Terrible Nightmares after Concussion
 

So Since my concussion a month and a half ago i have been having VERY vivid nightmares. Has anyone else had these accompanied with there concussions. Anyway to fix it?

Do you know if you are breathing properly during your sleep ? I have nightmare or very stressful dreams when my breathing is disrupted.

Are you taking any meds ?

I wake up with nightmares every night since my incident. I don't knw what causes it but I wish I knew how to get rid of it.

Dear Mrtamnus,

Nightmares are simply the brains way of sorting out what has happened to you when you are at your most relaxed. It's the only time (or during deep meditation) that the subconscious can take over and unravel stress.

Clearly your concussion has placed more stress on you than your conscious mind cares to register.

The nightmares will subside, so can be viewed as a positive natural therapy.

However sometimes nightmares are a sign of accute stress or depression. So I would advise you to see your GP if the nightmares don't start to subside.

Take care

As peachy said,

Nightmares can be caused by acute stress. That stress can be lack of oxygen to the brain. This is where knowledge about your breathing while sleeping is important. For me, trying different sleeping positions made a big difference.

I do best flat on my back with minimal head elevation and my pillow stuffed/clumped against my right cheek so my head can turn slightly to the right to rest on that pillow clump.

I also do good in a recliner.

So, there may be more than one reason for your nightmares, both physiological and psychological.

My son had/has? severe TBI. I was talking to him the other day about dreams. He can tell me that he has dreams but can't remember them. He says he has bad dreams, but can't remember them either. I don't remember him dreaming as much before his injury, but I worry about what he is dreaming about because he can't tell me what he dreams. And if his dreams are stressed related and he can't tell me about them, how do I relieve what he is stressing over? Very interesting to see several other post about these dreams.

I find a lot of my dreams come from when I"m not sleeping well.Or,at least thats when the dreams i remember come from! Perhaps your not in a deep enough sleep state? Something woke you up and your in a between sleep state?

tell him not to be afraid of the dreams if he is. I know I was afraid of mine but am adjusting and they are not as bad as they were.

After my injury I did not dream for about 5 weeks, then eventually I had very short dreams with not much detail or color. My dreams stayed that way until about 3 months ago when my dreams started to become very long and detailed and vivid in color (much like they were before my injury).

The only thing I have been able to tell that helps is time. Your brain needs time to recover and heal, and unfortunately no one can say how long that will be. I know this is frustrating and doesn't help much. I am sorry that you are having nightmares, that must be stressful on top of everything else that is happening. I hope your dreams improve soon. Keep us posted.

Thanks for the advice. He had a dream last night where someone was electrocuting him.

IN PT therapy, they give these electric jolts to his leg muscle to help activate leg movement. It is working because he can actually move his right leg now. But the therapy is pretty intense.

I asked him if it was his PT guy in his dreams and he said no it looked like the grim reaper. I told him what you said and he said good because he doesn't like scary dreams.:eek: