Melatonin Dreams: Holy Shit

"Tripper" (tripe46) 07/23/2018 at 10:15 • Filed to: None

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I’ve always had trouble sleeping. When I was a kid I would stay up all night/most of the night, nearly every night. I would play video games, clean and organize my room or other areas of the house or just pace around like a nut job. Even if I slept at a friends house, I’d be up all night thinking or cleaning/organizing their room like a weirdo not that anyone ever complained . During my late high school and college years excessive drinking and recreational drugs got me to sleep pretty much every night (or kept me up all night;) . Sometime in my 20's when I stopped getting high all of the time, I was back to “welp, I guess I don’t sleep anymore.”

Not sleeping in my late 20's proved to be a lot less tolerable than it was as a kid. Instead of lying awake and thinking/cleaning/playing video games, I would lay awake and worry.

A little over a year ago I started !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and eating better. I lost a bunch of weight and if I really exhausted myself running I could maybe sleep through the night. Since the new year I have really picked it up, running 10-20 miles per week, I’ve put away over 300 miles in 2018. I still have trouble sleeping often. I decided to see a therapist about it. Long story short, I have an “as needed” script for Klonopin for when I can’t sleep, have to take a long flight, or have to be around a bunch of kids for more than 5 minutes. Which is great but I don’t take it much because I like it, haha. If you have ever enjoyed drinking to intoxication or taking drugs for fun, you know how that goes.

On to the crazy/car related. In order to not take the Klonpin, I have other things to help me get to sleep. Meditation (rarely works), tart cherry juice which seems to work but I believe it to be the placebo effect, and finally Melatonin... Melatonin works, but it makes me crazy tired the next morning and I always have INSANE dreams! Vivid, crazy, feeling like I have lived days, weeks, sometimes years of my life dreaming.

Last night was a doosy. It began with whatever city I was in totally engulfed in flames. I had to get to a super tall building where people needed to be rescued. The only way to get there was to jump from car to car. For whatever reason all of the cars were in perfect shape even though the rest of the world was on fire. I felt awful just jumping all over these cars. The further I went the nicer the cars got, it seemed liked I’d only have to run across a few to get to the building but before I knew it I had been going for what seemed like hours and the building was still really far away. Once I got there I began to rescue people and animals from this super tall burning building. There were other people helping out too . There were times when I had to jump down multiple stories at a time, but as long as there was a car to land on I knew that I could make it uninjured... There was more weirdness, but I’m having a hard time remembering all of the details now. Some of the doors to the rooms in the building were car doors, and there were steering wheels on the walls that operated some of the sets of stairs (the staircases moved around Hogwarts style). Fuckin’ crazy I tell ya.

Anyway, I just had to air that out. Our 1 month old was up a lot last night and I didn’t want to bother my tired wife with my dreams this morning.

Happy Monday!

Ash78, voting early and often > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:26

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I take Klonopin about once a day (on average), I consider it a miracle drug if used in moderation. It’s like the calming effect of a couple of beers, but without any loss of inhibition or coordination. It helps my focus at work, in large social gatherings, with the kids, etc. The only downside is the reduced effectiveness if you don’t take a break.

Melatonin is cheap, safe, and generally effective for me, as well — and not habit forming, which is great. I used to think 10mg was necessary, but I read up on people trying smaller doses and having better luck, so I’m happy at 5mg now. Some people take as little as 1mg or even less.

I would also highly recommend ZMA, which is just zinc, magnesium, and vitamin B in a very specific ratio. It’s most commonly known in bodybuilding circles as a semi-snake-oil testosterone booster, but among insomniacs it’s got a big following. IMO, it’s better than melatonin because you’re also getting a nice dose of very health vitamins and minerals, as well. The extra sleep and vivid dreams are just a side benefit.

itschrome > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:29

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if you want to amp up that dream effect. start taking a Vitamin B-6 supplement with your melatonin!

Chuckles > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:31

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Melatonin is known for giving people really vivid dreams like that. I had a similar experience with it.

I don’t take it much these days because it always makes  me feel way too groggy in the morning.

interstate366, now In The Industry > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:33

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I’ve taken melatonin twice in my life, about 10-12 years ago . Both times I took it I had vivid dreams like you said, except I was killing people. I obviously have no intention of taking it again anytime soon.

E90M3 > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:34

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I can always tell when I’m getting sick by how weird my dream was. When I’m sick, they’re really fucking weird. 

Tripper > Ash78, voting early and often 07/23/2018 at 10:39

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One of the main reasons I try not to take the Klonopin is because of how quickly it becomes ineffective for me. If I take it 3-4 nights in a row by the 4-5th night it doesn’t work nearly as well.’

I will check out ZMA, are you groggy the next morning after it?

Tripper > itschrome 07/23/2018 at 10:40

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I don’t know how much more I can handle, haha. Sometimes it takes more than a few minutes of being awake to distinguish real life from my dream.

Tripper > Chuckles 07/23/2018 at 10:41

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Yea I was definitely asleep standing up in the shower for a minute or two this morning...

Ash78, voting early and often > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:42

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Not at all, at least not for me. But I don’t get much hangover effects from Klonopin, melatonin, or even Ambien, while a lot of people say they do.

If you’ve never taken Ambien, you might steer clear. Unless you’re already in bed, it’s just a recipe for amnesia. We like to joke about Roseanne Barr on twitter, but as soon as I read that, I was like “Yeah, I can see that .”

Tripper > interstate366, now In The Industry 07/23/2018 at 10:43

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I had one kind of like that. I dreamed that I ran over someone with my car, and left the scene! I was almost in tears when I woke up until I could be certain that it was just a dream. Had another where I dreamed that I had a stroke and made my wife check my vitals when I woke up.

Azrek > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:45

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I have trouble sleeping as my dreams scare the shit outta me. A touch of PTSD on top of working too much. I started with a 25lbs weighted blanket lately and a slide sleeping wedge. I’m doing better...but I generally laugh at the movie Inception.
“We have to blend in or the dream will tear us apart...”
Yeah, 4 guys in polo shirts are gonna get eaten by xenomorphs, Space Marines and a lot of fire really fast.

Tripper > Ash78, voting early and often 07/23/2018 at 10:52

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I don’t get hangover effects from Klonopin, but I really do from Melatonin.

I had a short history with Ambien and not a prescribed one. So I steered clear of that when my therapist mentioned it. A girl that I dated in college put me on to taking it and forcing yourself to stay awake. It’s kind of like tripping, then you forget everything like you said.

Tripper > Azrek 07/23/2018 at 10:53

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I haven’t been able to watch it, I’ve tried to a few times and just can’t get it. 

Ash78, voting early and often > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:55

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Yep, been there, done that. Even with a legitimate Ambien prescription for insomnia, I started to enjoy staying awake, even just for reading or watching tv. Alcohol just doubles the effect. I eventually decided I like my liver too much for all that ;)

It reminded me of ecstasy on a smaller scale, but the amnesia is really unsettling (I don’t black out easily, so I’m not used to it).

Aremmes > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:56

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What dosage do you take? I have had "interesting" melatonin dreams but only from a 5 mg dose, while a 3 mg dose causes me no such side effect.

itschrome > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 10:59

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oh yeah, lucid dreaming is fun. I spent years learning how to lucid dream. i started with just melatonin, then added B-6. To really boost your potential you can add kava kava and valerian root to the mix. I’m, now able to prepare my self with meditation in bed to lucid dream when ever I want with out the aids.

But yeah that weird am I awake or dreaming stage is wild at first. once you learn to control it, you wont have that problem as much. 

Tripper > Aremmes 07/23/2018 at 11:00

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Last night I took 5mg. I usually take less, but last time I took 3mg I was up all night. The first time I took it I took 10mg, won’t do that again.

Tripper > itschrome 07/23/2018 at 11:02

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I tried a “ nootropic” with it once, which I’m pretty sure is just a cocktail of vitamins marketed to boost focus. I sometimes dream in color and sometimes it’s black and white, but when I took that stuff colors were like “Alice in Wonderland” crazy.

itschrome > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 11:06

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next time you are aware that you are aware of being in a dream. try to change something. at first you may wake up, but eventually you’ll find your self directing your dream. once you have the power of not just being aware of being aware of being in a dream but also the power to then change what happens in the dream You unlock a whole new world!

Down side: During intense lucid dreaming you not getting as much rest as you’d like. often you can wake up from serious lucid dreams as exhausted or more so than when you went to sleep.

Azrek > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 11:10

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It is a solid movie and interesting. But it does take some disbelief.
One of the things I scoffed at was they could “dream up” any weapons or equipment and they showed up with 9mm guns. Umm...no. Lightsabres, pulse rifles and laser guns for sure...

Tripper > itschrome 07/23/2018 at 11:20

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I’ve always been able to slightly change things when dreaming, I never knew that was a thing that had a name until recently. When I had nightmares as a kid I remember thinking really hard about it and being able to get myself out of bad situation. Last night I was trapped on a burning rooftop for a short while and I remember thinking “this is a dream, I can just jump off of this roof no matter how high it is and carry on!”

Ash78, voting early and often > Azrek 07/23/2018 at 11:26

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I loved Christopher Nolan’s early stuff, but Inception actually made me turn it off about halfway through. Something about the overly scripted, unrealistic dialogue just seemed “off.” Like the lines weren’t coming from the characters, as if I was watching a bad Kung Fu dub at 2am.

Azrek > Ash78, voting early and often 07/23/2018 at 11:48

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Ha...I can see that. I enjoyed it .
I did hate Interstellar though. We were laughing so hard at the ‘science’ the other folks in the theater likely thought we were watching a comedy with Steve Martin.
“NASA” grabbed the dumbest scientists on the planet and shot them into space to ‘save us’. I think they just wanted to get rid of them without having to pay their benefits. 

Ash78, voting early and often > Azrek 07/23/2018 at 11:52

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Interstellar was definitely a strange one — not accurate enough to be sci-fi, not emotional enough to be a real tearjerker drama.

I actually coined something called the “Armageddon Paradox” — that is, if given a choice between training oil men to be astronauts; or training astronauts to drill into asteroids, a filmmaker will always choose the former because it makes the movie more interesting...but MUCH stupider.

It’s very closely related to Interstellar’s cliché: T he idea of bringing a guy out of retirement for no good reason, as if there just wasn’t anyone else qualified to do the job...and much more up to date on training. But we’ll show him some videos and stick him in the simulator for a few hours, he’ll be good as new.

My bird IS the word > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 12:09

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I’ve had troubles with insomnia from my teen s onward. Youtube asmr, white noise tracks, and self hypnosis have helped me a lot. Its definetly on the weird side of youtube though, keep that in mind.

Tripper > My bird IS the word 07/23/2018 at 12:31

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Haha, I will check it out. I’ve used white noise/nature sounds with some success.

Tapas > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 13:22

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This makes me wonder.......can you OD on dreams?

What if you stumble upon the doorway to make   inception happen?

Keep upping your dose gradually and l et me know what you find out! lol :D

Tripper > Tapas 07/23/2018 at 13:26

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Haha, if you can I feel like I have been close. There’s a movie called “Waking Life” that kind of explores that idea. It discusses weather we’re dreaming through life or living through our dreams. It’s shot in that weird “A Scanner Darkly” fashion. Half animated half real. I watched it in college when I was super fucked up and it made sense. Then I tried to watch it sober years later and couldn’t make it through 5 minutes. Maybe worth a watch?

Tapas > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 13:43

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Haha I’ll see if I can find it.

Thanks for the tip :)

nafsucof > Tripper 07/23/2018 at 14:50

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holy crap! months ago i quit smoking weed because i could cough because i was having a hernia repaired and i just stopped cold turkey after smoking for 15-20 years. now not being able to sleep i take melatonin and my lucid dreams exhaust me. my wife wakes up at 5:00 am every day and i’ll wake up and fall back asleep. that’s when the lucid dreams begin...this morning i was dreaming of working at a bar during a super bowl party and people kept changing their seats and leaving messes behind, then all of sudden i was saving people on a boat that was sinking but i had to jump from something not sure to the sail post and then shimmy down the pole to help the people. the boat was rocking back and forth violently and i made it to them just when i got to them though they were gone and i was on shore...then i woke up! i wear a fitness tracker with sleep and heart rate tracking and i  go into a deep rem sleep and move a lot during these episodes....

Tripper > nafsucof 07/23/2018 at 14:55

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Yea man I was a daily weed guy for over a decade as well. I didn’t dream hardly at all during that time. It was a tough I want to say 6 months - a year with the sleeping. I still want to blaze all the time, but I feel better now and I was getting super paranoid all the time the last year or so of smoking. I still will every once and a while when we go snowboarding or something, but I can’t like talk to anyone I get so banged up haha.