REM Behavior Disorder

[photoChick]

Hi. I am a 28 year old healthy female and here is my story.

My husband and I decided to go to bed early tonight since both of us were pretty tired. Very soon I fell asleep and started dreaming. I do not recall the beginning of my dream, but I remember that in this dream my husband was using some kind of breathing device (by the way he is the healthiest person I know).. long and scary story short... I dreamed that while he was breathing through two long tubes (diameter is about the size of a straw) he actually breath the tubes in into his lungs and he was saying "oh sh*t, oh sh*t" like he was panicking about what happened.. like he was about to die. Next I know is that I jumped out of bed, turned all the lights on, and I stand next to him panicking and asking him "Are you alright?.. Oh My God, baby, are you alright?". A couple seconds later I realized it was not really happening, and I just had another one of those frightening episodes. My heart was racing and I started to cry.

I cried because I had similar things happened to me before and I cried because I knew I did not want to go back to sleep and have another episode.

I always knew my sleep patterns were different. I was a sleep walker as soon as I could walk. My sister used to tell me I talk a lot while dreaming. Pretty much everyone I ever shared a room with at night told me one way or another that I am pretty active when I am asleep.

Weirder things started to happen about 6-7 years ago. One time I was visiting my cousins and I woke the entire family up because I dreamed that we had an earthquake and I tried to get everyone out of the house... I was so embarrassed. They still tease me about it. These things were very infrequent back then. About 2-3 episode per year.

Then about 3-4 years ago I started having strange hallucination-like dreams. This would happen just when I started to fall asleep. I would see bugs crawling on the walls, or big spiders moving around in the room. I would quickly realize it was not real life, and (even that I was not scared) my heart was racing. There was a period of time when it would happen every single night for weeks. Then I am not sure why (because I do not remember) they just disappeared.

About 1-2 years ago these strange bug-like things started to appear again in my dreams. And also something else. The 'acting out my dreams'. It seems strange to me, but I seem to only act the very vivid dreams out, like I am being chased or when my husband is getting hurt. The worst are always the ones when he is getting hurt. One reoccurring one is when there is an object above his head (like a knife pointing down) and I reach above him and try to shield him from getting hurt. Tonight's episode was about him getting hurt too.

These things make me feel terrible. I was always a control freak, so you can imagine how these things just scare the heck out of me. Not being able to control your actions at all... My husband is very supportive. I told him I would be scared of myself, he said he is not scared. I always tell him about these episodes and he said that so far I always just tried to save him, but never hurt him. However, this does not make me feel any better.

Tonight I decided to research this and pretty soon I found this site. I read several pages about this disorder and I am pretty convinced that I have it. Being healthy as I am it is very hard to believe I have a disorder especially a weird one like this. But I decided to make an appointment with a sleep specialist and get to the root of the problem.

What I am most worried about is that this is not a disorder in itself but a symptom of something else, something bigger. I was always a hypochondriac too.

Anyways. I just wanted to share my story here, it might help someone. It sure helps me just vent about it. I will come back and share what the doc says.

Thanks for the support!

[Tessie08]

Hi,
Your experience sounds really similar to what happens to me. I'm almost 26, and have been an active sleeper my entire life. When I was a kid I sleep walked and talked, and now I frequently wake my boyfriend trying to convince him to get out of bed because of a spider on the wall, or saying "oh my god" over and over because I think a pile of clothes by my bed is a person, or because I think my boyfriend is a stranger and I try to push him out of bed.
Did you end up going to a sleep specialist in the end?
One thing that doesn't fit for me about what I do in my sleep in terms of RBD is that I tend to do things in the first half of the night rather than the last.
I would be really interested to talk to you more about what you do and your symptoms. I'm a writer,and I want to write a story about my own experiences, but it would be great to talk to other people in similar positions as me.

[photoChick]

Hi Tessie,

I have not gone to the doctor yet... I tend to put things like this aside and only go when I absolutely have to. I think about going almost every day though.

A couple days ago I dreamed that my hubby is sliding down from a rooftop and tried to grab his hands to stop him from falling and i apparently grabbed him 'there'. I really think I need to go to the doc before I do some permanent damage in either him or me.

We recently went on a vacation and the room we stayed in had a similar configuration to our bedroom, however there were slight differences. I was really worried that I would have one of my episodes and think I'm at home and hit something while 'freaking out'.

I did observe that I only have episodes when I have a vivid dream and I usually tend to have vivid dreams when I am more stressed. There might be some correlation.

I would be happy to discuss things in more detail. Do you think you might visit a specialist too?

I am a software engineer so I write code :)

Hope to hear from you soon.

[Tessie08]

Great to hear back from you.
I think I will probably go to the doctor soon. It's quite expensive here to see a sleep specialist and I don't know if my insurance covers it. I mostly want to get it checked out because my boyfriend has trouble sleeping as it is, and you can imagine that me screaming at the top of my lungs that there are spiders in the bed isn't the most helpful thing when you are trying to sleep.
Most of the time my episodes are actually quite comical, but I go through periods where they can be really scary. I've never hurt my boyfriend, but I do try to push him out of bed, and sometimes he gets quite upset.
Do you know what the deal is in terms of emailing people? Am I allowed to post my email address on here? Or is that not a done thing?
Like I said in my earlier post, I want to write an article about my own experiences and the process of seeking treatment, but I would also like to have a wider view and hear how other people experience this disorder so it would be great if I coudl email you outside of this forum.

[photoChick]

Hello,

Just wanted to give you all a quick update... My hubby and I have had some relationship problems so we went to a marriage counselor. Needless to say that most of our unresolved disagreements have to do with me having some 'mental problems'.

I do not want to go into too much detail here but what it all boils down to is that I have some unresolved anger/guilt issues that I did not deal with correctly in the past. All that paired with anxiety and stress and there you have some major sleep problems (read the first post).

I thought that I had REM behavior disorder but my doctor said it sounds more like night terrors. I have not had a sleep study yet but my doctor suggested me to get one. Since I have seen her and labeled some of my past problems I had less stress and I have been sleeping better. It is such a huge difference and all I had to do it talk to someone about it.

If you have sleep issues, please go and see someone about them. It is very well possible that the sleep problems you are having are related to other mental problems (unresolved issues, small things tucked away in your brain somewhere). It sounds scary to admit you might have mental illness, but everyone does to a certain degree. Life is hard and not everyone can deal with it correctly. This can lead to sleep problems.

I'll keep you all updated about my progress. I hope this helps someone out there...

[photoChick]

[quote="Tessie08"]
Like I said in my earlier post, I want to write an article about my own experiences and the process of seeking treatment, but I would also like to have a wider view and hear how other people experience this disorder so it would be great if I coudl email you outside of this forum.[/quote]

If you give me your email address I will email you, but I do not want my address to appear online.
I hope you are doing well!!!