Dream suppressors

[FancyPants]

Maybe try and think of a smell that makes you think of good memories and nothing that will remind you of your ex? Leave it beside your bed at night and maybe that might facilitate pleasant dreams instead? I'd go with a frangipani scented candle personally as that reminds me of visiting grandparents as a child.

Not sure if it'll work but it's worth a shot at a non-drug remedy.

thx, mutant for adding another foreign word to my vocabulary, anabiosis after all comes from a greek word, so you got the advantage.

i think you get ptsd from having thought you will die.

accepting that you will die, can though give you an eeri sence of deep inner peace.

i avoid any form of stress, and thank god i live a life wher this is possible to a big degree.

Sounds pretty accurate to me. I've got PTSD from respiratory failure and being woken up to tubes rammed down my throat, the cpap machine for 48hrs was a bit of a nightmare after that.

[planthelper]

Maybe try and think of a smell that makes you think of good memories and nothing that will remind you of your ex? Leave it beside your bed at night and maybe that might facilitate pleasant dreams instead? I'd go with a frangipani scented candle personally as that reminds me of visiting grandparents as a child.

thats very good advice, and the same technic works very well for me.

i discovered once the memory that i was ill and my mother prepared the campingbed for me to sleep during the daytime in the garden, falling asleep with the mild summer wind in my face, the smell of the flowers, the lovly sounds of the birds, ahh, thinking of this allways gives me tranquillety.

it's seems the disscussion moves towards what can we do to feel less pain in a break up situation, so i might add, something i call thought controll. everytime i notice that i have negative thoughts, i try to stopp them right away when they happen, this can be facillitated by trying to be "in the here and now".

the brain is stupid!

for example my thoughts go, not again a relationship break up, i don't deserve this...

and what i right away do is, lissen for a sound of a dog barking or the rattling of the leaves in a tree, or i just look at a cobweb and say, how incredible watching the spider is like discovery channel without tv.

this is aswell a methode you can use to stopp a panic attack from happening, just by setting your mind on the most banal things! you can try to focus on lot's of boring, banal, things like this the brain leggs behind and the original distress, get's chucked out of the memory banks, maybe because of overload.

writting this i just had a tiny hunch, one treatment of ptsd is to move your eyes from side to side, maybe a similar thing happens, as the vision of field changes all the time the brain would be busy, all the time relating this info, and as such the "trauma file" get's set back.

now i remeber aswell how driving the car for longer distances can have this mind fog clearing abielety.

[MindExpansion]

Good idea fancypants I'll have to start thinking of something! Maybe a piece of sea sponge...I like the smell of the beach and unfortunately have allergies to most scents (just some allergic rhinitis).

PH I think that in the here and now thing is also called mindfullness and the thought control is CBT, which I've also been working on myself and its worked wonders for my self confidence as well as mindset and I think can be applied to any thought patterns you would rather be without. Was on the SSRI's for somewhere around 2 months, not long enough to see if the side effects settle down (apparently the night sweats can get better after 2 or 3 months) but like I said I think the dose was too high so frequency will be reduced this time round.

The rapid decline in my mental state after stopping them was amazing and motivation enough for me to get back on them.

And yes meds and therapy are going together.

Peace

[coin]

stopping those sort of med's overnight will have unfavorable effects for a lot of people..it's a very sudden alteration to whatever balance is there...not sure if that was the case, but maybe don't attribute 100% the rebound depression after stopping the meds as an indication that the meds were the only thing keeping you at basline....hope that makes sense

good luck mate

[.:Shadow:.]

Can't really help you out but i can give you a suggestion.

I'm not really sure if this is placebo, coincidence or for real but i had the same problem with dreaming a few months back, they were not really bad but some nightmares & falling to my death dreams.

Every night i brew a tea of 2-3g Daminia and consume 30mins before sleep.

Every single dream i have had after starting daminia has been awesome & not once had a bad dream since !

Not sure it will work for you mate but it sounds like it's worth a shot, also gets you into a lovey dovey mood witch also helps contribute to a pleasant dream.

[apothecary]

Hey ME,

I feel your pain.

GABA helps to suppress dreams for me very effectively when it works, but it doesn't seem to work consistently (e.g. I'll take it one night and it'll be great but two weeks later when used again ineffective for suppressing dreams but all other effects are present)...

What seems to be effectively consistent is kava (gee I seem to say that a lot )...try it out. A strong chamomile tea might make a good substitute.

Edited August 5, 2009 by apothecary

[coin]

the herbs i mentioned earlier all have gaba activity also

[Hendry]

Not sure of a good dream suppresor.

But for me leaving a nicotine patch on overnight would either give me the most vivid dreams imaginable or the worst nightmares possible.

[SunChaser]

Thanks for the interesting suggestions, I hadn't thought of amanita and that An Mian Pian sounds very interesting VS, I'll look into ssri interactions there.

And again, I don't think these dreams have much to teach me. They might give good insight into my mental state, but i already know I'm depressed lol, hence the SSRI's, i don't need that depression worsened every morning by graphic dreams of my ex girlfriend, when it was that break up that really tripped me up anyway.

Keep the advice coming

Peace

You know I have always had that exact same problem on ssri's. Used to be especially bad when I was still stuck in a little unit in Melbourne where I grew up. Now I'm pretty lucky if I have one of those emotionionally draining dreams I can just get my iPod and go for a big walk in the bush land I'm surrounded in. Just doing something that has no connection with the past as soon as you wake up seems to always help me (even work, or whatever) more than any drug, although I always have a few before my walk , LOL.

Edited August 10, 2009 by jabez

[mauve]

What seems to be effectively consistent is kava (gee I seem to say that a lot )...try it out. A strong chamomile tea might make a good substitute.

hum, but for me Kava and Chamomille are both great onirogens ! They don't suppress dreams at all, on the contrary.

But it is still a good advice related to depression. Chamomille has strange properties related to the visionary compounds, i guess it should work with the endogenous one too