Starting to dream before being asleep. (It started after blood poisoning)

[robert1701]

First. How it began.
It's weird, but it started with septicemia several years ago.
I don't know how I contracted the septicemia. It gave me severe muscle spasms. But there was apparently also another symptom. I couldn't close my eyes without starting to dream. No daydreaming. Real dreams. Every time I closed my eyes I started to dream exensively. Each time a new dream started, a new story that I had totally no control over. My brain was racing. I couldn't stop it and it was terribly exhausting. I had to open my eyes again and then the dreaming stopped.
Often when you feel sick they say, sleep it off, but that just was not possible.
I was happy to feel better after a few days and was able to close my eyes and sleep.

And now:
It turns out that a small remnant of this symptom has remained.
When I'm very tired, and I am almost about to fall asleep, I first begin to dream, while I'm still awake, before I fall asleep or open my eyes again.
The Monopoly Card would say: Don't 'fall asleep', don't 'start REM sleep', go straight to 'dream' and then "fall asleep" or "open your eyes again".

Is my brain chemistry changed in any way?

[morpheus1514]

Unsure of the true issue.  Dreaming is thought to be a continuous process throughout all sleep stages, although the most vivid dreams normally occur during the REM sleep stage.  If you are in fact dreaming then you are by definition asleep and benefitting from that.  If you are experiencing hypersomnia or excessive sleeping and the resulting dreams that could be a legit issue, unsure from your post.  A doc can help you unwind this.

[robert1701]

I've always heard we sleep 20 minute at a time, alternated with a 'non dreaming' deep sleep.

No, I don't have hypersomnia.

It's weird. If I am very tired and begin to doze off, I normally should fall asleep first and then start dreaming. But sometimes I start dreaming first. If I don't fall asleep and open my eyes again, this stops the dream, but I do remember that I was dreaming.
As I said, rather than a daydream, which is really just your thoughts, this is a real dream in which things happen that you have no control over. Like the ones you have at night.

I never experienced this before the septicemia. It was really frighting. I could't stop dreaming when I closed my eyes. I could not rest.
I'm not bothered by the remaining sympton. It doesn't matter that I am aware that I have been dreaming awake for a moment. But I would like to know what happened to me during the septicemia. What has changed?

[Rutherfordmag]

Since autoimmune disease diagnosis, I have noticed that my dreams became just as bothersome as you describe. Are you tied all of the time—excessively tired? I developed narcolepsy which is autoimmune after a bad run with pneumonia. I would have a sleep study done ✅