When I am pg I have LOTS of nightmares...anyone else?

[momtoS]

I have frequent disturbing nightmares when pregnant. These are very bothersome and I lose sleep. Anyone else? Any tips on reducing nightmares?

[IdentityCrisisMama]

I'm having nightmares too. No tips, sorry.

[myk]

yup, brutal nightmares. murder, medical nightmares, gory stuff. no tips really, other than when i wake up i consciously "finish" the dream in a more positive way if i can.

[dakotablue]

horrible nightmares, I've noticed they seem to correlate to Dh's mood. There aren't as many now. '

With DS I has nightmares where I had to kill people to protect my family, every night in new and 'wonderful' ways. It was horrible I didn't know there were so many weapons in my house until I dreamed of em all.

[babyjelly]

I did in my first trimester. Really gory stuff. No advice, just commiseration.
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[sarahn4639]

Yup, mine are mostly in the first trimester and range from me/my family being victims to me being the aggressor. I do have them much less in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters, those dreams tend to be much more fun!

[starlein26]

I had terrible nightmares when pregnant with my last child. It sucked.

[Jenne]

Another one with consistent first trimester awful nightmares here (although mine just taper off they don't disappear so far). I even slept with the lights on a few times to help! My guess is that it is hormonal...even so...yuck! I find the more tired I am when I do go to sleep the less dreaming I do. Probably not healthy but I don't think waking up screaming is great either!

Jenne

[HappyHelpmate]

I definitely have more dreams and they are mostly disturbing, if not always outright nightmares. I'm pretty sure it's hormonal. My first pg, I thought it was from deeply embedded unconscious fears and anxiety regarding the pg, birth, becoming a parent, etc. But this time is my 3rd, and I really feel like I've already worked through all those anxieties, but I'm still having crazy dreams anyway.
I do seem to remember them calming down the further along I've gotten with the first 2 pgs. I haven't tried anything to directly relieve them, but it wouldn't hurt to look up some relaxation techniques that are supposed to help nightmares in general..... a nice bath before bed.... count your blessings as you drift off.... I don't know, but it seems like that might help.

[myk]

wow, am i the only one heading into 3rd trimester and still getting nightmares regularly? thank god they usually don't involve my family, but they're pretty graphic (eviscerated, decomposing, etc..) or disturbing.

[Lauren82]

Yes! Almost every night I dream of something either utterly ridiculous or horrifying. The worst one was getting kidnapped and tortured by.... Martha Stewart.

[atnightingale]

Martha Stewart! That is classic. I have been having nightmares as well. One was so bad that I got up and watched the strongest image I could find (in this case Buffy the Vampire Slayer) my husband thought I was nuts. He said, "that's going to help your nightmares?" I said, but you see I know that isn't real. I had had a dream where I was trying to protect my self from a bag guy, succeded, and then he turned into a child my DDs age. I'll spare you the details but I couldn't sleep after that.

[St. Margaret]

Oh yeah, I get them, and they are very frequent right now (3rd tri). A lot of anxious sort of nghtmares-- like, teacher nightmares where I can't find my classroom or have no lesson plan or the mass of kids won't listen to me; it doesn't sound bad but it's an awful trapped feeling. And other crazy stuff, sometimes very graphically violent. I got shot in the face two nights ago. Lovely stuff. The good thing is, I can normally tell myself it's just a dream; I guess when they are this common, my mind is more used to realizing they're not real. They don't disrupt my sleep TOO much-- normally I wake at an okay time, if a bit early, and don't want to go back to the stressed out feeling.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Yea, my most recent one was so graphic and disgusting that it was almost like watching a sick movie. I didn't know it was so common. I wonder why it is?

[anne1140]

Yep, but it's only happened to me one night so far, but it was two separate nightmares that night. They were both pretty terrible. I had quite a few as a child, too.

I've heard that pregnant women have a lot more REM (dream) sleep, like when we were kids. That's probably why our dreams seem as vivid as they did then.

[cappuccinosmom]

All the time.

Whenever I'm pregnant, I get full-length movie type dreams. I mean massive epics which I can clearly remember the next morning. Some of them have been horrible nightmares, but not all. Mostly mildly disturbing to bizarre.

[Smokering]

More vivid dreams, definitely, and two recently about birth. (I dreamed my childhood best friend and I were in labour together in the same room, and she named her baby Gandalf, but then my labour petered out. It was odd.) I've only had two nightmares recently that I can remember - a horrible nested one based on a phobia of mine, and a very realistic one where I had a miscarriage (which sucked).

I've had some insomnia too. Fun, fun, fun.

[Yuba_River]

Yup, horrible gruesome nightmares and anxiety dreams. Not fun. There doesn't seem to be much to do about it--although I think it happens less when I go to bed earlier, so maybe being overly tired is a factor.

[quiero a mi bebe]

Me too! I wake up freaked out, but I just pray for peace and it works and I fall back to sleep. I definately cannot watch horror movies anymore! Sleep well all.

[Lauren82]

I'm really getting fed up with these dreams. Last night in my dreams, my mother died. I woke up with my heart racing and burst into tears because it was so horrible and realistic.