Horrible Nightmares

[Melanie C]

Hi Everyone, I am new to this. I have a 16 yr. old daughter who has been diagnosed Bi-polar and has gone through several misunfortuantes. Prior to her diagnosis, she was having these demonic like nightmares. They would always occur b/w 2 and 3 a.m. It would start with a loud ringing noise in her head. She would open her eyes and be paralyzed and claims to feel a presence of sorts. After a minute or so, she is able to speak and calls out for me. She was admitted to a sleep clinic and of course, it didn't happen that night and nothing was found. This hasn't happened for about a year and a half and it happended again last night. Granted she is very vunerable right now and is going through quite a bit at present. I am just curious if anyone has every experienced this and if so, did you ever find out what it was?
Thanks.

[Chemar]

hi Melanie and welcome to NeuroTalk

I am interested in whether your daughter is on any medications? My son had similar paralyzing, hallucinatory dreams for a while and it turned out to be the Cimetidene(Tagamet) that he was on at the time. I have since learned that other meds can also induce these types of reactions

Do also post your question on our BiPolar Forum in case anyone there has some insight into this

[Julie]

Hi and welcome!

Chemar is right, please check the meds your daughter is taking. My son had bad nightmares while taking Tegretol.

[michael178]

This is a recognized condition. When you sleep, during certain phases, your body gets paralyzed, and some people actually wake up during this phase, and experience what your daughter did. It is frightening but I do not think it is harmful. Sleep disorder people can tell you more.
With BP it is always smart to pay attention to meds. It usually takes a fairly long time to get someone adjusted. The meds all have side effects, and get changed frequently because of that. Also many of meds change the balance of the brain neurotransmitters. The brain initially resist this change, then relaxes and allows the meds to work, that's why it takes so long to adjust medications, why antidepressants often only work after a week or two.