Thanks for sharing, goingonhope.

Marlene, that is an anxiety attack, panic (what term you choose to use). I used to wake in the throws of them and not have a clue what I had going on in my head. In the beginning docs had me have a dose for middle of the night to calm me it was so common. Weird to have a scheduled dose for the middle of the night. But panic is very normal to happen in your sleep. The further I have gone into treatment and addressing my issues and emotions, to more to term I have come to terms with all it has to do with it the sounder I sleep. My nightmares are not almost never there. My panic in the middle of the night is almost non existant now. I have even been sleeping at night and so quickly welcomed it that I felt shattered I was up all night last night.

It will ease in time. Healing takes time.

Sometimes I wonder, does the trauma alone lead to ptsd or those reoccurence of nightmares everynight after the trauma contribute too?

Hope when you heal yes the symptoms are practically not there once you learn your boundries not to push you over. Managing. Except during PMS. I am convinced you can be at your best put PMS alone fill up the damn PTSD cup of stress we can handle! So one week a month take extra care. A perk for the ladies. ugh.

The nightmares are a symptom of, not a cause.

Thanks, guys. Just that it happened for the first time the other day and kinda freaked me out.

*sigh* Are we having fun yet????

Waking Myself Up To Escape a Bad Dream

I'm not successful at doing that. When I start having a nightmare, I can't seem to get out of it. I have to ride it out and survive. I have to do everything... run, fight, kill, hide, sometimes save my family... to survive either war zones, natural disasters, unfriendly cities, workplace stress and/or alien beings (similar to that movie 'war of the worlds'). It can be real exhausting. When my wife and I used to sleep together, she told me about all the flailing and whatnot. This is why I'm not inclined to fall asleep, or go to bed early... I stay awake as long as I can so that I am hopefully too tired to be affected much by my dreams. My dreams are usually so realistic that they negatively impact my mood once I'm awake again. Sht, its 04:50am, I still haven't gone to bed.

I can waken myself from one of the nightmares I have. I used to think I was waking near the start of the nightmare. However I am in such a state that I must have been dreaming for a long time before waking, I seem to forget the dream.
I have nothing within arms length of my bed as I lash out in my sleep. One other thing I have found I need, is some light in the room, as when I waken I need to see something familiar to "tell" me I am back into the "real" world.
After these nightmares I dont usually go back to sleep as I am hyper, totally fully of stress hormones.
I recover quicker as I get older, especially now I am starting to learn about my PTSD.

I have had nightmares all my life, terror, trying to wake myself up, thinking I made it out in one piece, and finding myself still asleep but awake in my nightmare realizing this after I finally did wake up. I seem to groan and move around in bed struggling to wake myself up.
Now for 3 years, (because of my trauma happening again), I can’t sleep at all. So no more nightmares (rarely) for me anymore. I started sleeping again now for 1 year or so. I sleep 2 hours the light superficial alpha sleep, after that I wake up, so I don’t slip in the deep delta sleep or REM sleep in which stage the dreams/nightmares occur. I fall asleep after that immediately and wake up again after 2 hours. So I do "rest" but don’t "recover". After some days I crash and sleep more hours. I don’t remember nightmares. I used to jump out of bed, scream, hurt myself etc. That’s gone now after this trauma happened 3 years ago.
I wonder if I found a remedy to prevent REM sleep, and therefore nightmares, subconsciously. Do I wake myself up before it goes wrong?