Bizarre Dreams & Nightmares Due to Prescription Medications

May 22nd, 2008

While it's well known that various prescription medications can affect sleep quality or mental clarity, far less attention is paid to how they can adversely affect your dreams.

Some medications dampen REM activity, dull your dreams, and interfere with dream recall. Others stimulate vivid dream activity, though not always in a good way. Through a couple of recent experiences, I've also discovered prescription meds can impede your lucid dreaming efforts.

Muscle Relaxers and Hyperdreaming

A few years ago, I hurt my lower back and was left with a chronic ache punctuated by frequent sharp, stabbing pains. After an MRI and weeks of physical therapy, the problem got worse instead of better. Acupuncture and massage therapy had no effect either. I couldn't sit or stand for more than twenty minutes without pain, and I couldn't find a position comfortable enough to sleep in.

My doctor prescribed Flexaril, a muscle relaxer that was supposed to dull the pain. I don't like taking medication of any kind, and I was resistant to the idea of taking a muscle relaxer but gave in because at that point the prospect of being without pain overrode any misgivings I had. The prescribed dosage was one 10mg tablet three times per day, but the doctor recommended starting with only half a tablet before bedtime so I could get a better idea of how the medication would affect me.

Half a tablet, only 5mg, makes you very sleepy but also has the entertaining effect of turning your muscles to lead and distorting your sense of balance and space. Your motor skills and muscle control are so dulled you can't walk down the hallway without listing sideways or swerving back and forth like a drunken sailor. A simple trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night becomes an adventure.

But that's only half the fun. The next day, you feel like a zombie. Your mind is foggy, your body is sluggish and your energy is sapped. This feeling usually wears off by late afternoon but by then you've already wasted an entire day. If this is what half a 10mg pill can do, I can't even imagine what effect the prescribed 30mg daily dosage would have.

In the end, Flexaril did absolutely nothing to dull the pain, but it did have a bizarre effect on my dreams.

Without the influence of medication, my dreams are nearly always vivid and I typically remember two or more dreams each night. That's the product of practicing many different dream techniques over the years. If I take just half a Flexaril tablet at bedtime, my dreams go crazy, and there's nothing fun about them. They become a frenzied rush of flickering images, a raging flood that goes on and on at top speed until my body and mind are utterly exhausted. I wake up with my jaw tightly clenched and my muscles aching even worse than they did before.

Lucid dreaming on Flexaril is impossible. You careen through your dreams so wildly there's no chance for a reality check, no chance to pause and look around, no chance to achieve even a modicum of lucidity. I've experienced this phenomenon only a few times before. I call it hyperdreaming because it feels like you're traveling at warp speed through the dream events. The dreams are vivid but everything moves so quickly you have almost no hope of remembering individual details, let alone becoming lucid.

Nightmares That Overwhelm Lucid Dreaming Efforts

In November I was given a single tablet in the lowest available dosage of another prescription medication, and I paid the price for weeks afterward. The worst of it occurred the night I took the medication. I experienced a non-stop stream of vivid nightmares, each one more violent than the last. It was horrifying and draining. I woke up several times throughout the night, shaking and aching all over, but slipped right back into another nightmare every time I fell back to sleep.

The most frustrating aspect was that each time I found myself in another nightmare, I was able to reach a state of lucidity but the lucidity did nothing to ease the horror of the dreams. I was aware that I was dreaming, but somehow that awareness didn't bring any sense of relief. Despite knowing I was dreaming and knowing the events weren't real, I was still terrified in each and every dream. This is not typical for me at all. Lucidity usually brings with it a sense of calm, an inner peace that radiates outward into the dream. No such luck this time.

I was unable to gain enough control to influence the dreams, so changing the course of the dream events wasn't an option. I eventually came to the conclusion the only thing I could do was ride it out until morning. I assumed by then it would be over with once and for all.

I was wrong. The nightmares went on for several weeks. Whether it was a residual effect of the medication or a placebo result triggered by the intensity of the first night's experience, I don't really know. It was a miserable time. I woke up every morning feeling as if I'd hardly slept at all. Most of my attempts at lucid dreaming were unsuccessful. And it was all thanks to one little pill.

What Does This Mean For You?

It's amazing how strongly even the smallest dosage of a medication can influence your dreams or interfere with lucidity. If you're a dream enthusiast or if you are learning how to become lucid in your dreams, be sure to ask your doctor what effect any medication might have on your sleep and dreams. I'm betting most doctors won't have any idea about potential side effects related to dreams, but it's worth asking just in case.