Not sure if I should post this....

[Sailorsong]

I'm sure you all will think I am crazy...and I even am starting to wonder with this one.

After about 3 hours of sleep I woke up from a strange dream or was it really all a dream? In the dream I was laying on a gurney in a hospital...At least I think it was a hospital since there were medical people around. Any way I had a sharp pain just above my right eyebrow that was about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long in my brain. It was like someone had cut open my brain in that area with a box cutter. My legs were elevated and quite numb and I was not able to move them at all. I was looking around trying to figure out what was going on and slowly the pain was subsiding in my brain. Then I started getting freezing cold as in shivers. That was the point when I woke up..but is also where things got strange.

When I woke up I was freezing cold and shivering. I checked the clock next to my bed so I know I was awake at this point. I could still feel the cut like sensation where I had been dreaming about it and my legs felt exactly like in the dream and I could not move my left leg at all. After about 5 minutes I had warmed up again without having done anything. The cut sensation went away and movement of my leg also returned. As soon as my leg would move again I got up.

I have heard about some people being awake and their mind still in a dream state. I suppose this is what could have been happening to me. But this is the first time anything even remotely like this has happened to me and it kind of freaked me out.

Also several times today I have felt a thin line above my eyebrow, not a cut but just a line. Not really sure how to explain it any better. When I feel this line I touch the area and it disappears only to come back a while later. So this makes it seem even weirder to me.

So have I lost it completely?

Dennis

[missy72450]

OMG, I have had this happen to me and was so afraid to tell anyone because i just knew they would think I was losing it (most my family think I am anyway). My most recent one was I was trying really hard to walk through an uneven pasture only to find myself lying down in the grass. My legs would not work to get back up and I called for my husband over and over. My mind knew I was asleep because I remember begging for someone to wake me up. I heard someone enter my bedroom quietly and I tried to scream out at them as well and could not. I could see my husband in the distance but he could not see me and I could not make my voice loud enough for hime to hear me. Scared the you know what right out of me. When I did wake up I was scared to go back to sleep. I was actually afraid I would never wake again. I think it is when we are he most tired this happens that is why rest is so vital.

[siv1]

Hope you don't get to experience alot more of the same episodes. My wife and I experience a sleep paralysis called "La horla". It is scary..

[Sailorsong]

Thanks all!

  Once I had a name for this in order to look it up I have felt better about it. Did get to watch a couple of good movies tonight so maybe I'll have gotten some of my worries off of my mind and will sleep better tonight.

Ess,

  I have composed music, written song lyrics, and even designed computer circuits in my sleep so I do know what you mean. That is primarily why I made the connection between the new forehead sensation and the dream.

Alex,

   At least this was a break for my PTSD dreams...now those are really scary.

All,

   Thanks again...

Dennis

[essdipity]

Despite eons of speculaton, not much is really known about the physiology of sleep. You have a lot of company in beng weirded out by this dream, but aside from the scariness of it, it is not strange and you are not crazy.

I have had a few episodes of sleep paralysis, and I've also had times when real issues have shown up very oddly in dreams, including even puns. Back a thousand years ago, when I was first learning computer programming languages, I remember at least one time when my brain seemed to work all night on a logic problem I was having. Towards morning I woke up and voila! I had solved it. When I was 15 or so and taking a summer typing course, my fingers typed in my sleep. I've also awakened in pain while having a different kind of pain in my dream.

You do seem to be under a great deal of stress, and your brain is processing that. I think it's possible that your brain has decided you are being cut and stabbed by MS, not surprising since you are having a hard time of it these days. So actually you may be working hard at dealing with it in your subconscious. I'm no shrink, but since I've had similar experiences I've given it a lot of thought.

ess

[HVAC]

Dennis,
  I am worried about you man. I have more of this experience and PTSD dreams when I am under more stress and your posts lately have been talking about a lot of stress. Take care of yourself.

Alex

[jensequitur]

I have dreams where real-life symptoms are integrated into the dream.  Sometimes my legs are missing.  Sometimes I just need to pee - so every dream is about my finding a bathroom!  When I was taking Aricept, I had really vivid dreams, sometimes to the point where I had trouble distinguishing them from reality.  

[Celery47]

Hi Dennis,

I'm sorry for your (very!) scary night!  I hope I can reassure you somewhat.  This does not sound crazy at all to me, this sounds like hypnagogia.  Sleep paralysis is definitely a big part of it, but also you can even hear things when you're half-awake (usually a big bang noise, or maybe somebody calling your name or telling you to wake up) - I know this wasn't what you experienced, but given that you've had one episode of hypnagogia, it's possible more will follow, and I don't want you to be alarmed if this does happen to you!  It doesn't mean you're going crazy, it just means your sleep a bit messed around.

These kinds of things tend to crop up especially when people are sleep-deprived or in any way excessively tired... so that makes sense for you, sounds like!

I once had an experience much like yours - I woke up unable to move after a very vivid, frightening dream, and for maybe about 10 seconds or so as I was waking up it was like my dream and my real dorm room melded...  Your experience sounds very, very familiar.

About the "line" feeling on your forehead - perhaps you have something weird going on with your nerves there, and that is what inspired the dream?  Like you were saying - that makes sense to me :)

I recommend checking out the wikipedia page on hypnagogia - it's pretty thorough, and that might help prepare you for the various (frightening!) manifestations of this phenomenon that might follow.  Some of it's really interesting - like, apparently this stuff was the inspiration for the myths about incubuses and succubuses!  

Well, I'm wishing you luck :)  Hope all of this is reassuring!  Oh, and I hope your dreams stay where they belong from now on :P

Louey :)

[Sailorsong]

Quix,

  Scary is putting it mildly! I guess I can caulk up one more thing that is not going right for me. I have been a lot more fatigued of late so I guess that might what caused it last night. Today while at PT I could hardly keep my eyes open even before the exercises started.

   I find it kind of interesting that today I have been feeling a new sensation and it seems to have been picked up in the dream. I guess my subconscious didn't know what to make of it during the night. :)

Dennis

[Ufrustrated2]

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Multiple-Sclerosis/my-ghost-dropped-again--anyone-have-the-same/show/1082010

used to freak me out. only started talkng about it after finding out i have ms and am not crazy

[Wobbly]

this sounds like a horrible thing to go through.  I'll have to look this one up too..thanks quix..

hope you feel better soon Dennis..

take care
wobbly

[Quixotic1]

Hi, Dennis, look up "sleep paralysis."  You are describing it well.  Scarey, isn't it?

Q