Dreams starting to interfere with life

[WindStrike]

I've had issues with dreams up till recently, but probably nothing worse than what everyone else has - end up getting absorbed into the world of the dream itself and not waking up, and when I do finally wake up, it takes 30 minutes to an hour to transition from dreamland to reality. Occasionally, the dream itself will last a while or become nightmarish. So that's normal.

But over the last month, every single one of my dreams has lasted at least 3 days, has "changed topics" so to say several times each dream, and in most cases... I'm asleep for no more than 3 hours. Over the last week, I've been able to get about 5-7 hours of sleep, but overall, these dreams are throwing me off. I'm feeling a disconnect from reality, and I just don't know what the heck to do about it. I figured it'd go away after school ended, but it just kept getting worse. I'm trying to get back into music, new stuff should keep me active, still not working.

Maybe it is completely normal and it's just now happening to me. I don't know, all I can say that it's new for me and I'm starting to have trouble distinguishing between real life and... madness. Anyone else got similar experiences?

[ShadowTiger]

Interesting to hear. Thanks for sharing, certainly.

I'm a light sleeper. A very light sleeper. Someone paying for a pack of gum in the next state over could wake me up. (Cash, not credit. Credit cards don't crinkle as much as bills.) That means I can wake up from a dream very easily. I can't say I've been locked into one like that, though there have definitely been some dreams that feel -very- real, and -far- more coherent than the rest of the gobbledegook. Oh wow, Firefox thinks that's a word. I'm happy that it is one.

Can you describe this disconnectedness you feel, though, at all? Is it even possible to describe?

I'm currently engaged in a long-term personal project of mine that has produced a similar disconnected, albeit a beneficial one, and I can't say it hasn't been yielding positive results. So, I suppose, if anything, are there at least any upsides? The way I see it, if you've clarity of mind enough to articulate a post properly, it's not as maddening as most would fear.

[Glenn the Great]

I had some strange issues with dreams, pretty regularly, beginning immediately after I graduated from high school.

For several years, almost every night I would dream that I was still in high school. I would be whatever 20-something age I was at the time, but in High School, struggling to wrap up the last few credits that I needed, but also feeling way behind.

The dreams eventually started to die down, but then after I graduated from college the same old business started up again.

I guess my brain just isn't too accepting of major life changes, and it shows in my dreams.
And it's weird, because even though I'm 29, I regularly have new people mistake me for a high school student (I still look like a teenager).

As a side note, I'm contemplating starting college again, part-time, contingent on whether I can manage to reduce the currently overwhelming work load at my job. I wouldn't be surprised if the dreams start again.

[Mercy]

Jung would posit there is some aspect of your life that your subconscious is trying to bring to the attention of your conscious self. Perhaps there is something you need to contemplate in your waking hours so your subconscious can move on to lighter topics for dream fodder. Have you written or typed any of these dreams out? There are some generalities with dream interpretation, water often represents change (or lack of), but even Jung appreciated that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Your subconscious speaks in a language particular to your self so you should be able to decipher any metaphors. If your dreams are keeping you from satisfying sleep, figure out what is so important that your mind cannot let go.

As a chronic insomniac since grade school, I am familiar with the vicious cycle that arises from fretting over one's sleep cycles. It sucks. And folks who may have missed a few hours or a day of sleep once or twice in their lives will give you such priceless advice on how to "cure" yourself. That advice is usually either of the duh variety, "make sure your sleeping space is dark and quiet," or absurd, "sleep on an incline with your head below your heart," (one should never sleep with one's head below their heart for vascular/circulatory reasons). The only thing that ever really helped me was knowing any bout of insomnia would end eventually. Once you fall into the trap of expecting to have have an incomplete sleep session, it can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

csb time:

I once experienced almost three weeks of the same dream every night. No matter what I started off dreaming about, it would turn into the same dream involving several friends and I playing a LARP at a convention with ensuing (not so much) hilarity. After the first few nights, I became aware of the pattern. Even subconsciously, I would appreciate the repeat of the dream while dreaming it. So I started trying to change the ending of the dream. My dream self would even have conversations with my dream friends about how we had been through it all before and needed to change things from how we did them previous times. Little things would get changed but either the contemplation of something that broke the "fourth wall" of dreaming would wake me, or we would end up at the same place to which the dream seemed it wanted to end. By the third week, I was losing sleep from incomplete sleep cycles and procrastinated bed times. I was done with the stupid, repeating dream and did not want to play with my subconscious any more. The last night I had that dream, the start of it, I forced myself awake. I realized my subconscious had been channeling WOPR the whole time. There were things in my waking life at the time that I realized I was done with but continued to make room for in my life because..., habit/custom/duty. Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

Listen to yourself; you already know the answer.