Posted by utopizen on October 2, 2002, at 21:08:27
In reply to Vivid dreams on Celexa or Lexapro, posted by gardener on October 2, 2002, at 19:10:06
No doctor could explain why sleep exists as a bodily function.
No doctor could explain how any antidepressant works.
You know those Zoloft ads with the cartoon that explains how Zoloft works, with "Nerve A" bouncing off "Nerve B"? Doctors have called "Nerve A" a scientific name and "Nerve B" a scientific name, and then a certain receptor that receive messages is closed off somewhat. That still doesn't explain -how- it works, it just renames Nerve A and B! : )
Certainly, vivid dreams are common among the first few weeks of antidepressant therapy. If you're lucky, they're good dreams (my first SSRI was celexa, and they were like watching movies). If you're not, they're bad dreams (which I got when I went off Celexa, and later when I started Effexor).There's really nothing you can do about them. If you don't think it's worth their effects, you can try switching to another drug... although there's nothing saying it won't happen with others as well.
Unfortunately, they are simply side effects that, if you tell your doctor, there's not a whole lot he can do about. In these side effects, he'll simply ask if you think it's worth keeping, or switching.
Oh yeah- don't get me wrong- we know sleep's important, we just don't know why- we know it does stuff, like help memory, concentration, and so forth. But we only know that (and virtually everything else about sleep!) because we've measured things like memory and concentration before and after sleep deprivation studies.
There's unfortunately nothing more hi-tech out there to measure your sleep than a simple electrogram. Certainly no dreamcatcher scanning device that'll trace what receptors are getting frizzled from Celexa so you can take a customized anti-vivid-dream pill along with Celexa ; )
Um... maybe a sleeping pill -might- sedate you long enough to get 6-8 hours of sleep, if you aren't bothered over the content of the dreams... although if it's so bad it's waking you up (I never got that ,and I had some pretty disturbing, deeply freudian vivid nightmares) maybe your unconscience is trying to tell you to not sleep through them...
and so far we know just enough to know we should probably listen to our subconscious, seeing as how it appears to know more about ourselves than we do of it.... I mean, it iterally naps 90% of itself during our waking ours, and then wakes up when we have nothing to do (while we're asleep).
oh, and if you do decide to rough it out, they're probably not going to last more than a few weeks. And unfortunately, there's that spooky feeling you get over knowing you really don't know what psychological effect nightmares have on your waking hours (how you behave, feel, etc.)
You'd think we'd find out more about dreams before we found out how ways to tinker with them, don't you? : )
poster:utopizen
thread:122012
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020930/msgs/122026.html