I experienced this last night and it's not the only time it has happened. It usually happens when I've been staying up too late but it happens at random too.

I'll usually wake up out of the blue from strange/creepy dreams after only about an hour of sleep. I find that it's usually when im just entering the REM stage of sleep.

The scary part is that the other night when this happened my brain was completely out of whack. I noticed that my audio/visual awareness was very slow and the timing was off. I'd move my head to look around the room and everything seemed like it was in slow-motion like it wasn't real. All the sounds I could here in the bedroom were delayed to what I was actually seeing. It's like I was drugged or something.

Now I have taken Adderall for years and I'm sure this had some effect but I had only taken 1 early in the day at about 2 PM and it was around 1 AM when this happened.

It seems to me that some of the chemicals in my brain are messed up when this happens. It's always a really tired state where things just don't feel right. It also creates a feeling of paranoia and anxiety too.

The solution for me was to turn on a light in the room, so I could feel safer and hopefully snap out of it. It took about 20 minutes but things slowly went back to normal. I'm always ok once I get up in the morning but it's a terrible thing to experience when it happens.

Just wondering who if any has ever experienced anything strange like this before?

Hard to say what it is but I've experienced sleep deprivation (psychosis?) and it is pretty horrible and sounds similar. Go see your doctor and tell him what happened. Did you see or hear things that weren't actually real ?

How much sleep did you miss when these things started to happen?

What dose of Adderall are you on? Any change of dose recently or any other medications you've started taking?

Maybe it's a anxiety attack? have you ever experienced something like that in the day? I don't know if it's possible for a dream to trigger a panic attack but it seems like it would be possible.

Sorry about all the questions I'm just curious as what it might be. I'm sure some people here will have had similar experiences.

Hard to say what it is but I've experienced sleep deprivation (psychosis?) and it is pretty horrible and sounds similar. Go see your doctor and tell him what happened. Did you see or hear things that weren't actually real ?

How much sleep did you miss when these things started to happen?

What dose of Adderall are you on? Any change of dose recently or any other medications you've started taking?

Maybe it's a anxiety attack? have you ever experienced something like that in the day? I don't know if it's possible for a dream to trigger a panic attack but it seems like it would be possible.

Sorry about all the questions I'm just curious as what it might be. I'm sure some people here will have had similar experiences.Well it could be some sort of mini-panic attack I suppose but anyone would feel some panic if you experienced what I did. From what I've gathered, people that have panic attacks usually have all of their senses together but just get an overwhelming feeling of fear. This was much different and only ever happens when I'm trying to sleep. Never happens in the day.

I know it's more than likely from lack of sleep. Lots of times have trouble sleeping but when I fall asleep, it's hard to get up again. I've heard people have some similar things happen because of Adderall though.

I don't have the money or insurance to see a doctor right now. It's not that serious I don't believe anyway.. I'm always fine once I take an hour to get up.

P.S. I have actually experienced a very short halucination once in my life because I only had only a few hours of sleep in 2 days. But I did not halucinate anything this time, it was just an episode where everything was moving slow and just didn't feel right.

I would ask for a sleep medication or a low dose of either an atypical antipsychotic or a benzodiazepine or both. Seroquel and Klonipin in combination seem to be popular with the insomniacs in my area.

re: 4

I wouldn't.

More meds may just further obscure the problem.


We'd be falling into the Polypharmacy trap. :) See how easy it is to solve a side effect with another pill? Scarily, it's too easy. BTDT.


I would query if the Poster is sleep deprived

Sleep doesn't just mean hours in BED, but also quality of sleep. Adderall (all stimulants) can interfere with sleep. e.g. Are you getting all your Stages of Sleep? (Only a Sleep Study can tell, really.)

ALL People who are too sleep deprived (not getting the right kinds of sleep Stages needs) will start to hallucinate. (Great form of mind-bending Torture.)

These are called Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic hallucinations. They can happen to anyone.

Dreams that seem real or are emotionally disturbing can occur when we are sleep deprived.

I have a friend who has Hypnagogic Hallucinations PLUS Sleep Paralysis (ive had that a few times w/o hallucinations; in mine i just can't move).

In his Sleep Paralysis, he said he hears 'screaming demons' and is feeling terrorized with a fear like someone near him is being killed from the screaming.

You may want to consider a drug holiday (weekends?) supervised by your Doctor.

Talk to your Doctor.

Doing a little research into sleep disorders might shed more light onto your situation than just adding a hard hitter like sleeping pills or seroquel (!).

You can Google the terms I mentioned.

re: hallucinations

Pretty much all stimulants are psychotogenic. However, I think (a) you would have had symptoms by now (you say you've taken Adderall for years!), and (b) we don't take this stuff at the levels that most people who rather regularly become psychotic take it at. [e.g. street users are taking half a gram at once. That is 500 mg. One hundred times (100x) my regular dose. I don't know how they don't die, but, anyway.

I would BET a nickle that your issues are more Sleep Deficiency Related. Possibly you could consider a somewhat lower dose, if you think it is messing up your sleep stages too much. Or the drug holiday thing.

As I said in the previous post, TTYD. (Talk to your Doctor.)


-Emma

Thanks for the responses. Don't think I'm psychotic though lol. Figured there would be fellow ADD insomniacs that might of experienced the same things.

It's not that I can't sleep really because I can if I force myself too. Just have bad habits of staying up too way too late and surfing websites such as these. Kind of an electronics freak too, for some reason I'm drawn to them.

One thing I forgot to mention is that whenever this happens I usually dream about myself lying in bed. As if I haven't fallen asleep yet. Usually believe it's real untill something odd happens which freaks me out and I wake up for real feeling very strange. This is a cycle that keeps happening until I get up and wake myself up and snap out of it. Then I can go back to sleep without a problem. It's just a certain "Phase" that happens randomly some nights when I first go to sleep.

Again I can assure you I'm 100% normal(well ok that might be a stretch) but this is the only really strange thing that happens to me from time to time. I'll have to force myself to go to sleep more... Sigh.

Oh and I've taken Adderall for only about 4 years but these things proabably started happening around then. If this is a side effect of it, I would just deal with it as a minor annoyance as long as it's not serious. It helps in allot of others areas.