Hello, I am having horrible nightmares. I severe chronic pain issues due to Lupus, Fybromyalgia, 5 back surgeries and nerve damage. I normally will start hurting in my sleep, it wakes me up, I change positions and go back to sleep. I have had this problems with nightmares twice before, but nothing like what I'm experiencing now. It started about 10 years ago and I would dream that I was being kicked by a cowboy with cowboy boots in the area's that hurt, such as my shoulders and hips. I had this dream almost every night for a couple of months and still do occasionally. This dream has never really bothered me and I can understand why I have it. It is my bodies way of waking me up when I'm in a heavy sleep and need to turn. The second dream series was basically the same. The dreams were worse, I was being burned and was on fire, but those ended after I had surgery and have not had one since.
This last series of nightmares started about a week ago. Every night the dreams have gotten more intense and horrifying. This time, though, I'm not waking up. My daughter has started sleeping in my room so she can wake me up. I will scream and cry in my sleep, but do not wake up. When she finally is able to wake me, I am so distraught and in such severe pain, that it takes a half an hour to an hour just to get me to calm down and when I can finally go back to sleep, will go right back into the dream. Except the second time I will wake up immediately and then will not even try to go back to sleep. After a couple of hours, around 6 or 7 in the morning, I will be able to get a few more hours of sleep without any dreams.
Have you any suggestions and have you heard of other people that have had something like this. In the past I have understood why I was having the dreams. My PCP had never heard of any one having this problem and we just basically let it run it's course, but this is different in it's intensity and that I'm not waking up. If you have any suggestions, I would be grateful. Thank you for your time.
Diane Rush