i was questioning that, since i can remember in two years i havent dream a lot, now i cant remember i cant dream, is like i just sleep is pure black, do you have this? or do you dream too?
I don’t remember how frequently I dream, but I know I dream things I can remember every once in a while. I also know I do dream a fair bit, but couldn’t tell you how much since I forget the majority of it after a few minutes of being awake.
I dream every single night. When I am going through stressful periods, I journal my dreams down immediately as best as I can remember them. There is usually a symbolic meaning in them that helps me connect with myself. It’s as if my unconscious intuition is communicating with me indirectly because it doesn’t have a language center, but it still exists and can communicate with fantasy stories. I kind of think that part of me is smarter than my conscious mind in some ways too. It’s pretty observant and wise.
I have never had many dreams, but they experienced an uptick when I started melatonin. Stress also makes me have more nightmares.
There is growing evidence that autism involves a dysfunction of the serotonergic system, particularly the central nervous system (CNS) pathway (Tryptophan -> 5-HTP -> Serotonin -> N-Acetylserotonin -> Melatonin). There are also studies showing that the conversion from N-Acetylserotonin (NAS) to melatonin is impeded in autism.
I did a lot of digging into this to try to aid my sleep and general health. Here are the key takeways:
Vitamin D regulates serotonin synthesis and Vitamin D deficiency can reduce the amount of Tryptophan entering the CNS, so make sure you're not deficient. Unfortunately Tryptophan competes with other large amino acids for entry into the brain, so if you can't get enough through your diet, you can use 5-HTP supplements to aid serotonin production.
Vitamin B6 is required for the conversion of 5-HTP to serotonin.
Low magnesium has been correlated with a reduction in serotonin production.
Melatonin supplements (anywhere from 5mg to 20mg) can help a lot with making up for the poor conversion from NAS to melatonin.
If anyone's interested I can dig up the studies/references I used.
(As an aside, sleep apnoea will also reduce the amount of REM sleep, as past a certain point your brain will keep pulling you back into light sleep in order to breathe. If you haven't checked if you have sleep apnoea, please do so!)
Thanks for sharing! I find this quite interesting as I continue to have this nagging need to establish what is the fundamental difference between autistic and NT neurotypes that result in the practical differences we experience. Do you know where I can read more about the latest science that focuses on this?
20mg sounds like quite an excessive amount. Are you sure about that? Do you have a source to support that claim?
You're welcome. Unfortunately there's no one place where you can read up on it; in my case I searched for any studies or papers on autism and/or serotonin to get a better understanding of how the system worked. Whilst some research is behind paywalls, a lot is still publicly accessible (ResearchGate is one such site). Google Scholar is probably the easiest way to search for relevant papers, though, as it usually lists where the full paper (as a PDF) is available.
Some of the papers I've come across that may be of interest to you:
As for the quantity of melatonin, that was in discussion with my doctor. He expected that the commonly available 2mg supplements wouldn't do anything and that it would probably take 10mg to have a significant impact. He also said not to go above 20mg. In my case, 10mg works very well, but was increasing the risk of being tired the next day - so I am currently on 5mg (this helps, but I don't sleep through the night as well as I did on 10mg).
Also on the safety side of things, be aware that 5-HTP should not be taken with SSRIs without careful medical supervision due to the interaction and risk of serotonin syndrome.
For the longest time I didn’t ever dream. Now the only dreams I have are pointless brain dumps of random bs that come up after I wake up and fall asleep for 20 more min. Don’t ever remember them but they’re real garbage.
I have dreams every single night, and remember at least one of them once I wake up. Always have. Only exceptions are when I’m extremely tired or when I drink chamomile tea before bed. Found out about the latter last summer, and it admittedly kind of freaked me out; not having/remembering dreams is just… weird.
Makes sense. Sometimes you wake up and you’re still in a semi-dreamlike state where your brain is switching over from unconscious to conscious. I know when I’m in that state, I often still feel like the dream is still real. I’m sure if I wrote it down right away, I’d be able to remember it.
But then again, what’s the point of remembering your dreams? Like I guess it’s a bit interesting but it’s basically just the brain’s way of reformatting and optimizing memory.
One cool thing about remembering dreams you’ve had is that some stories might turn into storylines. For the past few years there has been a dream story going on in my sleep. Every now and then randomly there’s another dream that either continues or relates to that story. It’s pretty fun, like following an interesting TV show and waiting for new episodes!
Dreams are a normal process of sleep. What they are, to the best of my understanding, is your brain doing one of it’s sleep-tasks: memory transfer from short to long term storage. Normally, recording new memories is suppose to be “off” during the process. It’s most common to remember them when your sleep isn’t very restful or is disturbed during the part of sleep where that process takes place, REM sleep.
That being said I’m with ThrowawayPermanente, it’s extremely rare that I ‘dream’.
But even when you don’t remember your dreams you still remember them being there. Maybe this is just me being stupid but I feel like I dream most nights but I may remember like bits of one or two a week and other nights it’s might just be burry colours and a general idea of the mood
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