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BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams
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BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams |
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Subject: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: RangerSteve Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:14 AM Maybe it's the prescription drugs I take. Or maybe I'm just going insane. Usually (and fortunately) I forget my dreams within a few hours of waking up. But this one wants to stay in my memory. It goes like this: My friend and I take the elevator up to the top of the Washington Monument. We start to walk down, but a few flights down, I notice my friend has lagged behind, so I sit down to wait. The landing where I'm sitting has a large fish tank, filled with goldfish. After a while, the landing becomes crowded, with people sitting everywhere, including on the fish tank. Everybody, except me is wearing camaflage hunting gear. My friend is still nowhere in sight, so I walk around, looking for him. He uses a cane to walk and has gray hair, and there seem to be a lot of people in the dream who match his description. Finally, I find him, but then I can't find my John Deere baseball cap, which I had earlier taken off and placed on top of the fish tank. My friend convinces me to forget it, but as we start walking downstairs, I overhear someone else say "Hey, someone stole my John Deere cap". A few flights down, I stop for supper. I'm joined by my older brother and a stranger. My plate has these white discs with blue pin-point dots, which the stranger explains is cheese which he found in my refrigerator. I tell him that I never bought anything like this cheese, and he produces an invoice proving that I ordered it. I try it, and it doesn't taste to bad. There are other details to this dinner that I'll skip, as this is getting kind of long. At the base of the monument, some people are performing a dance interpretation of Mousorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". (In real life, I'm only vaguely familiar with this work. I have know idea why I'd dream about it). Only a few dancers perform at a time, the rest cover themselves in shrouds until it's their turn to dance. I realize that I don't have the slightest clue as to what's going on.The final part of the show involves a procession with people in colorful costumes riding wooly mammoths. The mommoths are all various shades of blue, most of them are no taller than me, except for one that's about the size of a two-story house, and is carrying another mammoth on its back. The accompanying music is the last movement of "Caucasian Sketches", and I point out to someone that it doesen't belong in the show, but he reminds me that I really like this piece and should stop complaining. The room gets really crowded, and I start to feel claustrophobic. I fight the crowd to get out, and finally wake up. Like I said, I think it's the prexcription drugs. If anyone cares to analize this, go ahead. Feel free to tell me that I'm crazy. I won't take offense. I already know it. Steve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Ebbie Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:41 AM You've said before that you are dealing with health issues, so maybe it is the drugs. I don't know. However maybe you are dealing with other things. I like dreams. Mine are vivid, some are bizarre, some come out of the blue from god knows where, some are very funny. Last night I dreamt that I was a working artist, a painter. I saw some of my paintings and they were not too bad. Only one was what one might call 'primitive', and I heard someone telling someone else that he knew the person who had painted it, and that it wasn't me. I assured him it was I. it was a small painting, maybe 5 x 7, of two or three figures seated at a table in front of a window, the painting done mostly in purple and white. The painting that has stayed most with me today was of something that I had labeled 'The Hike'. It showed a view - done mostly in earth tones, mainly of green- of a large troop of boy and girl scouts clambering up the mountainside, having a great and noisy time. It showed them talking and yelling and even roughhouseing. The troop leader was a woman and with a big silly grin on her face she was bounding ahead of them. I am not visible in the painting. It sounds like a happy time- but in the dream I was uncomfortably aware of how painfully I had reacted that day to what I had planned as a solitary mountain hike. Incidentally, other than a few vitamins I take no pills. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:33 AM Many years ago, when it was a "new medical miracle" a doctor prescribed a new drug for me that produced "troublesome" dreams. I called the doctor's office and was informed he was "on vacation" for two weeks. The nurse was not helpful. I went to the local library to see if I could find out anything about this drug. The only thing I found out was that it had received very little testing, ... and that three of the four library persons at the reference desk were also taking it. None of the three who were taking it could tell my what it was supposed to cure. The "literature" did include mention of hallucinations and "induced dreaming" but dismissed the effect as "rare." It also warned that abrupt cessation could be fatal. Another call to the nurse got the reply that "you must do as the doctor instructed you and continue taking the medication." I replied something to the effect of ^%*$#@), ******,@#!!#! !, and cut the dose in half for each of the next two days and then stopped. I didn't die. The doctor could offer NO EXPLANATION or citation of any specific symptoms for which he had prescribed the medicine when he returned, other than "lots of people are taking it and it seems to help." He could (would) not tell me "what it helped with." I assume he was "collecting data" for a field trial without informing me or asking for my consent to be a test subject. In my case the dreams were only vaguely "rememberable" but had something to do with being threatened with bodily harm. The troublesome part (to me) was that it also induced sleep walking, and on the night that I decided to be concerned I had gone, asleep, from the basement to a locked closet upstairs, which I had unlocked and from which I removed a 30-'06 deer rifle, proceeded to the garage where I had unlocked my ammo storage box, loaded the rifle, and woke up standing in the middle of the kitchen looking for something to shoot at. The nurse did not find this disturbing, the doctor was "unavailable," and I couldn't get a referral to another doctor from the nurse. I've had different doctors for some time now (that's slight sarcasm), but have not since taken any medication before checking out what it's for, what side effects are documented and the extent of test trials that support the discovery of effects, and what therapeutic effects are expected. So far as I know, I haven't been used (deliberately) as an involuntary guinea pig since that incident. (It was more than 35 years ago.) (On occasion, it still rather ticks me off.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Bagpuss Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:42 AM Just out of interest, John, what was the name of the drug, and what symptoms had you gone to the doctor with that resulted in you being prescribed this medication? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Deckman Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:32 AM Drugged dreams are a very serious problem in medicine. Several years ago, after hip implant surgery, the doc put me on "Percoden" (sp?). I started having screaming nightmares, many a night. I felt like I was sleeping with Steven King. A visitng nurse checked on me, called the doc and he put me on something else immediatly. It turned out that my reaction was common to that medicine. I still, after five years, vividly remember one dream. Not nice. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Peace Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:38 AM Percodan has 8.5 times the analgesic power (gram for gram) of codeine. I took the stuff for three days once after surgery. Pain? What pain! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 24 Jan 07 - 06:49 AM I once took an over-the-counter remedy, for 'flu, called 'Night Nurse'. This is supposed to help you sleep if you have 'flu and is available in the UK. That night I had a vivid and terrifying dream of an electric blue cosmic centipede which was several light years long (I've no idea how I knew how long it was). I never took 'Night Nurse' again! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:31 AM Bagpuss asked, as I rather expected someone would, for the identification of the drug that caused my nightmare experience. As it's a rather common one now, and dosage/use practices have been, suitably(?) modified (I've checked references) to preclude repeats of my experience I'd prefer to leave it with the advice that any drug not well known and properly prescribed can be suspect, and any change in prescription or dosage for potent prescriptions needs to be supervised, with professional advice immediately available in case of an unusual "experience." A part of my experience was that the particular drug didn't really have any sigificant potential for helping any of several "complaints" that I had. The doctor heard all my symptoms, made a fairly competent(?) examination, including some lab testing, and handed me a fist full of prescriptions with instructions to "take these." He did not tell me what the individual prescriptions were for, or which drug was intended to "fix" which condition. The other prescriptions in the bunch were ones I'd used before, and was fairly familiar with, so this one "new miracle" was the only likely suspect. My own completely non-professional opinion is that the reaction I had was due to un-recognized stress I was experiencing at the time. Some may be familiar with the way in which insulin does not "participate" in metabolism, but acts as a "transfer agent" to regulate the transport of sugar into the cells. The sugar can't get into the cells to be metabolized without the insulin to "hand it through" the cell wall. Israeli medical researchers at about the time of my unfortunate experience released some then-new research findings that several "stress hormones" have the ability to greatly increase the transport of numerous chemicals (including pharmaceuticals) through the "brain barrier" that normally prevents those same molecules from getting into the nervous system and affecting mental processes. The original (superficial?) testing of the drug I was given showed extremely low nervous system penetration for that drug, but it would appear that I, and the "rare" others, who experienced psychodynamic effects may have simply gotten much higher "brain dose" than would be common, due to "stress factors" not present in typical patients up to that time. (The Israeli researchers were looking for an explanation for why testing of suspected war zone chemical agents made it look like they had no effect when tested on large numbers of people and animals in the lab, yet appeared to have affected troops in the combat zones. I think they found a good clue. Strangely, their reports seem all to have disappeared from my library now, or maybe just got buried somewhere deep in the stacks.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 24 Jan 07 - 09:08 AM A lot of things give me crazy dreams. wine with dinner eating dinner 8 pm or later cold and allergy medications some prescription medications. (Plavix was the latest.) serious emotional distress. for example, after 9/11 Several years ago I had flu and couldn't even keep water down. They gave me compazine. It stopped the vomiting, but for three days I didn't get to sleep until 3 am, and when I did sleep, I had tormented dreams. A few years later a nurse said to me, "Compazine is hard on women." So I guess they do learn. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: mack/misophist Date: 24 Jan 07 - 09:42 AM Odd. For almost 2 years I was a heavy user of codeine and percodan for severe arthritis. No dreams at all. Then only normal ones after I stopped taking them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Bagpuss Date: 24 Jan 07 - 10:30 AM I ALWAYS read the drug information leaflet, for details of what the drug is prescribed for, what the appropriate dose is and what the common and rarer side effect are. I have been on medications that have given me pretty weird side effects (extreme drowsiness 30 minutes after taking them combined with muscle jerks; night sweats; huge appetite increase etc etc), but they were all listed on the leaflet, so I knew whether they were likely to diminish or whether they meant I should go back to the doctor. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Bee Date: 24 Jan 07 - 01:43 PM Both of my parents,who both had serious helth issues, many years apart ended up taking the same medication (can't recall the name - both were diabetic and had heart problems) which gave them severe hallucinations. In my Dad's case, he said nothing for several days, because the hallucinations happened at night and he thought he was seeing ghosts. Then one night he woke to the sight of a well stocked refrigerator, door open and light on, at the foot of the bed. "Refrigerators aren't likely ghosts", he said, and off to the doc he went next morning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Gizmo Date: 24 Jan 07 - 01:44 PM I don't take any drugs or medication -I rarely have an alcoholic drink nowadays, and oten I have very vivid dreams. I always dream in full colour, with sounds and smells. I still remember dreams I had 10 or more years back. Sometimes I will forget about a dream and it would come back to me for no apparent reason, in circumstances that are unrelated to the dream. I like my dreams, and I am often aaware that I am dreaming, and can quite often decide what I will do, or have rewound the dream and changed things, paused a dream to wake up and blow my nose, then go straight back into my dream etc. I like to tsee the end of my dreams, like I am in a film, participating and watching it at the same time. I do not perceive my dreams as real life, only as an entertainment. I have not often encountered bad dreams, and when I have, I wake up, tell my dreams to go away and start again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: RangerSteve Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:14 PM Leeneia mentioned Plavix. That's one of the drugs I take, along with Glyburide, Avandia (both for Type II Diabetes), Remugel (Sp?) for my kidney problem, and a few others that I don't remember offhand, (They're upstairs in the bathroom and I'm too lazy to go look). I also take melatonin, which induced some weird dremas in the beginning, but I got used to it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JohnInKansas Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:15 PM It's been a few years since I've seen a significant amount of theorizing on dreaming; but it was for a time a very significant subject of research. The commonly held theory, the last time I looked, was that everybody dreams, nearly everytime the sleep. It appears to be a "necessary function" and it's been reported by numerous researchers that persons who are prevented from dreaming, by disturbing them whenever REM phase sleep begins, will invariably develop "psychotic symptoms." (Usually temporary, and resolved by a good night or two of normal sleep.) There really is no division between "people who dream" and "people who don't dream." The distinction is between those who are aware that they've dreamed (or that they are dreaming) and those who simply don't remember it when they wake up. Those who claim not to dream invariably can be made aware of their dreaming if they are wakened artificially while REM sleep is going on. Persons who remember "pretty little dreams" frequently find recollection of much more bizarre dreaming if they're wakened during a "deep REM" period, leading to the conclusion that the normally remembered "pretty stuff" may be from the transition back from the depths of stranger things. Some people are able consciously to choose "what dream to have" if the choice is made while falling asleep. It has been speculated that the "chosen dream" usually is deferred until all the strange stuff has worked it's way through, and appears only during the ascent out of "deep REM," but that's not really a proven thing so far as I've heard. (Most adolescent boys will attest that trying to go back to the dream from which they woke up "just before she said yes" hardly ever works, but that may be just from excess emotional baggage attaching to the dream.) Drug induced dreams may be a person's perfectly normal dreams, made more "remembered" by changes in the rapidity of transitions between the various sleep stages. Physical discomfort, as from "forgetting to pee" or from unusual (esp. liquid) ingestion just before sleep, causes some people to "dream more than usual." Stimulation or depression of different "centers" of brain activity by drugs may also entirely change the dream content. The latter probably will produce the most worrisome changes(?), although it may not be essential that the dreams be "different," if one is remembering "different stage" dreams, which can be quite startling. It's an extremely fascinating subject, but with respect to changes in drug treatment, any unexpected change requires evaluation of whether the drug is producing an unintended effect, and whether that effect is acceptable or needs an "adjustment" in drug kind or dosage. Or so it seems to me. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Slag Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:41 PM I believe the drug must be accounted for, contrasted to your normal dream life. Enumerate the differences. More vivid colors? Heightend emotions? Dealing with any new anxieties? etc. Elements of the dream are your own symbols. Colors seem important, GOLD fish, GREEN JohnDeere (dear friend?) cap. Cap on the Monument? Blue circles on Yellow Cheese, etc. Little elephants, ancient elephants dancing around the Washinton Monument? GOP? Too long in Washinton? The same old song and dance isn't working any more? Even though you may have liked it in the past? Just a few ideas you may want to work with. Good Luck! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JennieG Date: 24 Jan 07 - 07:06 PM I don't take any drugs (occasionally paracetamol for a headache) but have bad dreams if I roll over onto my back during sleep. Really bad being-chased-by-a-faceless-horrible-thing dreams which wake me up, and it takes quite a while to go back to sleep. Not nice. Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: RangerSteve Date: 24 Jan 07 - 08:51 PM Jennie G - you're not alone. I can't sleep on my back for the same reason, and I know a lot of people who have the same problem. Slag, that's all pretty interesting, but I hate to analyze my dreams. It's more fun just to recall them, and then forget them if they're too bizarre. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JennieG Date: 24 Jan 07 - 09:21 PM Thank goodness it's not just me Steve, I thought I was just peculiar! Several years ago I had to have a major op and of course had to lie on my back with tubes coming from here, there and everywhere - which meant I couldn't easily move. I warned the 2 other women in my ward that if I woke up yellng there was a reason. I was so doped up on Pethidine for a while there that I was floating, not dreaming. Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: GUEST Date: 24 Jan 07 - 09:24 PM If anyone cares to analize this, go ahead. Feel free to tell me that I'm crazy. I won't take offense. I already know it. Ahhem! Slag |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: GUEST,Dickey Date: 25 Jan 07 - 01:11 AM As long as you know you're crazy, you're OK. It is the ones who deny being crazy that are introuble. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: JohnInKansas Date: 25 Jan 07 - 02:05 AM Dreaming differently in a particular bed position, and particularly when dreams "go bad" when sleeping on one's back, are a common symptom of apnea - the interuption of breathing during sleep. This can range from mild, with sleep interruptions and poor sleep quality (which prevents proper dreaming and can produce strange waking behaviour) to severe, which can cause drain bamage. If this is persistent and frequent enough to be noticeable, a conference with a professional medical consultant should be considered, or at least the symptom should be discussed with your practitioner as part of your regular visits. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: SINSULL Date: 25 Jan 07 - 02:24 PM For several years now I have been having a dream series. It started with a dream that all of the women in my family were pregnant. We were all in a beautiful candy store with parquet floors buying Easter candy. Suddenly they all went into labor. The local news covered the births of 36 babies in one hospital all related. My sisters in law had twins and triplest. Cousins and nieces had the same. One cousin had sextuplets - one girl was disfigured and mentally challenged. So...the next dream covered visiting the babies and trying to learn all their names. I gave up. Next came Christmas and being unable to buy anything worthwhile because I couldn't afford 36. I ended up giving them really crappy things like A balloon or a kazoo. Next came the following Christmas. The babies are all one but they all look 5 or 6. Again I have cheap inappropriate gifts picked up on a trip to Tibet. By the way, in this dream Germany has a border with Russia and on the Russian side you grab a row boat to Tibet. The last dream was about visiting my sister-in-law in Buffalo. She is very tired (50+ and triplets) and now one of the children is showing signs of problems. We go apple picking and get pumpkins. Then we have a Fourth of July Bar-B-Que. This is without meds. My best dreams are on sleeping pills - Ambien gives me vivid exciting dreams in brilliant colors. So much fun I hate to wake up. The doctor cut me off when I told him. Actually, he only gave me 6 pills to adjust a sleeping pattern. I sometimes keep a dream diary and am amazed at the themes that recur - traveling, scarves and shawls, getting lost on a cruise ship. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Prescription drug-induced dreams From: Ebbie Date: 25 Jan 07 - 06:22 PM I dream about babies sometimes but almost always I am lax, even negligent, with their care. I lose them, forget where I left them, forget to feed them or change them. I worry about them, though. |
