Did a google search and found a paper called "Dreams in dissociative disorders" written in 1994 by Deirdre Barrett describing some of what you describe in this video. The abstract says: "Surveyed 16 therapists in 7 states about dream characteristics of 48 patients with dissociative disorders. For most patients, recovery of repressed memories was the most frequent distinctive dream event. Other dream phenomena included a hysterical conversion symptom resolving in a dream and a trauma-related hallucination beginning after a dream of related content. Both of these phenomena occurred in patients with diagnoses of dissociative disorders-not otherwise specified. For patients with multiple personality disorder, many other phenomena occurred, including alters appearing as dream characters, alters who could orchestrate dream content, and even, rarely, integration occurring within a dream. The strong potential of these dream characteristics to facilitate the therapy of dissociative disorders is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)"
Lilith Lucien because they are also a system who work with educating people on DID, and they might have something more to add, or a different experience?
Lol, the struggle is so real. Dreams and DID seem like a particularly messy combo to try to figure out. We started a dream journal. It helped mark switches that were happening, who was in distress, and also gave us a kinda cool rundown of everyone’s typical dreams. If we remembered parts of a dream or feelings but it didn’t feel like it was Our individual dream, we’d write what we remembered out and whoever’s dream it was would mark it. For us, it almost feels like when the body is asleep, our individual selves are less tethered than usual? Like we are more likely to drift into cocon without meaning to so I could suddenly be in the middle of someone else’s dream, but have no memory of that dream before or anything else prior. I know it doesn’t happen often at all, but there have been times where I and the body has been asleep, and other alters were active inspace. Once I was dreaming and I kept hearing this singing and guitar randomly throughout and I’d never heard the song before. When I woke up, I realized it had been Jack and Sasha writing a song, a lullaby, for the littles. They had started earlier in the evening and kept going through most of the night.
I'm actually working on a comic series vased on DID. I want to do it because DID has been shown very negatively in the media. So I've been doing a lot of research and i find my self watching alot of The Entropy Systems videos. And i find them to be really helpful.
Every system is very different from each other, also in these kind of things like dreaming. This is how it is for them, but there are systems when one part goes in bed to sleep , wakes up from the bed, and meanwhile another part has cleaned up the apartment, like just for an example. Some systems do sleep different times, and it makes things hard, because there should be a time for the physical body to rest. But if most of the trauma for example happened during night times/started when body was totally in sleep, there will be parts who are awake when others sleep. Sometimes mind can be very foggy, because most of the system sleeps for some reason during the day, and it's hard to function, and you can see into their dreams on the background of your mind. For us, there's plenty of different stages between sleep and awake. I thought for years I can lucid dream, but in the inner world that is another part's trait. And now I actually just realized, that even when I feel it's me in the dreams, it can also be still him. Which explains why "I" always want a male body in lucid dreams, although I'm female. Also couple of nights ago we dreamed co-consciously with other part. It was a nightmare and we woke up still co-con. I felt it was me in the dream, but it didn't make any sense to me at all. But to him, he understood what it was about, it was about what has happened to him. And I do not know how that works, because to me it was me in my body in the dream, and I think it was my body for that part also. But on the other hand, he lives in my body, so maybe he doesn't find it abnormal any way.
@@floralie3074 thank you for sharing your experience it was really informative. I'm a singleton so I don't have any experience in this area but I'd love to learn more.
Just Jadybug Honestly the number one thing to remember is that every little detail of a system is there for a reason and that no two systems are the same. There is a lot of variation. I’m glad to hear you’re going for positive representation tho!!!
Yes please I will buy your comic. I have DID and trying to get diagnosed my fiance discovered it. I found this channel been helping me a lot. But so many things in the media makes us look like monsters. I would love to see something showing DID in a positive manner.
We don’t dream often (that I know of) but when we do we also have an extremely hard time distinguishing between what was dream and what’s real. It really does warp your perception of conversations and daily life
Alternative title: "Do Alters dream of multiple sheep"? (Or something better, wasn't sure what to change "electric sheep" to. 😅) ((Edit: awwww, thank you guys for the ❤! 😁))
Oh my gosh, literally same with the dream vs. reality thing! We’ve done that all our life, with really mundane things. Like, I’ll have lost my water bottle irl and then dream that I found it, and then multiple times throughout the next few days I’ll feel so relieved that I found it and then realize that I actually didn’t, and it’s kind of a bad letdown. We do this with trauma stuff too; one night we dreamed the body’s mom did one of our worst triggers and the next few times we saw her we were legitimately terrified of her because it felt so real. It can be rough sometimes.
Ooh we so struggle with memory vs dream in both the way that you've explained it and also the whole "did this actually happen in rl and it's a memory dream, or is this something my mind completely made up type of dream." Bleh!
We get that! We seen places in dream we don't know if we know because we've been there in reality or it's just part of our dreams. This Disorder is like a Fungus sometimes
I'm in a relationship with a system actually talked to the host about the topic of sleep just earlier. Apparently, in their system, alters are able to stay conscious in headspace during sleep - the host thinks alters staying active during sleep might be contributing to their ongoing insomnia issue.
I don't have DID but I have other diagnosis. Dreams "bleeding" into my reality can be debilitating. Happy dreams bleed the same way. I feel exactly the same about this. It's controlling my life to some degree.
I didn’t notice that reality break thing before, but now that you mention it I think we have that too. Like, my dream world reality usually has weird rules or whatever and then I try to like enact those rules in reality and it’s not a thing? Or like “oh I have to remember to do this thing... wait that was the dream wasn’t it” Idk if that made sense that was a lot of rambling -Alex
I get this too. I'm sorry you have to deal with it, it sometimes lasts for days in my case, I hope it's not that long for you. Sending good things to you.
We recently discovered that dreams are a common place for us to discover aspects of the inner world. There's only two of us and we co-front quite a lot so we just don't spend much time in the inner world. Recently we had a dream about adopting a little dog and just being really happy with him. When we woke up, we discovered the dog was in the inner world!
I'm so glad I'm not alone in being unable to decipher dreams and reality. I keep remembering dreams where I'll say something embarrassing or someone I know says something hurtful. It makes me really anxious all day. So glad I'm not going completely crazy.
OMG - everything you have spoken about we have experienced. The lucid dreaming thing - the waking up and hearing people talking in the headspace amongst eachother etc - oh and the not knowing what is reality or a dream after nightmares etc.....that is so so what it is like!
We had the coolest lucid dream in our system a few nights back. Grey started in it, then I (Emma) fronted as soon as he was sent back in time in it. The story that we were living was amazing too. Wish I could relive it tonight
Dreaming is one of my favorite subjects and DID + dreaming (any disorder seems interesting but multiple personalities plus dreaming is amazing) seems so intriguing and interesting. I’ve got ptsd and subconscious anxiety plus I lucid dream. However, my more emotional lucid dreams seem to affect me throughout the day and can distress me. I relate so much to what you said!! Even though I don’t have DID, seeing you (and many of the other yt group) who’ve been thru bad trauma helps me. Much love, Kit and the rest of the system 💖
I don't have DID either but when I am falling asleep I do have it kind of.. like when I'm relaxing to go to sleep I feel like there are other people in my head and I can hear them talking as I start to drift off, like they are taking the stage, as though they are there but quiet when I am awake and only when I'm starting to fall asleep do they come out, but no regular distinctive personalities per say, more like people that are just with me in my head, but none that I can identify by name or anything. I wonder if everybody does this? Maybe this is what dreaming is? I also have lucid dreams that I never want to wake up from every morning, its so hard to get up and snap out of them, and sometimes they will disturb me and bother me all day long. And sometimes I have super vivid dreams that are way more colorful than real life, and they are often like movies, with original music and everything.
You hit it on the head! It is hard coming out of a dream and still feel like you're asleep. Even when I wake up after a nightmare my alters are all there with me sharing the same space but the one who usually fronts is there to soothe that burdening feeling. It is hard for me to process anything until I feel that disassociation lift. I think it may be part of disassociation where we suffer from derealization in general and that then stems out from our dreams, which do feel like memories, and the only way to process is to allow ourselves a bit of time to become grounded again. A therapist talked about how meditation after using technology can help ground anyone so that they can be in touch with reality and not still in the concious space of imagination that is associated with movies and television or video games. For me when I sleep, I know who is dreaming based on the type of dream. One of my alters always has nightmares. I have dreams that never have any meaning behind them. And, my child alter has really spectacular dreams about entire worlds and so many cool things. When I wake up, whoever was dreaming is fronting while I am still processing what happened. You described it pretty accurately at least for what I experience. It is very very similar.
Thank you for making this video! It was really interesting, and quite educational. I've seen the comments/questions about you guys have gotten, as well as a lot of other systems. Hopefully this'll help answer most of the questions people have. :) As for the ending, I laughed. Loved it! XD
I can feel each alter "fall asleep" sometimes we switch during dreams but we switch actual dreams so I can be dreaming about a lama then suddenly there's someone else's dream about a rocket. I also have that issue with the reality thing when we wake up especially if it's lucid and seems normal.
Some of our alters describe dreaming as time and space travel. I think we tend to have repeated dreams with ongoing storylines in similar places. Like there are places in dreamworld that we visit. We do sometimes struggle with nightmares. But even regular dreaming isn’t always pleasant, seems to be exhausting and very hard to wake and get to waking reality...sometimes close to what you described. Thank you for sharing!😊
Before I knew I had DID, i would try to lucid dream - i had a list of the things I wanted to try - it went well, the first couple of days, untill one night [i had a feeling i maybe have DID] and i wrote "talking to my sup-conscious" the next couple of days, i didn't dream, and i woke up dizzy and off balance, thought i was sick, but now I know that my system protected me from knowing. And that was [another] sign that I have DID, for me at least (i know i have it now, my friends, my therapist, my journal says so 🤷♀️) I haven't had nightmares since my teenage years, when i moved away from my childhood home, but would wake up without any memory of dreams, sometimes - I think i maybe having a dreamcatcher alter that bury those ... My system is a gem, they're bad ass... And I'm happy to be the one being the primary alter out front, now. And I'm thankful to know, so I can help my alters to get the help they need. I've experienced some of the same as the Entropy system, I have an alter that bring me feeling of love and compassion, and I remember meeting him awake and in meditation throughout my (our?) life - but it's not that vivid anymore. The dreams just kind of disappear, and me waking up dizzy and of balance. Thanks to my alters 🤍
The linkage between DID and dreaming is very interesting! Thank you very much! To me, that explains a lot how different identities are actually parts of one person.
It's not just me that struggles with this. That's nice to know. Especially waking up from a nightmare not remembering it but still experiencing the effects from it. And to not know what was real or what was not real. I actually still at 23 yo still struggle to realize what is and isn't real or if it was a dream
Dreams are weird for us. Usually there's only one person out at a time while everyone else in in the headspace. No one really remembers what happens in the headspace so we can't say whether or not we're still there when the body's asleep. One interesting experience that we had happened to protector Dean and our caregiver Cindy. Cindy was having a dream where she was in our body shopping for clothes with a friend. No one else was there with her but suddenly Dean was aware of what was happening and was observing the dream from the outside. Similar to how alters watch what's happening when they're co-con but not fronting. At one point, Cindy was trying on clothes in a changing room and the zipper on her shirt got stuck. Her friend came in to help her by trying to force the zipper open. For reasons we won't mention, this started to make Cindy very anxious and she almost started panicking. However, right before things got too bad Dean suddenly realized realized that he was controlling the body and backed away. Cindy was nowhere to be found and Dean was left alone in this dream. He doesn't remember much after that and eventually he woke up in control of the body. So what we think happened here was that Cindy was dreaming about something while everyone else was wherever they go to. Then Dean was suddenly present in the dream and was watching it play out. Then Cindy left and Dean took over and from that point it was his dream. We still really don't know what any of this means or what exactly happened but it's something we always bring up when talking about dreams.
I used to play competitive basketball, so it's pretty integrated into my system. Almost everyone plays or has played the sport, and each one has their own skill set or plays a certain position. One night I was dreaming that all of us were playing on a team together. There's only 7 of us, so it was perfect for a team of 5, a coach and our little was a cheerleader/super fan! Had a lot of fun, wish we could play together like that IRL.
i was literally JUST talking about this yesterday because one of our littles has a dream and i switched out right after i woke up and remembered the littles dream. so cool!
I've just had dreams in the past where I wake up and remember it, but it's like, that was not me dreaming that? Like I don't know where or who this came from but it was not me
Can confirm, sometimes it will literally take us realizing that something broke the laws of physics to figure out that that memory was the dream we just had and not IRL events from two days ago.
I have that thing too where dreams sometimes behave like memories until I talk about them or think about them and realise that there is no way for that to have been possible, either because a situation hadn't actually happened yet or because it was entirely impossible. I will start telling a story and midway through realise that something only happened in a dream. I don't have DID or any other dissociative disorders to my knowledge, but I don't think this is entirely normal either.
I have DPDR and that reality break doesn't come naturally to me either! To the point where if it's been like a week since I had a vivid dream, it will just fade into my memories. This is especially inconvenient when I make plans in my dream and then when I text the person to make sure they're like "???? no, what?"
omg tysm for talking about the reality break aspect. recently we've been experiencing the same thing recently and it can definitely be distressing to need someone to reality check you
we had an experience a while back where two of us kept switching in our sleep and different people were hitting snooze, made for a very funny but confusing memory
I'm a single personality and I sometimes have trouble processing dreams when I wake up. I can have some REALLY lucid dreams that really do feel like they're reality and those dreams become a part of my memories like they were real events that really happened to me, making my ability to recall any true memories difficult. Like, for instance, I can clearly remember my very first truly lucid dream experience that I was convinced was reality. I was trapped in a burning building and I went to pinch myself because, as we all know, if you pinch yourself in a dream, it won't hurt. Well, it did hurt and I became terrified that I was now going to die. I even got to the point where I could feel my skin getting warmer thanks to the flames. It wasn't until I shrieked out for help in my dream that my body finally was able to get me out of that dream by forcing me to wake up. And let me tell y'all, as a single personality, that snap from almost dying by fire to waking up in my air-conditioned cool room was shocking and disorienting.
Our little switched in and got triggered hardcore in a dream last night... it was the first time that anyone has switched in or out before (that we know of, we were only diagnosed in April and recently became aware of each other), and it was terribly disconcerting... but then everything about DID is disconcerting. We managed to start being mindful and controlling the fear/guilt/shame spiral while IN the dream... but then woke up from the inner state. Very, very odd. Thanks for getting some info out for those of us still very new to being DID.
The trouble sleeping due to other's piping up at night is exactly why we think Alters can have different sleep schedules (and can also maybe explain those times some of us just weren't available and we were convinced we were faking when hahaha it was just that they were probably also taking a nap)
I sometimes wake up completely and utterly dazed, not remembering if i even fell asleep or woke up- most of the time it is only assumed i was asleep-, and it will take a signiiiificant amount of time for me to become aware and conscious again. like, for me to realize where i am, who i am, what i am, what my memories are… i wake up with complete amnesia. these times get way worse and more frequent when i don’t take my antidepressants. they accompany copious amounts of memory loss and the inability to remember what was real vs what wasn’t.
I (Bev, the host) don’t get to dream except when there’s a system dream. I’m awake one moment and gone the next. My Fitbit shows that I immediately fall into a deep sleep. My husband will come to my room at night because he hears conversation and it’s just me but I don’t know who is up at night.
I’ve experienced what you explained about the dream lingering all day. I’ve had lots of times where I’ve been like did I do that, or talk to such and such or did I just dream it. I love hearing your experiences, I identify a lot even though I’m not a multiple.
the dream/reality break thing happens with us too. it definitely isn't talked about much. there's a little research out there about the way sleep disorders impact people with childhood trauma, but not much, which is weird, because it seems like a lot of people with complex PTSD, DID, and other lifelong trauma disorders have weird messed up sleep. the theory we read about most prominently is that hypervigilance causes it; in the same way people who don't have trauma have trouble sleeping in hotel rooms because unfamiliar environments are unsafe (and this has been researched more), people with trauma have trouble sleeping even in familiar environments because those aren't safe either. i'd love to see more studies, or even just community discussions, on sleep, dreams, and DID, because it's a fascinating subject. i swear if you guys did a collab with thomas sanders i would die. that would be amazing! also, the septum ring looks badass.
I experience most of what you described here - the dream/reality barrier is so scary! The only difference, for me, between memories and dreams is that all memory is viewed from outside the body, but all dreams are from other alters' first person POV. The best I can gather is they use dreams to communicate what they can't say to me. Very weird for sure.
Thank you for talking about this subject and your experiences. Dreaming has always felt a lot like how you're describing it, but I either didn't have the words to explain it, or didn't know it wasn't normal literally until this video. I'm glad you're back and making videos again! :)
I don't have DID, but I do have issues with dissociation. I have a lot of similar problems with vivid dreams. Sometimes it's something really silly and meaningless, like a conversation with a friend, other times it's a very stressful or even dangerous dream and when I wake up I can't tell if I was afraid from a dream or if it was real. This was really cool to learn about, I think the subconscious is such a cool thing. It's interesting to hear how it functions in a system ^-^
Thank you so much for this video! We have had these questions for our system for quite some time. Few months back we experienced a trauma nightmare that upon waking we all not only all realized we had it, some of the system discovered things they weren’t aware happened while dormant. So thank you thank you thank you for this 💖💖💖
Oh I super struggle with the reality break thing and this is the first time I've ever heard anyone else mention it (thank you!), I dream so vividly and most often in very realistic scenarios, and when I'm awake I am pretty much in a continuous state of mild dissociation so a lot of the time the dreams seem way more tangible than real life. I often spend the first bit of the morning completely confused and trying to work out which bits of my memories are real and what were dreams, this not helped by the fact I sometimes dream 'in series' so things that happened in last nights dream will be carried through to the next nights (like episodes in a TV series), which just makes it seem almost impossible to pick it all apart. The bright side being it does make for some funny stories as my girlfriend tells me I often wake up saying something to her like "You should really get the BBQ started, people will be here soon for your book launch" haha :D ~ Amber
Thanks for the video! It’s great to see you all making content again. I am a singlet and one thing that happened to me recently is I had a very vivid dread with a distinct conversation and about 10 minutes after I woke up to get ready for the day, I could still hear the conversation happening. I wasn’t consciously answering, but it was more like two people talking in the same room as me. Another thing I’ve noticed about my dreams is right as I’m falling asleep I’ll get a flash of what the previous night’s dream was about, this happens especially when the memory of the dream quickly fades upon waking.
I’m grateful and glad you made a topic vid about this!!!! I’ve been confused with reality vs dreams since I was young, and I DO believe now that is has everything to do with my c-ptsd and DID. It makes a lot of sense, and you described the feelings very well. You’re not alone. There is just no research on the topic unfortunately... Keep doing you!
We experience the dream vs reality thing too! I've tried so hard to find research on what that is with no luck. It's really good to know it happens to other systems. Thank you!
Hello Entropy! Firstly, thank you for sharing your experiences and insight. I particularly found the part where you talked about dreaming derealization limbo interesting. For some quick context, I don't have DID, but I do struggle with some form of derealization and depersonalize (I haven't gotten a strong diagnosis yet so I'm not claiming anything in particular). I mention this because I have experienced similar situations where I've had trouble discerning whether a dream was 'real or not' (aka where there was REAL doubt about whether it was a dream or not-- logically yes, not internally there is strong confusion). In some cases for me, if someone I know happens to be in my dream it's way more likely to happen. It can be difficult to discern whether the dialogue or emotions of the dream were real or not. Now maybe I'm just thinking too hard or something- BUT there has been a couple of times where I had recalled these dreams (as if they were -real legit memories-) to the person in the dream and they were like, "what are you talking about we didn't do that..." or "we didn't talk about that..." - so yeah... the mind is an interesting place!
I love the way you explained this topic! We haven't been able to explain things as well as you do. Your videos help Rabbitt's spouse and Dawn's sin understand things better. Thank you so much!! Our dreams are pretty similar to what you described.
the way you explained the dream and reality thing is SO ACCURATE TO HOW WE EXPERIENCE LIFE OMFG. it makes me feel so much better it seems like that's a DID thing?? like i'm not happy you also experience it but i'm happy that i'm not alone bc that's literally my every day life and it's so distressing when we can't tell the difference between dreams and reality when waking up in the morning.
Thank you for this! We've been struggling with how to explain something that feels a lot like what you describe as "reality Break" to our therapist and this gives us a lot better words to use!
I get that lack of reality break a lot. Especially after my mom passed in January. I dream about her almost every night, and in my dreams she's usually alive. Or she came back to life, or didnt actually die. So when I wake up, I still have those feelings that she's still here. Then suddenly in the middle of my day I'll remember "oh yeah, she's dead" and it's just very jarring and emotionally taxing... On a not so depressing note, I used to experience lack of reality breaks at my old job working at a group home for at risk youth. It was 10:30pm - 8:30am, so my days were spent sleeping. And some times I'd accidentally drift off at work... so any dreams I had about work were very vivid and I'd be so confused when I was awake, thinking I had certain conversations or interactions with the youth or my coworkers, when it never happened😂 I'd have to keep reminding myself throughout the day that it was just a dream lol
Thank you for the video Kit! I never thought about how DID would affect dreaming. Very informative and super interesting. Dreams are already an mysterious subject, throwing in DID makes it even more confusing but I think you did a really good job explaining your experience and the different theories. Also, love you too 🥰💕
I don't have DID but I have CPTSD and I've never heard someone explain how they experience dreams and how hard it is to make sense of what is real and what isn't this accurately to how I experience it. I'm gonna use this video with my therapist to explain it. Anytime I've tried to explain how vivid and disorienting and debilitating dreams/nightmares are for me the closest thing they can relate it to is just a really vivid dream! But it's so different. Like I said, I don't have DID, so maybe trauma in general is the factor that makes me have such a similar experience as you guys. Anyway. Thank you for sharing this!
Also, if you have any advice or tips on what has helped you guys cope with this or help you understand whats real and what isnt I would love some help lol
1000000% yes to that reality break thing. That's something we experience ALL the time. Generally we dont remember our dreams after waking up too, so its so jarring when suddenly this incredibly illogical and unbelievable "memory" gets pushed to the forefront of our brain. It doesn't happen often but we also have times where some alters will remain asleep after someone wakes up in the body, and if those sleeping alters are dreaming (having nightmares especially), the fronting alters will feel and perceive hallucinations of that dream. imo, those times are the worst part about having OSDD.
I have manic depression and experience reality breaks occasionally. Some times it's every morning, but it happens every single time I take a nap. I explained this to a therapist one time and she was just confused about the whole subject. I'm so happy to hear someone else experiences this, because this is something that can make work really hard when I'm stuck in the dream mindset.
Oh, I totally feel you! I KNOW about the dream just being a dream, but yet the feeling stays with me. And I often can't tell dreams and reality apart either.
This was super interesting! We noticed both similarities and differences. We’ll have to make a vid about our own experiences and add to the knowledge base.
I have dissociation and depersonalisation (not DID), and I experience this too, I didn't know it wasn't normal until just right now. I will wake up from a nightmares and will have to check everything all around the house, and I will rock for hours, and I have to check with my family if something happened or if I dreamt it. Thought everyone was experiencing that but from what I hear it's a trauma response. Nice to know!
I don't have DID but I have the same thing where I will have really vivid dreams and get confused if it happened or not, but probably not as extreme. I've had dreams where terrible things happen or stressful things, like a couple weeks ago, with my job that I had quit, I had forgotten I had quit that week and dreamed that I had a ton of work to do but I had no idea what I was doing, but it was so close to actual life so that it didn't seem like a dream at all, except for maybe my personality being different, like I was me but handling things differently and speaking differently, like more confident. but after I woke up it took me a while to realize it was a dream. This happens to me a lot actually! Especially when I'm stressed out! And I'll have weird lingering feelings from dreams being unresolved or disturbing and those feelings can sometimes bother me for a whole week. I've had some nightmares disturb me for years!!
I don't have DID (I don't think) but i do have some sort of dissociative disorder (currently undiagnosed), I DEFINITELY have the same problem with dreams where when I wake up I process the dream like it's a real memory. People have told me that they experience the same thing where the dream "sticks with them" and I'm always like... That's not really it. It literally feels like it happened. I feel physical pain in my dreams which isn't supposed to be possible, and no matter how illogical the dreams are and how much I tell myself it wasn't real, it feels like it actually happened. I've never, ever heard of someone else who has a similar experience so this video was very validating to me! I just started therapy and now I feel like this is something worth bringing up. Thanks as always for the wonderful video! Much love to everyone!
You do not give diagnoses based on how someone dreams. Systems are different. It's not like that to me either. It was hard for me to tell the difference between sleep and awake when I was around 10 years old. As a teen we learned to lucid dream and we always knew if we were in a dream or in reality. Later on it just changes time to time, probably based on who is most active inside, who is closest to the body. Sometimes we are hyper long periods and don't sleep at all, with new meds we do sleep well and dream a lot. There is no one way to sleep or dream to us. Symptoms come and go.
I have multiple alters that dont need to or refuse to sleep, and they're just "awake" in the headspace while the rest of us sleep. I'm also not entirely solid on how our dreams work, but I do know there was a night where I was asleep and not having a dream, but then a little woke up crying because she had had a nightmare
Oh my goodness that's the perfect description of what has happened to me my whole life pretty much- not being sure if something is a memory or was a dream. It's more likely to happen when some time has passed between the dream (or memory) and recalling it, but it also happens right away the next day after a dream.
Thank you so much for making a video about this! I experience a lot of the things you described! One thing ive always wondered about other systems, because this is very common for me, do your dreams ever occur in your inner world? I have discovered many alters, especially child alters this way. I had felt their presence before, but was actually able to see and somewhat communicate with them in their safe space in the inner world in my dreams. Ive also gained access (maybe because i was cocon with alters im not familiar with yet while dreaming) to parts of the inner world i had never been to before. Im sorry for all the questions! Ive never talked to another system about dreaming before but wonder often what other systems experience. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge and you are all so wonderful and appreciated!
This is so interesting! I love hearing about other people's dream experiences and I've never thought about how it could be different for a system to dream. Seriously, this channel is so informative! And you explain it so well. It's hard to grasp on content like this if you don't have DID (I don't) but you make it so easy. Keep it up you guys!! 😄 Here is a couple of interesting experiences of mine, these are the weirdest ones that i could remember, so if anyone's interested in unusual dream experiences, go on and read. At least they're unusual to me So about waking up and feeling as if the dream was real. Last one that happened to me was more than a year ago i would say. I dreamed of some parasite getting in my eyes because I've sacrificed myself for some foreign guy and jumped into some capsules filled with water and two black parasites so that he doesn't get them. So I jumped and they got into my eyes somehow. I was so devastated it was so terrifying. I remember searching on the internet with my family about those parasites and solutions while trying to calm down. Then, I was in the park talking to my therapist, who looked like my old piano teacher, about how scared i am of the surgery that i would have to undergo so that i could take those black parasites out of my eyes meanwhile crying all the time. And then i woke up suddenly and i was still stressing about parasites, i felt as if everything I've dreamed was real and it was me just casually waking up in my bed and i still have to get rid of those black things in my eyes. It took me more than 5 minutes after being fully awake to just be like wait it's not real. It was a dream. I don't have any freaking parasites in my eyes. So I cried like a baby. I don't think I've ever felt as relieved in my life. Ever. It was maybe the scariest dream experience I've ever had Another weird thing started happening to me just this year. Lately I would have nights falling in and out of sleep constantly, being half in a dream even when i wake up. It's so tiering. But i got the worst a couple of months ago when i went for a nap during the day. I fell asleep while there was still sunlight in the room, but in my dream I've opened my eyes and saw the room exactly how it looked before i fell asleep, except the night has fell down now and the room was dark. And someone was next to my bed, only a head could be seen. And i couldn't move. So I immediately went to the conclusion that I'm having either a weird dream or a sleep paralysis which has never happened to me until that time. So, I did what I always do when i have a sudden realisation that it's not real and it's just a dream, i tried to wake up. And it worked in every other situation except this one. I couldn't wake up. I started moving in my dream, standing up and going to find any family member. All i was thinking about was : but this is a dream, you know this is a dream, why can't i wake up, come on wake up. I used every part of my energy to walk in extreme slow motion, some force pulling me back abnormally hard. So finally after a short period of struggle i did find someone and woke up. But that short "waking up" from a nap was like years to me and i wasn't able to sleep two nights without waking up for millions of times. I had a similar experience a week or two ago, but it wasn't as exhausting as the previous one. If anyone has read these, i would love for you to comment if something similar has happened to you, dreams are one of my favorite topics to talk about.
