Vivid Nightmares and the First Signs of Help!

One of the worst things about my tinnitus is the headaches I've developed due to the noise.  I'm "hearing" a tone in the 3000 Hz range all day and night, and it's led to intractable (meaning, they never go away) headaches.  I've been taking heavy prescription medications to help, but they have side effects that are like nothing I've ever seen.


Each night that I get some sleep, I have nightmares that cause movements, violent thoughts and I've even had dreams that crossed over into reality.  I was dreaming I was being attacked and I couldn't tell nightmare from the things that were happening around me. 


In one dream, I had two men trying to beat and rob me.  I grabbed a man by the shoulder and was drawing back my right fist to hit him, when I woke to the sound of my wife, yelling, "IT'S OK! IT'S ME. STOP! STOP!" as she was getting ready for the impact of my fist.  The dream had crossed over into reality.  The reason she was yelling was that I had grabbed her by the shoulder, my fingernails had broken her skin, and I was about to hit her in the face as HARD AS I COULD.  I'm not a little guy.  I'm 6' and weigh  about 225.  If I had hit her, how would I ever have been able to look her in the eyes again?  It was the most frightening moment of my life. Amy is everything to me, and, lost in my nightmare, I almost hit her.


When I woke up I could see spots of blood on her shoulder and my fingernails.  I LOST IT.  I wound up in the fetal position in a corner on the floor, asking her not to look at me.  The fact that I had cut her with my nails was almost too much to take, and if I had hit her, I'm not sure what I would have done to myself.


I cried about what I had done to her for 30 minutes, and again each time I thought about what could have happened.  It still worries me to think that I could hurt her badly, while not even realizing what I would be doing.


I started looking for any way I could to keep this from happening again.  One thing I did was get a white noise machine.  It seemed to help at first, but soon, I could pick up the loop cycle of the sound.  Eventually, I would just lay awake, waiting for the noise to start its cycle again.


I started listening to story tapes.  They did help me sleep, but my mind started blending the story with my dreams when I fell asleep.  I still worried about the crossover from dream to reality.  I wound up listening to the same set of seven books for more that a year, and though I learned the depth of the Harry Potter stories really well, it wasn't a total solution.  


We tried some different stories, but I found myself trying too hard to actually LISTEN to the story, rather than letting the familiar sound of Harry Potter relax me.  Additionally, sometimes the story would end in the middle of the night, and since the player was on Amy's table, I had the choice of waking her up (and if you read her blog, you know she's an insomniac and has enough trouble getting sleep) or laying there in silence the rest of the night.


While this seemed to stop the threat of hurting Amy in the middle of the night, it would only let me sleep for about 30 minutes at a time.  I would then rest fitfully, with wakeful periods lasting from 30 minutes to several hours the rest of the night,  Once I woke up, I would listen to Harry Potter and it would mix with my dreams, so that the story had nothing to do with the subject, but it would become a strange narrated dream with nothing to do with the story at all.


After more than a year of listening to the same series every night, Amy found a web site that has a variety of pillows with speakers built in and special relaxation CDs.  We had to try something to keep me listening to some kind of sound and keep things quieter for her, so we ordered.


I got the small Sleepsonic pillow and several Hemi-Sync CDs.  I put them on each night and started using them to cover the noise.  The change was obvious on the very first night.  My bad dreams disappeared.  I know I'm still dreaming, but the little I could remember the next day was nothing bad.  I also started to get MUCH more sleep.  When I did wake up, it was only for a short time, and the music would let me drift off  again in a matter of minutes.  Now I can control what I listen to, as loud as I need, and not bother Amy.  


I'm adding links to their sites so you can read about Sleepsonic and Hemi-Sync.  I've been using them for about a month now and love them.  Once or twice, I've fallen asleep before setting up the music I want to listen to during the night, and I paid for it.  I ended up with  panic attacks and only slept for an hour or less, then woke up to the noise in my head.


The pillow is just perfect.  I tried headphones before, only to have them fall off or break in the middle of the night.  I've also turned over and pulled out the headphone jack to have whatever I'm listening to blast out of the player's speakers.  Amy and our dogs love to have that happen at 3:00 AM!  The Sleepsonic pillow has a nice long cord, so even if you move around, you're not going to lose the connection.


So, I'm getting more sleep, Amy's tinnitus is starting to back off, and my nightmares have stopped.  This is the first combination I've found that's helped me sleep so far, and I don't know what I'd do without them.


(edited by InsomniAmy)