Migraines & Dreams

Okay this may seem very strange to some, but I have always experienced some very intense dreams from time to time. They can be traumatic or joyful, fast moving or peaceful, either way they are very deep and memorable. We're talking Alice in Wonderland here. My problem is that since my migraines began 20 years ago, the dreams are usually followed by a major migraine that last all day. I awake and have a few excedrin and a cup of coffee ( my magic potion) and it tones down for a few hours until the afternoon. I only have the dreams on an average of about once a week. I'm someone who wakes up to a migraine about 3 days a week, and at least one of those days I've had some deep dreams during the night. I have no clue if they are related but I have awakened as I was driving off a cliff and experienced some serious splitting pain. I've also awakened after sitting in a field feeling the breeze on my face and felt like my head was going to explode. Understand that I wake with pain a lot of times without the dreams, and yes it's intense, but the dream pain is so different. Am I alone on this one?

i have dreams that i call 3 ring circus on acid, almost every morning but have never thought they were on the day of a max M. But i have 4-5 week so i may not have noticed. i also nap 3 x day 20-40-min and they are 3 ring circus also, barely asleep.

The correlation I seem to notice is that when I dream I do wake up with a migraine usually. I also wake up with them about 3 times a week. But I wonder if the fact that I am dreaming is why I wake up with a migraine as I don't think I sleep as well when I dream. Just a thought...not sure what exactly the cause and effect is...migraine as a result of lack of sleep or does the dream begin because of the migraine...interesting topic.

I forgot to say I never had dreams anything like this before i was having M. so 6 years of intense dreams . I have been on preventive meds that gave intense nightmares. only stayed on those breifly. I have been on script sleep aids to try and sleep deeper but no diff there. so i dont use either. I take clonidine .1mg tablet 3 x day have not had M in 47 days since started on this. I feel REAL good. I walk past my zomig imitrex , not today boys.

Interesting.. I had the wierdest series of dreams Saturday night.. really quite the Alice in Wonderland type stuff as you noted and I woke up Sunday morning with a migraine. I don't usually remember my dreams, but this was one of the more bizarre dreams I've had. I'll have to take note of when I remember my dreams, how strange they are, and if they presage a migraine.

Alli

i haven't found a correlation of having bad migraines and dreams, but i do dream a lot. and a lot of time they are very vivid and not that pleasant.

too much history channel late at night.

Don't know if you take beta blockers to prevent migraines. Some of them can cause vivid dreams in some people. One of them did for me.

I used to get headaches and M's in the middle of the night of when I woke up in the morning. I eliminated caffeine mid September and I still get terrible headaches and M's but not in the middle of the night or when I wake up. Those must have been caffeine withdrawal m/headaches I am pretty sure. I was really into making great espresso/cappuccino. I have great equipment. I can line it up next to the amazing wine cellar I collected over the years that I don't touch anymore.

The caffeine elimination was not because of my headaches it was to reduce heart palpitations/arrhythmias.

Oh yeah, medications (especially combinations) can bring on very vivid dreams. If you ever read the fine print on side effects some meds actually mention the possibility of "troubling thoughts or dreams".

I've had some very weird, disconnected dreams during a bad episodes when I'm "fully loaded". It's like someone changing channels on a TV. Different scenes with no connection to the last will just materialize, play out, then change to something else. Nothing traumatizing, just weird and really somewhat fascinating, especially when it involves a mix of people I know.

It happened again. I had the wierdest dream last night and woke up with a horrible migraine and nerve spasms at the same time. It was not a happy coupleof hours till the meds kicked in.

I hope this series of migraines stops long enough for me to enjoy Christmas.

Alli

Sorry Alli, hope things start to ease down by Christmas. I really appreciate the input. I had another dream also last night and woke up immediately with immense pain. I was dreaming of absolute chaos, running in the midst of burning buildings and people screaming, then I was sitting in my house trying to prepare for some type of apocalypse. I immediately awoke with the feeling that my head was going to explode, grabbed the excedrine and some caffeine drink (coffee). It's the only intense dream I have had this week, and overall it's not been a bad week with migraines, only two I can count, and they were all during the day. I guess the verdict is still out on the dream induced pain. Again, thanks so much for the input.

I was on inderal as a preventative for a short time. I couldn't handle the side effects. One of them was horrible dreams. I'm talking war zone bloody, violent dreams. I suppose I might have tried to put up with the dreams, but inderal didn't decrease the migraine frequency and I had so many side effects in addition to the dreams.

Chris

I had frequent nightmares when I took Beta Blockers, Topamax, and several different antidepressants. Sometimes I had very vividly colored dreams - really surreal!

Perhaps your frequent migraines are caused by Excedrin overuse. My headache specialist forbid Excedrin - he said it causes daily headaches. I stopped taking Excedrin two years ago, and I still have daily headaches. Go figure!

I haven't noticed a correlation between vidid dreams and migraine, but I will often have dreams ABOUT migraine when I'm in the middle of one. For example, yesterday I took a nap (no migraine), but had a dream that I woke up from the nap with a migraine and went to take my meds. Well whatd'ya know, I woke up in excrutiating pain and had to immediately go get medicine. Those dreams seem to happen a lot with me. And migraines that start while sleeping seem to be especially horrible.

When I go to sleep with a really bad migraine, I usually have really weird and scary dreams.

A couple of years ago I had dream about me standing outside in the sun and I had a migraine with the pain and the dizziness and pressure then I woke up with my head hurting

I've also had a migraine in a dream.Then I woke up realizing that I was actually having a real migraine.

All too regularly without any migraine meds at all at the moment after the last med problem. Definitely related to the migraine action going on at the time, usually waking convinced in some sort of disaster.

Latest have been about sinking ships so we have just put locks on the bedroom windows as I have woken trying to get out of the ship which has turned out to be the bedroom window once too often. I get MAV in the night so regular it really drives me mad.

I frequently wake shaking convinced I am about to be killed horribly, quite often screaming. It is worse the night that I have triggered more migraine activity as a result of my attempts to return to work.


Sorry I don' have any answers for coping with this I wish I had. I don't know how much more of it I can take and stay buoyant about it.

Di

When I first started getting migraines weekly I talked to my doctor and for years we worked on trigers and different things that may be causing my migrianes, etc. The way I sleep and the quality of sleep that I get at night tends to have an affect on my migraines. Dreams happen in not the deepest, restful sleep but in 'surface' sleep if that makes sense.

If you are having really vivid, long dreams that last all night and that you cna remember then you are probably not getting good sleep. This could then cause a migraine. I started taking tylenol PM before bed if I feel like I can't sleep which usualy puts me into a deeper sleep faster than on my own.

I hope this helps!!

The symptoms of migraine and all psychosomatic symptoms are found to be produced by the unconscious right cerebral hemisphere (RH), and dreams too are known also to be produced by the RH.

On the other hand, The RH develops earlier than the conscious left hemisphere (LH) in childhood and is therefore equipped with abilities that serve to realize self-protection which is the principle need of the child. Therefore both dreams and the symptoms of migraine have self-protective functions. Dreams are known by many to attempt to solve problems unsolved by consciousness. The fact that symptoms too can have self-protective function is my discovery.

“Driving off a cliff” in your dream means that you are very close to be harmed seriously because of your behavior. Your dream is warning you about this danger and your headache serves to force you to terminate your self-harming behavior and punishes you for not doing it.

“Sitting in a field feeling the breeze on my face” probably means that your self-harming behavior is being a solitary person. Your headache therefore seems to force you to end your solitary life and mingle with people.

I recommend you to question yourself in bed as follows before you fall asleep: “How am I hurting myself? What am I doing wrong?” These questions will be answered in your dreams. I will interpret them for you.

Altan

SEB

Through your dream your unconscious tells you about your problem that causes your migraine symptoms, and then it wakes you up so that you don't forget your dream.

Altan

Years ago I posted a study that found the same chemical reaction in the brain during a nightmare is the same that triggers a migraine in the sleep. I can't remember where the study was but it made sense to me. I am an every night nightmare person. I hate sleep but at the same time it is a relief from my chronic pain that not only includes migraines.

Does anyone else have the dream that you have a migraine and can't find your meds only to wake up with a whopper? My son freshman in college is having ones where he can't wake up to get meds. This happens every time he wakes with one.

As for nightmares parents please really think before you take a small child to a funeral home for visitation. For years I have had a recurring nightmare of being at a funeral with hundreds of people and the deceased is squirming and fidigting in the casket. Eventially they get up and walk around. Guess what.. NOBODY is bothered by it but me! I'm freaking out completely! I finally remembered that my parents took me to a funeral home to view the neighbor who died. I was about 4-5 and I slipped away from my mom and was looking at the man in the casket when two ladies were talking about how they saw him breathe, while laying there. I guess it convinced my subconscious that they are never really dead. The worse dreams are my grandparents getting up and asking me to help them out of there. I know morbid but I think I am stuck with this dream for life.
kathy

altanloker,

I wonder what you make of this dream? I was on a night out with friends when I suddenly realised I had white socks on and they didnt match my black shoes and trousers so I took my socks of and carried on, then I went and ate chicken before getting on a bus that parked outside my old school, while outside the school I took a call on a mobile phone, when someone started to argue with me for not looking after the phone it was scratched and damaged, I then got very angry and was shouting and screaming at the person that my phone was actually at home and this phone wasnt mine and that I had not damaged it, my own phone was in perfect condition, I really took offence to being told I hadnt looked after the phone!

another dream I had that woke me and had intense headache at same time... I was on a pirate ship that got hit by a huge tidal wave and I woke immediately.

also another dream I was looking outside from my bedroom window, and parked outside was a Huge black bus the type you would have seen in the 1940's, I then thought thats weird, am I asleep or awake? so to test this I floated over my bed and down the stairs thats when i realised I was dreaming, I then decided to float through the ceiling and back into bed, then I was aware of someone in bed at the side of me moving (i sleep alone) this shocked me and woke me up (as well as the headache)

Thanks in advance.
D