 5 pots then went to bed, that dream was freaky. I felt like I woke up, did something in the house, then realized I was still sleeping... and "woke up" again only to again realize I was still sleeping. After like 6 times doing this I started screaming at myself to wake up, and it just kept happening... like 20 times in a row before I really woke up. Was strange, and the only reason I realized I was still sleeping was little things like seeing the front door from bed, which is impossible with the way my bedroom is set up... Next time it happens I might actually stay that way and see where it leads.

When I was a teenager I kept getting "sleep paralysis" where my eyes were open and I was fully aware of whats going on, but my body was still asleep and I couldn't move... really freaky.

Once fell asleep after a long night of trying to fix some serious bugs, woke up to find the bugs all fixed... but no memory of actually doing it.

Oh well... coffee is almost done.

Never had a problem with coffee or nightmares either.

The best thing about really bad nightmares, specially when you know they're coming, is consider them a really good terror film and enjoying the show. It only needs a bit of mental discipline and usually at least you have fun. I managed to just turn out the TV and go to normal sleep if the nightmare wasn't good enough (WTF, another shark!! I am sick of sharks, sharks don't swim in the watersink).

Call me silly, but I've always felt that dreams were a form of messages to you from the subconcious. The back of your mind tries to explain something to you but can only speak in images and metaphor, thus the oddness of dreams (good way to think of it is when we say "That pink slip came at me like a knife in the dark", your dream would talk about getting fired by showing your boss literally stabbing you in the back with a knife in the dark). To add to that, since the subconcience knows it uses metaphore too much, it'll ALWAYS use them, making it so that the actual images are never what they originaly show. Any person you recognize while in the dream is, instead, talking about a part of you that is similar to how that person acts. OTOH, some random punk that, in the dream, you feel is your father is the dream actualy talking about your real father.

In any case, perhaps you're having trouble sleeping not because the dreams themselves bother you, but because on some level you know what the dream is talking about, and THAT bugs you: a secret that's haunting you but can't be ignored. It's probably NOT about killings, or physical pain, but something associated with that pain.

ALOT of it depends on what ideals/morals/stereotypes/whatevers you believe in, but to make a shot in the dark, the first dream sounds like you're having issues of someone becomming helpless by some strong, force (we rely heavily on our hands to survive/live/grow/piss off people. Imagine how your life would be if you lost that).

The other sounds like betrayal or a nasty case of..well.. backstabbing.

Link both together and you have the feeling something out there is sabotoging your life: a possible layoff you definatly don't need, losing a home, someone close to you that you don't trust, something that will do more than just make you lose some cash: you'll be left adrift if it occurs. It can be game based IF you're that deep into it (yup, if you're obsessed with Lusternia, your mind might be worried about that. Doubtful but possible)

If it's true, then just acknoledging it will help (at least, it'll probably let you sleep, even with the nightmares). Dealing with the situation, either by truly convincing yourself that things are ok, or solving the issue if things are not ok, should kill off the nightmares.

Thanks for the advice everyone, especially Cwin. I think of dreams in much the same way but I cannot honestly think of a situation that seems to match up with what these constant murders could represent.

I guess I'll see what I dream of tonight and let you all know tomorrow :s.

Yay! Saw II comes out tomorrow. I can't wait to see it - I had nightmares after the first one... even though I thought it was corny.

Yes thank you Narsrim . Here I am, sleep deprived and having serial-killer like fantasies in my sleep, and you mention a movie. Well...fair enough I really wanna see it too, but PITY ME!

Like my little brother says: Sleep is for the weak... and the tired.

Exercize is supposed to help sleep. Dunno about dreams, but I suppose it can't hurt

Insomnia opens your thirdeye or something. Gives you psychic powers. Read Stephen King for details.

Saw II? Woot, I didn't even know they're making a sequel. I hope it's at least as great as the original one.

I only had standard nightmares about hoards of bugs (spiders usually) crawling into my bad from all directions (or already there. I used to run away in the hall in the middle of the night), or hanging at the ceiling above me. And falling. But that was when I was little.

I had that weird case one when I woke up and someone was sitting at the chair near my bad (no chance of that actually happening). So i sit and speak with that person for quite a long time about some various stuff (why I wasn't surprised, no idea). After like maybe 10 minutes or so (wouldn't know exactly) I snapped and realized that I'm talking with the rolled rug, and was generally like wtf.

Brain is weird.

Anyway, nightmares are fun usually, better than no dreams at all.

I don't know Quidgyboo but your sig would definitly give me nightmares.

I have honestly been having very similar dreams, and have been wondering if there is some nasty tragedy about to happen.

Though my friends have told me its just because I have no job and "need to get a life."

Blah. Insomnia powers require you to sleep a little less every day until you just don't sleep at all. After that you can suck people's lives like a vampire.

Wait, that guy stabbing the other guy.. are you sure it was an expressionless face or..perhaps it was a smiling man without a face.


As for trying to get back to sleep, do the 15-minute rule: Lay in a nice, relaxed position, ready to sleep and wait 15 minutes. If you aren't dozing off, get up and do something else for a little while. Post-15 minutes many people get frustrated, which makes getting to sleep even worse. Go do something you like to do that isn't heart pumping for a bit before trying again.

Now that you're more aware, perhaps the next dreams will make more sense.

Funny, I have simular nightmares... but they aren't spiders.

A large number of Lisaera's?

Acrune is correct. Exercising regularly will help you sleep. Also gets you in shape. Win/Win situation there.

Probably nightmares like that can be a consequence of spending a lot of hours in a game where people is burned, chopped to pieces, hit with rocks and all those many things at every moment of the day

I have horrible nightmares which I call night terrors, where I wake up but Im still asleep in a way. Ussually there is something in my room, and I freak out physically because of it. An example is once I dreamt that a giant hedgehog was trying to bite my toes so I got all worked up then I pounced out of bed and phyiscally ran into the living room waking everyone up in the entire house. Once I thought that a lizard was trying to poison me and I lept out of my bed, ran screaming into my sisters room, and then lept onto my little sisters bed which is a top bunk. I literally lept, and because I was some freaky thing that lept onto her bed she began to scream bloody murder which made me scream more, which made my older sister scream because she thought we were being murdered and she was in the same room as me. Then when the light came on, I said that "some.. thing" is coming after me, and we were all so worked up they literally thought that a lizard was going to come in and kill all of us.

Its hideous, but I ussually don't have any dreams when I am cool, try sleeping naked it is wonderfully free feeling, and also keeps you cool. Just keep clothing beside your bed so you can get changed quickly. Because it is coming into spring from winter, I found that I hadn't removed all my winter blankets and thus was having hideous dreams. Also keep yourself hydrated before bed, and read till the point of exhaustion.

The nightmares are still going on. Last night, I had several dreams in which I died or someone tried to kill me. One of the more memorable and the freakiest I've had in a while happened last night.

In it, my brother came into my room gasping for breath, as if he were having an asthma attack. I was so worried about him on some level outside my dream that I wanted to wake to check on him but I could not escape the dream. He stumbled over to me and touched me, as if pleading for my help as I lay there and did nothing. As he did touch me, I found myself suddenly unable to breath too, it was almost as if an evil prescence was spreading from him to me. When this happened, I became even more panicked and I did manage to wake myself to find that I was physically gasping for air.

So today, again, I am running about about four hours of sleep. I haven't been this shook up and stressed over a dream in a long long time, I've been getting sort of teary eyed all day at the thought of seeing my brother dying like that, it was horrible to watch.