Nights have been wild lately…first there’s the loopiness and painfully increased sex drive…then eventually I go to sleep with the help of seroquel (the xyrem is at too low of a dose to help me sleep right now so I still have to take it, I tried going without and had terrible insomnia).
Then night time is COMPLETELY dreamless, no dreams at all. However when my last dose of xyrem wears off that’s when the dreams kick in, like in the morning time, and they are insanely vivid. It’s like when I was first starting seroquel all over again. And for some reason I am so paranoid in them, like my classic psychosis paranoia. They are very miserable and stressful dreams.
I don’t know what to think of it really.
summary: I think xyrem prevents me from dreaming so my brain CRAMS in all my REM once it wears off resulting in this intense vivid dream montage that are usually very stressful nightmares where I am highly paranoid
XYREM is basically just GHB and it’s exactly what I need… I frequently wake up due to dreaming (7-8 times a night), I wish I didn’t dream at all or at least not wake up from it!
Alcohol (which is somewhat related to GHB) gives me a good sleep in the weekends. But I don’t think there is a chance my pdoc will prescribe Xyrem. How did you obtain it, what was your sleeping-problems?
I actually just read something saying xyrem actually increases time spent in REM? But I swear I’ve also seen something saying it decreases? So I’m a bit confused on that.
Currently in the US I believe you can only be prescribed xyrem if you have narcolepsy.
I don’t know about it either increases or decrease REM sleep. Increase is good, decrease bad. But if you wake-up refreshed it probably increases. Yeah, unfortunately same here in the Netherlands, it’s only prescribed for narcolepsy.
Hmm that’s good…! I think I will still bring it up on my next appointment though… It’s been almost 2 years, 10 med changes, no improve in sleep. Sleep is so important for mental illness!
Maybe the time spent dreaming is less but you remember the dream you had more when you wake up.
We can dream at night and not remember it, maybe you forgot some of your dreaming before.
I started monitoring it with my Fitbit and actually its just very efficient sleep. All the sleep stages are in totally normal ranges, there just aren’t any awakenings anymore. My natural sleep is very disrupted.
No awakenings and disrupted sleep? Did you wake up frequently and have to fall asleep again before Xyrem?
Btw. it’s normal why Xyrem gives you paranoid dreams as a side-effect. It’s GHB you’re taking but it’s a much lower dosage than drug addicts take. GHB in high dosages can make one psychotic.