The Dreamy Side Effects Of My Antidepressants
Read the follow up to this piece: The NOT So Dreamy Side Effects of my Antidepressants here.
When I was younger, I never had the ability to remember my dreams. Aside from the rare, bizarre fever dreams during a sick-day naps whenever I had a stomach virus in grade school, I seldom dreamed in my sleep. Or at least, I rarely remembered them.
This changed when I started taking antidepressants. Around my 17th birthday, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and began taking an SNRI (Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor) as a part of my treatment. Almost immediately, I began dreaming. For the first time in my life, I had lengthy dreams every night that I could almost always recollect in the morning. My psychiatrist explained that increased dream activity is a common side effect of many antidepressants and though some patients dislike it, it’s not dangerous.
Not only did my dreams increase in occurrence, but they became more vivid, colorful, lucid and realistic. My dreams are vibrant, rich and detailed, occurring in a world with as much depth as the one I live in during the day. Some dreams look beautifully abstract and artsy, while others feel so real that I wake up assuming they actually happened. Just the other night, I had a dream that my parents visited my new university apartment for the first time and lectured me on my lack of kitchen utensils. It wasn’t until halfway through my first class of the morning that I realized that this conversation didn’t actually happen. My parents haven’t even seen my new apartment yet.
Sometimes the gorgeous hyper-realism and detail of these dreams feels like a curse, especially after I have nightmarish dreams. When I first started taking my meds, more often than not, my dreams turned into nightmares, terrifying in how real they felt in the moment. I coped with these nightmares through learning how to lucid dream. Because of how easy and often it became for me to dream, I quickly figured out how to acknowledge that I am actually asleep and then change the dream into whatever I want to happen next. Now when my dreams start to become nightmarish, I realize that I am dreaming and change the dream into something else instead.
Since reflecting on this side effect, I decided to ask my followers on the mental health blog that I run whether they have a similar experience and they confirmed the phenomenon. One follower explained that they never used to dream at all, but ever since they’ve been on antidepressants they’ve dreamt every night. They elaborated:
“All the dreams are full of colours and involve people who I know, and even some celebrities! The dreams have felt very realistic though and I’ve often woken up confused. The dreams are so cool to be honest.”
Another follower confirmed that they had a lot more dreams that they remembered and they were more “colorful, less monotone than before” with more “adventure and action.”
With my suspicions confirmed, I researched why exactly this side effect occurs. A study I found by Sleep Medicine Reviews explains that antidepressants suppress or decrease REM sleep, which results in something called “rebound REM” that causes intense and vivid dreams. The study found that Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs such as Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft) and Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs such as Cymbalta, Pristiq and Effexor) make dreams more intense but also increase how often patients have nightmares. However Tricyclics (such as Elavil, Anafranil, Adapin, Tofranil and Surmontil) tend to make patients remember their dreams less often, but produced more positive dreams. Additionally, withdrawal from antidepressants further increases dream recall and more creates more frequent nightmares.
The media tends to stigmatize mental illness and highlight any possible dangers of psychiatric treatment. Aside from working properly and alleviating the symptoms of depression, the only positive side effect I have ever heard associated with antidepressants is this vivid dreaming. I got incredibly lucky. In the usual trial and error of finding the right antidepressant with the fewest negative side effects, my doctor prescribed the right one for me on the first try. Antidepressants have not only effectively treated by mental health issues, but have also produced a side effect that I surprisingly enjoy.
Read the follow up to this piece: The NOT So Dreamy Side Effects of my Antidepressants here.
