I've been waking up at precisely 4 in the morning sometimes and having vivid and terrifying hallucinations and when they subside, I can't remember most of them. If I do certain things or lay in a certain position, I remember a part of it. This example happened today: I initially remembered a spider the size of a dinner table and thought it was still there so I turned on the lights and nothing was there so I laid back down. I moved into the fetal position and remembered something huge with tentacles at the foot of my bed, and I sat up and remembered my arms being split in half lengthwise. This has been happening my whole life every once in a while, but I recently noticed that it's happening increasingly often. I would like to know why this happens, and if it helps at all, I'm a 17 year old girl, living with my parents and they are not abusive in any way and I have never had something happen to me that would cause mental trauma. If you know what this is, please tell me, and thank you.
Hallucinations?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by stormyk12...
- Topics:
- hallucination, waking
Added 3+ months ago:
Before I posted this question, the website suggested I might have mental trauma from a lack of sleep, or schizophrenia. I have been getting a lack of food, water, AND sleep, so that might be the cause but I wanted more opinions. During school I would wake up at 5 or 6, but it's summer now and I leave my windows open so the sun wakes me up, so my body is in no way habituated to wake up at 4, and I think the hallucinations used to only happen when I had a fever. When those are the circumstances, I dream about needles going through my skin and when I wake up I get an uncomfortable feeling like everything I touch withers away into a thin line and is pressed through my skin and into my bones. This used to make me scream in terror but last time it happened I managed to calm down and try to understand why it does that. I didn't get anywhere with that. I also should mention that I used to smoke marijuana and drink heavily in middle school but I don't anymore. I think that has caused problems effecting my ability to learn and remember things, but I'm gradually recovering from it. I think that's all the information I can give for now.
Responses (2)
Hmm, it sounds like your biological clock and sleep cycles are conflicting. If you wake up precisely 4 AM, every morning, your body's internal clock will learn that and wake you like an alarm clock. At the same time, you are in a stage 3 sleep, Deep sleep, or REM sleep. When you go to sleep, you go through 3 stages, in stage one, the brain begins to shut down, eyes and muscle movement slow, and some people getting feeling s of falling and muscle jerks (The annoying thing where you're just about to doze off completely just to panic about falling off, something?). Stage 2 is the brain is shut down, brainwave slows to a minimum with only small bursts of activity. Stage 3 is where the dreaming takes over, and you can enter REM sleep. If someone wakes you during REM sleep, you generally remember your dreams VERY vividly. As you age, you get less and less REM sleep, and it gets spaced farther and farther apart. I believe what may have happened is your age has pushed your REM sleep to match up with when your clock tells you to wake up, resulting in very vivid dream memories. If i'm right, it should pass after some time, when the REM sleep gets pushed back to past the 4 AM time frame. As always though, this is just a guess and opinion of a net user, for a more accurate diagnosis, ask your parents to see a sleep specialist doctor, and be very honest with EVERYTHING you experienced, they'll need to know everything to get a proper idea of what is happening.
Sounds a bit like lucid dreaming or astral projection. 4am is usually the prime time for a human to project or lucid dream because the body is fully relaxed and the next rem sleep cycle begins. The trick is to not be scared and create a key word or action that you can say or perform during your "hallucinations" so you can become cognoscente of what is happening - lucid. I urge you to explore this and get good at it.
There are many books on the subject.