After 5 years.

I don't know if this will help anybody but, when my son was at Vanderbilt in the science dept. He taught me a lot of esoteric/anecdotal things that had to do with several unrelated topics. One was about Memory. He said when you remember an old thing, you're actually not remembering it...you're remembering the last time you thought about it. That would explain a lot of how we get confused about what our story really is.

He also told me that for the average person, the sleep/r.e.m./rested cycle is in increments of 45 minutes. I have played around with it and it seems I am more rested in 6 hours of sleep than 8...and why alarms are irritating if we are mid cycle.
I take a nap for 45 minutes or so. Just to do one 'lap'. If I lay there longer I don't get 'the boost' that I am seeking.

Dreaming. I have had TMS attack's start after I woke from a dream I wasn't liking. I used to literally say out loud "I do not want to dream that again" But I believe a lot of the stuff we are struggling with gets worked out in our sleep..."We go quietly and safely INSANE" I believe is the quote.

So..when I have a particularly lucid dream now, no matter how disturbing, I now tell myself "I don't want TMS , so if this is how it's going to have to work out, do your worst!"

Just a guess, but I sometimes wonder if night TMS isn't a part of our collective being that is afraid of going down the rabbit hole...Losing control?

We all have different patterns, but Most of mine have been Night/sleep related. I might be fine all day, and as soon as I go to relax and go to sleep, the spasm/pain/distraction really fires up.
I have a few guesses as to why that is...a few of the tragedies in my life happened in the middle of the night. A lot of time's I am consciously aware of being afraid of sleeping, even w/o TMS. Never figured out exactly why, just know that it is the 'front line' of my battle.

Keep fighting!!! You will win

 

I should clarify - I don't really wake up to a "flare" so much as that every time I wake up, my trouble spots (left knee and right hip) for lack of a better term "hurt". I've come to just accept this as a night time thing - happens whether I'm waking up in the middle of the night to relieve myself, or waking up for good in the morning.

None of this makes sense - like I said, why would laying down make joints hurt? But my mind has convinced itself this paradigm where the body "stiffens up" during periods of inactivity, so I'm guessing that's where it's coming from?

 

Baseball65 - I'm glad you brought this up, I've wanted to explore dreams and their relation to TMS for awhile now.

My dreams are almost always in some sense "negative." Nightmares of being chased by some entity/demon - or being powerless in some situation where a family member is in danger - these are just a couple of examples. I don't feel vulnerable in my day to day, so why is my subconscious putting me through this?

 

Thank you for sharing all that! So helpful.

I have figured the same thing, thanks for putting it clearly. I am pretty certain my shit is that fear of losing control...what am I going to find down the rabbit hole? Will I make it out?! I have been more willing to say fuck it and just let go lately and getting myself into that black hole that I was deathly afraid of. And yet I'm not dead yet It's dark and seemingly solid, until I look closer.
Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young talks about the visceral experience of duality; the contraction and expansion aspects, yin and yang. Not as concept but actually experiencing their qualities. I have had a definite preference to experiencing expansiveness and a full on aversion to contraction my whole life. I like to space out in meditation, nature, just be free man!
So, pain teaches me about contraction; viscerally. One aspect and expression of the whole bloody universe inside this body...if you believe in that stuff

 

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. Yeah, it sounds like good ol' belief(that thing you keep thinking) and conditioning-night/lying down=pain. Funny brains

 

Because of the 'note' audio thing on modern Iphones I have been getting up and reciting as much of dreams I can remember. The key thing is to record it before you turn the lights on...seems to keep the clarity of the dream.

-About 2020 I started noticing that the 'me' in the dream had the same interior thoughts and ethics/hang-ups as the 'awake' me.
- Nobody ages in my dreams. my Sons are still Little kids even if we're working construction together. My Brother is still 14 (he's 61 in the 'real' world)
-I usually dream about whatever I was thinking about around 8pm
-There is only a cast of about 20 or so characters in all of my dreams....ex-wife/GF's/sons/family of origin (all the TMS candidates)
-If I record the dream and don't listen to it until the next afternoon, it makes perfect sense!
and lastly and most important....the 'bad' dreams almost always revolve around the same stuff that I have identified as TMS and Rage makers....Loneliness, responsibilities and social and moral imperatives.

I have read a lot of stuff about it and I am totally average/. When I write about them maybe two days later, it's like doing a coloring book...the story sort of writes itself. and I have found it helpful in identifying what's maybe making me need a symptom...particularly the 'boring' stuff like loneliness, fear of aging,etc.

 

@Baseball65 ,

as always you have so much wisdom and insight thank you for this!

Wow, I needed to hear this. I tell myself these victim stories over and over and I “remember” things I regret doing that I’m sure didn’t even really happen that way, but I think about them and torture myself over them. I bet I also do that in my dreams! This is all really interesting to think about. I get many of my TMS symptoms during the night— so this is particularly valuable to me.

I 100% agree on that!

I like this thought! Rather than thinking you’re being “punished” during your sleep, think of it as you’re getting somewhere, working it out.

The same old stuff sure does seem to be a main TMS driver; sometimes I think we look for something tricky when really it’s just the obvious stuff.

This is really cool that you can remember your dreams that well. I like this idea of giving it a couple days to incubate. I have noticed when I journal a lot about a topic I feel like I dream less about it, but I can’t be really sure about that.

thanks again for your thoughts! great topic!

 

BTW...last little note.
If someone was interested in Provoking vivid dreams? Ashwaganda. (spling?) It's in a lot of supplements nowadays.

My son bought some workout supplement that had that in it. He does NOT like dreaming vividly so he gave it to me. I LOVE it. It doesn't seem to do anything to the 'awakened' me, but when I was taking it, I would wake up and the content of my dreams was seamless with the 'me' who is typing this. Dream clarity and illumination.
I didn't have to make a note on my phone...I could just grab a pen and paper and get it all down.

I don't have any right now...I don't 'need' it for anything and it isn't cheap, but there you go. Stuff definitely does connect your sleeping self with your waking self.

 

Thanks Baseball! I've got a bunch of it but haven't been using. I might give it a go again and see about bridging my sleeping and waking self, cuz something is definitely bubbling up and wanting attention...just a guess since I have recently started experiencing fear/dread when I start to fall asleep and when waking in the night
Last night it grew to full blown panic when I woke. First ever, fun stuff!

For a some time now I have been noticing anxiety right before pain comes on...no surprise it's been getting more and more acute as I go down the rabbit hole instead of distracting from it with my usual habits.
Recently I told my brain that I want to decide if/when I need to protect myself rather than an old learned behavior kicking in automatically that is out of sync with reality and throwing me into fight/flight before I know it.
It feels like all this fear and panic intensifying is the process of unraveling and loosening old, learned tension.

Thanks for sharing your experience and insight

 

Ha ha no thanks. With where my dreams always end up going I don't think I need to make them even more vivid.

But my son uses Ashwagandha too to combat anxiety - he's Gen Z, which as a generation seems to be among the most anxious generations ever.

 

I agree. This makes me sad, because I can’t help but blame it on how progressively crazier the world has gotten.

 

[QUOTE="Mr Hip Guy, post: 154237, member: 11860"...Gen Z, which as a generation seems to be among the most anxious generations ever.[/QUOTE]
Because of the screens. Too much time in front of various types of screens. Little time spent outside in fresh air, working out, reading, doing other hobbies etc. I've seen this coming more than a decade ago. I was in school learning about child development. Their brains are forever damaged. Sadly.

 

Not to hijack the op's thread, but yes Gen Z is generally a mess. Particularly the young men. Suicide is the number 2 killer of Gen Z men, which is beyond sad. I have my theories as to the causes of that, certainly screens (namely obsession with screens) is a factor but there are others in my view. This is one of many worries for me (I'm a chronic worrier - surprise!), and would probably be a good thing to start a post about.

@JanAtheCPA - Not sure I've seen less mention of depression in my subjective view. If anything to me it's been ramped up - has anyone seen the commercial for the new wave of anti-depressants for "when your original anti-depressant is not enough?" I just looked it up and thebrand is Rexulty. Again, veering WAY off topic now of course but I was put on an anti-depressant (Zoloft) in the time after my hip surgery and it did absolutely nothing for me. The anti-anxiety med though (Klonopin) was a different story - that stuff was scary effective. No judgment here but I am glad to have all of those behind me.