Can Yoga Cause Nightmares?

Can Melatonin Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

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Melatonin is not usually directly associated with nightmares. There are a few ways it might indirectly cause nightmares. Anything that affects our sleep in a profound way can lead to increased dreams, but not necessarily nightmares. It is likely something else at play that is the root cause of the nightmares.

 

Melatonin can have a fairly powerful effect on our sleep, and this can naturally lead to interruptions in our ordinary patterns of dreaming.

But if you are having excessive nightmares while on melatonin, there is probably something else that needs to be addressed to solve this problem.

Let’s find out more.

Can Melatonin Cause Nightmares?

 

Does taking melatonin give you nightmares?

Melatonin is unlikely to give you nightmares on its own.

There are studies that have shown a link and that, in rare cases, taking melatonin seems to directly cause nightmares in some patients.

However, on the whole, taking melatonin is unlikely to be the sole cause of nightmares in most people.

Melatonin is a hormone that occurs naturally in humans and is one of the ways our bodies regulate sleep cycles.

It is often used to treat people with short-term sleep issues, like insomnia.

As you can expect, taking such a hormone in a supplemental fashion can produce somewhat profound effects on the body and mind while we sleep.

In some cases, this can be enough to cause extremely vivid dreams if not outright nightmares.

For most people, though, melatonin is not enough to cause nightmares on its own.

However, this does get to an important point in understanding why melatonin may or may not cause nightmares.

Understanding why we have dreams or nightmares at all, or at least why we seem to have excessive nightmares one night and none on another night is key to understanding the effects of melatonin.

 

Why does melatonin give you vivid dreams?

Melatonin, broadly speaking, gives you vivid dreams because it has a profound effect on your sleep cycle.

As I said, melatonin is something our bodies produce naturally to help with our sleep cycles.

This is the important thing to note.

When we sleep each night, our bodies go through cycles.

The deepest of these cycles is called REM sleep, or rapid eye movement.

This tends to be where most dreaming occurs.

There are two main ways, broadly speaking, that the vividness of our dreams can appear to be increased.

The first is that REM sleep is interrupted, and is not as deep as it should be.

This added awareness makes us feel our dreams more consciously, and thus they can feel more vivid and memorable.

On the other hand, something like melatonin can increase the deepness of your sleep.

This also can make dreaming more vivid and powerful, since the cycle of sleep which produces most dreaming has become deeper.

As you can imagine, then, melatonin usually can only really cause vivid dreams or nightmares, in the same way, that anything can increase or disturb the deepness of your sleep.

Nightmares are really another question entirely.

Nightmares usually reflect some sort of increased anxiety in your waking life.

This is not always the case and sometimes nightmares can just be disconnected from anything else going on.

But for this reason, it’s even more unlikely that melatonin will be the direct cause of your nightmares.

There is probably something else going on.

What about night terrors?

 

Can melatonin cause night terrors?

Melatonin is unlikely to cause night terrors.

Night terrors are quite rare in adults, and are more commonly found in young children.

Most children typically stop having night terrors as they get older.

If you are not already predisposed to night terrors, it’s unlikely they will be caused by an outside influence.

That said, if you are already predisposed to night terrors, then melatonin could possibly make them worse.

Anything that affects your regular sleep cycle could make the night terrors more likely to occur.

This would be one you would need to consult a doctor on.

Melatonin being a sleep aid could have the reverse effect, and help some people sleep through their night terrors.

It can be difficult to know if it’s the right choice for you, though, so speaking with a consultant or doctor is best.

 

How do I stop melatonin nightmares?

If you are having excessive nightmares from melatonin, then really there are only two things you can do to stop this from happening.

The first thing to try is simply lowering the dose.

The less melatonin you have, the less likely it may be to cause nightmares.

The lower dose may not help you sleep as deeply, but dreams and nightmares will disturb your sleep anyway.

If lowering the dose does not work, then the only option you really have left is to stop taking melatonin altogether.

There are many things you can do to try and aid your sleep in other ways on top of the melatonin, such as yoga, meditation, and avoiding screens for the final hour or so before bed.

These may be enough to allow you to continue taking the melatonin, but you’ll just have to try it out.

Melatonin is unfortunately not for everyone.

Melatonin can certainly have a profound effect on our minds.

Whether it can directly cause nightmares is still something of a matter for debate.

Studies, as I’ve said, have shown a link, but it is also fairly widely accepted that there needs to be another trigger for those nightmares, too.

They are unlikely to arise solely out of taking melatonin.

 

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