Had a weird experience

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-01-2003
Had a weird experience
1
Sat, 05-05-2007 - 4:37pm

Hello, I've been lurking for a while. Thought I'd share my experience that I had yesterday. I'm axis 5 bipolar disorder with rapid cycling. I'm not on any meds right now. I tried Lamictal (an anti-seizure med) it gave me seizures. Tried Risperdal, made my cycling more intense, unpredictable, and I had much more anxiety and rage problems. Tried Invega, made me so dopey I could barely move, let alone think. So I'm trying yet again with no meds. I have a terrible doctor, and there's no one else in my town, so I'm kind of stuck.

Anyway, my experience. I fell asleep on the couch and started to dream. Normally my dreams are really bizaare and hallucinatory anyway, but this one really creeped me out. My dream is kind of hazy, I was on a couch in a house similar to my own, and I had laid down to take a nap. Then I started trying to get up. I was on my back, could see a small window in front of me with light streaming in, similar to the window in front of my couch normally. But I couldn't move an inch. I kept trying to move the blanket back and I could feel my muscles moving and straining, my skin creasing at my elbow, but I couldn't move. I could feel the blanket moving, but it wasn't. I started to panic because I felt like I was going to hyperventilate not being able to move. I couldn't make my head move off the pillow, but it felt like I was. I tried to make some sort of sound, but I couldn't get any words out. Then I started jerking and shaking really bad (I could only feel it but I still wasn't moving at all) then I woke up, shaking and jerking. I was laying in the same position as in my dream, with the window right where it was in my dream, but I could move again. I got off the couch right away, really freaked out. It was just so weird watching myself not move but I felt so much like I was, and I was trying so hard to move but I couldn't.

Has anyone had this sort of experience or anything similar? Thanks.

Jess
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2006
Tue, 05-08-2007 - 7:02pm

Sorry, little late to this post, but since no one else answered....I have these occasionally also and will wake up bathed in sweat from the exertion of trying to move, panicked, and trembling all over. My throat hurts from trying to force a sound out, but nothing comes out....what usually wakes me up is that I finally try so hard to make a noise that I do and it wakes me up. VERY freaky.

"The Bi-Polar Child" by Dimitri Papalos describes these type "waking dreams" I think he calls them very vividly. It has something to do with the brain being hung up between REM sleep and the arousal state so that the dream/s bleed over into the arousal state. When you were seeing the window, you were forcing your eyes open, but were still asleep....I do that sometimes too.

Not sure there is anything that can be done about them, I am on 175 mg of Lamictal(2x25 in the A.M. and 3x25 in the P.M) and am fairly stable....tried upping to 200 mg a day, but adding that 3rd one in the A.M. just shot my concentration all to heck and left me feeling like my brain had been replaced by cotton candy....I cut back to the 175 again and am doing pretty good, but I still have those dreams like that.

Good Luck and just know you aren't alone or that even US think your weird....I bet between all of us we have experienced just about ALL the symptoms of bp and eobp.

tk

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