Question
My 43 y.o. male partner has vivid dreams, often talking. Some are pleasant but most are of his being under attack or threat. He does not feel rested and often puts sleep off to avoid sleep torture and gets by on 5 hours and deals with always feeling tied.
Answer
The reason why is he having vivid dreams is because he is sleep deprived and going into rapid eye movement sleep even quicker.Rapid eye movement is your eyelids moving back and forth and you are dreaming. Im no md, but suffer from narcolepsy, a sleeping disorder over 30 years and no much about sleep. Normally one spends 60-90 minutes in what is called nrem, non reapid eye movement which means eyelids are moving but one is not dreaming, then we spend the next 30-60 minutes in rem dreaming, then switch back and forth thru the night, so what is happening is sleep cycle is no so used to skipping the nrem cycle that he goes right into rem dreaming, when one does this and skips the nrem cycle one goes into the rem cycle not fully correct and starts dreaming with ones eyes open or not fully paralyzed as we all are when we dream otherwise we would all be sleep walking. so now how to reset his sleep cycle. Not so easy but can be done if followed religiously. First of all he must go to bed and awaken the same time each day and give at least 8-10 hours of sleep. 3 hours before his bedtime he must stay away from chocolate, alcohol,caffeine, tea, coffee, exercise, caramel colored soda like coke and pepsi, gingerale. this starts to reset the sleep cycle. The things not to eat are what can trigger vivid dreams.if he twist and turn he should do it for only 20 minutes go into a different room and read a book or magazine only no computer, when he starts to doze he immediately goes back into the bed, this retrains the brain into thinking that the bedroom is for recuperative sleep only, he does this as many times as he awakens in the night it will lesson. 30 minutes before sleep he must take a hot bath and immerse palms of hands under bath water, latest john hopkins research is that when palms are immersed under hot water the palms send impulses to the brain to wind down and relax. l5 minutes before sleep take a glass of warm milk. Milk especially when heated contains tryptophan a natural amino acid inducer, this must be done for at least 6-8 weeks, but many see results in as little as 2 weeks, if all else fails his last alternative would be to go to a sleep center and have his sleep monitored overnight. Mainly for vivid dreams, antidepressants are given in baby doses as research dont know why but what they do is hold back the dreaming, the problem is the side effects and no matter how good they work, the dreaming must come through and many times the longer the meds hold it back, the dreaming will break through so the vivid dreams may be even worse. We all have to dream. Go to sleepnet.com click on forums where you can read and post problems. If you need to go to a sleep center your local hospital can refer you. feel free to email again karel
