TheAten

Today (or later on today) marks 19 days of sobriety. I feel generally great, and have had good conversations with family and friends about not drinking again - all have been universally supportive thus far, which has been life-affirming to say the least. That, along with you wonderful folks here at SR has helped me enormously, and I’m so grateful for so many things, even feeling grateful for lockdown as it forced me to take a good, long look in the mirror. I have so much gratitude and would like to give even more.

What I wanted to know is - did anyone here get severely unwanted, unnerving, in some cases depraved nightmares during early sobriety? The first five days or so were hell due to insomnia, but once I fell asleep on around the 6/7th evening, I quickly feel into a perfect, dreamless sleep pattern that saw me asleep by 10/11 at night and awake between 6/7. That all changed three nights ago when I woke up at around 4 after having an horrific nightmare. This has since happened every night, and again I’m here awake after yet another of these horrors, feeling dazed, disconcerted and upset. Is this normal? It’s 4:17 here in the UK, I’ve been awake since just before 4, and turning back over to sleep isn’t possible right away as the dream was so horrendous. I just wanted to ask you guys if this is something you experienced and if it hopefully will pass sometime? These are not drinking dreams by the way, they’re the type of dreams that make the Saw films seem like Beatrix Potter!

thomas11

This may not be helpful, but I'll share. I had some bad dreams when in my worst bender of my life back in 2010. They were unsettling. But I had a much different life when I was younger, and a dangerous one. When I got married, my wife for the first 3 years of our marriage would wake me regularly crying, are in some type of hysteria. If it wasn't that, I would be in a furious angry dream where I was out of control. None of those nightmares had to deal with alcoholism, but trauma.

So yeah, alcoholism is traumatic and having nightmares when coming out of it might be kind of normal.

Dee74

Hey TheAten

I had some pretty vivid horrid dreams in the first few months of my sobriety.
They did fade tho - or they gave way to the occasional vivid dream with no nightmarish component.

So yes I think it;s common, its normal and it doesn't last forever.

D

FlyingDutchMan

Same here, and I am coming off marijuana. I think it's packed up images that we suppressed for a long time. The stories my mind makes up at night, SCARY!

I take the good out of it: I am so relieved when I wake up that it has all been a dream. I lie in bed beaming and happy, realizing that real life isn't so bad.

DriGuy

I get a chuckle out of this. Welcome to recovery and the often times world of the drunk nightmare. And they can be wildly unnerving . It's one of the most common and unexpected parts of recovery, and yes they diminish with time. Mine were about finding myself drunk and not knowing how it happened, while hating myself for loss of control. I never had a depraved nightmare. But depending on what kind of depravity, it might be fun, although for now, lets not go into detail.

sugarbear1

I had those. They really scared me, too. I'd even see things when I opened my eyes. Luckily, it was just part of the recovery process for me and they ended. I sleep well today.

FlyingDutchMan

I forgot to mention the good part: they will pass!

tornrealization

I had nightmares with auditory hallucinations mixed in there. They were intense and guaranteed every time I went through withdrawals. I had actually come to expect them. It's frustrating because in those early days it's SO HARD TO SLEEP to begin with, and once you do - or pass out from exhaustion, you're greeted with horrible disturbing nightmares. I hate to say it but as others said - it seems normal.

It passes. I haven't had any of those lucid, vivid nightmares after my first couple of months. I do get dreams about having drank and being blacked out. Those are nightmares in a different way. Not the scary heart pounding supernatural way like those early dreams I had. Those come and go but are not intense and I'm always relieved when I wake up it didn't actually happen. I swear they come more after I hit milestones - then I go months without them.

FreeOwl

yesssssss.....

WaterOx

In my experience, you can set your watch to it.

Maybe this sounds crazy but I look forward to it. I forgot what it was like to dream that it's so pleasurable to experience such vivid dreams again. It's like I'm going to the movies "what will be on tonight???" LOL but I've been fortunate to never get many nightmares in my life. They might be bizzar or crazy or even scary but not something I'd consider a nightmare.

Caveat: the first night of sobriety I dreamt some sort of swamp monster was after me. That was pretty scary but it turned out ok because I beat him up

Surrendered19

I had some really crazy dreams in early sobriety. I never had any dreams at all in my 3 decades of drinking so even if they were often freaky, it was great just to dream again. I had violent dreams early on. Crazy stuff. Dreams of falling too. First 6 months this happened many nights per week.

slayingthedrago

Hi Aten- I'm at 33 days and am having very vivid, sometimes horrible, nightmares and dreams. I assume they will go away with time based upon others experiences, but "yes"- quite unnerving. I am confident they are a normal part of the brains recovery process.

whitejay

I have scary, upsetting and pounding heart dreams when Im not drinking. Its usually because I am upset or anxious about something in my life.
and alcohol just makes it worse, but I have more bad dreams when Im sober. Probably because I am so mad at myself for drinking for 30 years and now all my emotions are finally coming out for the first time.

lifewithart

Your reaction to the dream will enlarge the experience in your mind. Dreams are just the subconscious playing out. If you try to see it as neutrally as possible, it will pass and you'll have another dream play out. They will vary.

I also have intense dreams sometimes. So much gratitude for the clarity of mind that allows me to remember my dreams, regardless of the content.

All the 💕

KKAT33

I am 9 months in and was worried I would never sleep again. A few weeks ago I finally started sleeping some nights and had terrible dreams. I had forgotten what dreaming was. Recently I have had two great dreams, I was still smiling when I woke up. Hope you have good dreams soon!

Delilah1

I didn’t have nightmares, but I had a great deal of anxiety and bad thoughts trying to fall asleep, which kept me awake for quite a bit. That eventually passes, but was like that for a bit in the beginning. It still happens every now and then, but not like it did.

TheAten

Thanks all for the replies! Seems like this is pretty normal. Happy to report that after three nights of intense nightmares in a row, last night I fell asleep around midnight and woke at 7:49 this morning after a glorious, uninterrupted sleep! Nightmares are a small price to pay though compared to the living nightmare my life is when I’m drinking!

DriGuy

I'll second that, lol.

As disconcerting as my drinking dreams were in recovery, I understood them as progress. I'm not a dream expert, and while I sometimes interpret them, they are still just fragments of incoherent thought that bubble up during sleep, and are often as meaningless as a Rorschach ink blot, so my next opinion isn't worth a nickle; I imagine that a drunk dream is a way for your subconscious to deal with the absence of alcohol in your system. Sobriety is a big change, a new environment, and your subconscious is just replaying something it is familiar with.

As you emerge from sleep, your conscious mind experiences it as a conflict between two states. After I was fully awakened, it would take me a couple of minutes to get over the anger I felt at myself for getting drunk in my dream. I would be fully aware that it was a dream, but perplexed as to why it was so hard for me to get over my self hatred. It was really strange.