Dream problems and insomnia

Since childhood I have found that if I run a high fever that I will have the same dream over and over which even when about a neutral subject will become nightmarish upon repetition.

Just about two years ago I woke up with such a dream going though my head in the final hour or so that I was attempting to sleep. I would wake up just to return to the same dream when asleep again. I went into a depression starting that same week. This has now plagued me every day since that time. The topic of the dream varies from day to day, but repeats every morning. It leaves me feeling tired and more depressed. The start of the day is by far the hardest time for me. It seems as if breaking the dream cycle might help me break the depression as well.

I am seeing a psychologist regarding the depression. He says that although I do not have OCD, that this dream cycle is "obsessive" and started wondering if anybody had been prescribed a drug that helped with stopping such dreams. He thinks no psychiatrists in my city are likely to know if this is the case, so I am hoping somebody here might have heard of something about this.

I am the same in that whenever I am sick or taking antibiotics I have some crazy and repetitive dreams. It's very often the way I know I am getting a cold or something like that because one of the first symptoms for me is the crazy dreams.

I think perhaps the difference is that I treat the dreams as I might a sore throat or a runny nose - bloody annoying but just a symptom. And so they don't plague me perhaps in the same way they are affecting you. I could get depressed about getting a cold but in the end I know that in a week or two it will be gone and until then I just have to endure it as best as possible.

Perhaps for you they are continuing for the very fact that you are trying to find a solution. Often our dreams are triggered by events or thoughts that we are not processing emotionally during the day. Because your brain hasn't yet found a solution it does become almost obsessive about it. And that's often when we have those recurrent dreams - your brain is trying to solve a problem. Perhaps the key is to stop looking for a solution. And I don't mean don't seek therapy etc for your depression because that is obviously the right thing to do. And obviously get the sleep thing checked out in case it's a physical problem - some people do suffer from sleep disorders that might be causing those symptoms.

In my case acceptance was the key. Resigning myself to the fact that when I get sick I have mad crazy dreams. It even helps me because it's a sign for me that some bug or other is on it's way so perhaps I won't plan to do that big job at the weekend but just relax and take it easy.

With depression I have read that anti-depressants reduce the amount of REM sleep you get at night and that is our dream sleep if you like. By cutting down on that I find I tend not to dream or certainly I find that I don't remember my dreams the next day - they are not troubling in any event.
I find the same with sleeping pills. I sleep but am often not aware of dreams I may have had.

Please don't think I am trying to make light of your problem. Because that isn't the case. It really does sound like a nightmare. It's just that I get those same sickness dreams and that is how I deal with them. It's just the way my body reacts when I am sick.