sleep but unusal topic-science related

[LaneyW]

rarely: symptoms: asleep flash slides evenly spaced highly colored slideshow asleep of hate from enemies, not apparently my MO: wake to find fingers swollen, severe laryngitis from dehydration; apparently feel bright white light behind eyes, not see, with pinprick mind dysfunctional that was usually cosmic in health, and black, and with a high pitched ringing in ears not heard. urge to urinate, and eat, after which swelling, laryngitis, disturbance, and unbelieved pictures of people hating me, leaves, and I am my normal happy self. This time, ate hot chocolate. Have severe emotional control, and do not show anger that time of sleep was wasted by apparent "others". Do not believe slides, but note all. Eat, sleep and am fine. Next day irrelevent. Asking about spontaneous dehydration of the vocal chords, ear ringing, pinprick bright light feeling in brain, and urination and instant reduction in finger swelling, followed by instant cure.
I am a person with paradoxical effects, who is virtually never correctly diagnosed, with a severely not average life, but a good personality. I expect competence. I will not tolerate run of the mill medicine. For 25 years I had to argue at severe duress to get prozac, the only thing in the PDR that "worked" if you can call suppression and censureship "working" to "cure" me of my crime reports. There were crimes against me for 31 years. I do have PTSD allegedly, or something such as "undiagnosible with paradoxical effects" from the only competent doctor I ever saw. There is still constant confusion about the "facts", and I was crimed by certain powerful people. I work in Education, and do not usually resort to this shorthand, but this is a very long story, very redundant.

[Mr Mangoes]

I am going to try to give you some sort of answer although your post is somewhat garbled. But I think I may know what you are experiencing.

Drugs like Prozac can cause incredible nightmares. If you are PTSD, it causes the return of memories and they are often incorporated into the nightmares. And to top it off, if you feel you have been the victim of crimes, they too get incorporated into the nightmares. You have to tease them apart to figure out what is what. But it basically is your brain trying to process everything at once and the Prozac brings it up as a scrambled mess. Cymbalta did the same thing for me. I also have PTSD and was victimized. I ended up stopping the drug in order to stop the nightmares. Once off the drug, the nightmares went away and have not returned.

You dry vocal cords are probably because during the nightmares you are breathing with your mouth open and fast....that dries them our quickly and that is why you wake up needing a drink or something to eat. The brain often confuses the 2 and asks for both when really what it needs is for you to be able to slow your breathing and close your mouth. Your brain is being protective of you.

The swollen fingers are most likely just some arthritis beginning in your hands. That is what arthritis does, makes the joints "gel". When not in use they stiffen and feel swollen but once you start moving them, even a small amount, the stiffness leaves. But they feel swollen. If you actually took a measuring tape and measured how big the fingers are when you wake up and how big the are when they start to move, the measurments would be close. The "gelling effect" gives that sensation of swelling but it is in reality, stiffness.

Your urge to urinate maybe the thing that brings you out of the nightmare and has a further influence on the dry vocal cords. The bright white light you sense rather than see is still part of the nightmare that leaves slowly. Same with the ringing. I had times with Cymbalta where I couldn't tell if I was awake or asleep and all sorts of weird things went on. It affects how you come out of REM sleep. Instead of waking up normally, you wake up in slow motion with some of the nightmare continuing while you aware of being awake.

What all this says is that you might be somewhat toxic on Prozac. Try cutting back your dose for a short while and see if it improves. I dropped my Cymbalta to a half dose and it was better but eventually stopped it, as I no longer needed it. If cutting down doesn't do it, you might need another drug. It's worth it to get a good night's sleep without being haunted by you past.

good luck...........Jenny