Vivid nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and pattern recognition on overdrive

[SpinachHands]

My partner with very severe ME gets these disgusting, vivid nightmares, usually when their condition is feeling worse or when they are half asleep. It's started bleeding over into the daytime too, they describe it almost like intrusive thoughts where their brain is doing pattern recognition on overdrive. Especially in dim lighting it can be bad, and they can't help seeing things as distorted, unsettling, gross, or kind of like they're broken down into lots of small parts? They've developed a kind of trypophobia, and can't even see/feel certain patterns/fabrics (e.g. crochet items) without it being set off. It's definitely worsened lately with some new medications and with their dysautonomia worse at the moment so their sympathetic nervous system is on high alert.

Has anyone found a way to reduce or deal with this? I know helping them get a deeper sleep could help with the nightmares, but in the day when they're calm as can be and it's still being set off and we're not sure how to reduce it.

 

[datadragon]

Some people mention a lack of dreaming. Back in the 1970s a doctor named Cal c pfeiffer PhD MD mentioned that Vitamin B6 is responsible for lucid dreaming. Originally I thought the lack of nutrients like magnesium, zinc, and even B2 might have kept the conversion of B6 from happening to the active P5P form and may therefore start to remember dreams when B6 is adequate. Later we also learned from research that supplementation with high concentrations of the pyridoxine form of Vitamin B6 competitively inhibits the active Pyridoxal 5' phosphate (P5P) form which actually leads to decreased vitamin B6 function rather than enhancing it.. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887233317301959?via=ihub

However most recently it appears that zinc and magnesium are cofactors that also are needed for B6 entry into the cell I found as well, so zinc and magnesium deficiency/unavailability may further impair utilization of vitamin B6 during inflammation/infection states even when supplementing such as using the active form P5P. This may be why B6 levels become high instead during that time. https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...duction-utilization.57030/page-3#post-2440317

In the daytime perhaps its related to a high glutamate level which also interestingly needs B6 to convert to GABA. Maybe a neurotransmitter test like this one may give some further info. https://www.holisticheal.com/neuro-biogenic-amines-test-comprehensive-nc.html
https://www.doctorsdata.com/Comprehensive-Neurotransmitter-Profile-urine

Vitamin B6 normally needs Zinc, Magnesium, and Vitamin B2 (flavin mononucleotide (FMN); also known as riboflavin-5’-phosphate) in the conversion to active B6 (P5P).

 

[Mary]

It's definitely worsened lately with some new medications

What are the medications?

 

[SpinachHands]

What are the medications?

Ketotifen, Cromolyn, and most recently amantadine

 

[Mary]

@SpinachHands - the culprit could be the amantadine. From GoodRX (https://www.goodrx.com/amantadine/what-is):

Common Side Effects​

• Nausea (5-10%)
• Dizziness (5-10%)
• Trouble sleeping (5-10%)

Other Side Effects​

• Depression, anxiety
• Feeling irritated, agitated, or confused
• Hallucinations
• Strange dreams
• Not feeling hungry
• Dry mouth or dry nose
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Feeling tired
• Headache
• Livedo reticularis (web-like purple-blue skin discoloration)

Any time someone starts a new drug and starts having new symptoms, they should always look at the drug and DON'T rely on their doctor to educate them about it. Doctors often don't know enough about the drugs they hand out and also seem to be primed to dismiss or not take seriously patient complaints about the effects of drugs. Actually a study done several years ago proved this point about doctors.

 

[andyguitar]

the culprit could be the amantadine.

Yes it looks like the most probable cause.

 

[Dysfunkion]

I've dealt with this one before, I know exactly what they're experiencing. I don't have it consistently but have experienced it when I was first trying to integrate D3 into my supplementation routine. This also happens when I'm having a migraine where before it occurs I'll feel unusually calm, maybe a bit euphoric somehow, and my senses will get extra vivid, but I'll be in a consistent state of what feels like a sickly flavor of nostalgia. When that happens I brace for impact because it's gonna be a bad one and the dreams are gonna get really disgusting and absurd. I can't talk about the content of them besides if they describe it as messy horror movie like with an extreme weird psychological edge then I'm on point here. Every single one of them I've had is burned into my mind, so when these specific kind happen the memory is also super functional which plays along with the weird "sickly nostalgia delirium" feeling. Might be a good idea to look into what is involved in the control of memory and increasing memory imprinting. Besides my bad reactions to D3 I don't know what is able to trigger these besides extreme fluctuations in weather when the temperature is on the upswing which is one of my worst migraine triggers. The common element seems to be some kind of specific over excitation of something involved, I have a feeling it has something to do with a dopamine mediated fluctuation but high serotonin might be involved too, the mechanisms are probably really complex since I don't have much to go off of consistent repeatable trigger wise. Just getting extremely stressed out has never caused this to flare and appears to be a flavor of "good process gone horribly wrong" based on the contradictory nature of what I'll feel when it's going to happen. When I'm feeling better I'll have dreams but they'll be rather ordinary and I'll start to forget them as soon as I wake up and feel no imprint from them.

edit - Wait I have another idea of what this might involve, the acetycholine system and/or histamine. One thing that has also never done this or contributes to it is nicotine. A lot of these effects are also seen when someone has too much of or an adverse reaction to diphenhydramine which has also happened to me even at low doses.