Can Sleeping Pills Cause Nightmares?

Can Sleeping Pills Cause Nightmares? (Answered!)

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Yes, sleeping pills have a chance of causing nightmares. There’s no guarantee, and sleeping pills take many forms, and almost all of them have some side effect or another. Often, this will be nightmares or at least vivid dreams. The reasons for this are fairly complex.

 

So, the short answer is yes.

Sleeping pills can indeed cause nightmares.

They aren’t guaranteed to, though, and whether or not a particular sleeping pill causes nightmares for a particular person is going to depend on the individual and the situation.

Let’s look further into this.

Can Sleeping Pills Cause Nightmares?

 

Do sleeping pills cause nightmares?

Yes, they certainly can.

They aren’t guaranteed to, and as much as I don’t want to repeat myself, the term sleeping pill is a rather broad category.

There are many brands of sleeping pill that achieve their effects through different means, and whether or not a particular brand causes nightmares for you is going to be down to your circumstances.

That said, sleeping pills almost always report some kind of side effects.

Often, these are increased instances of dreaming and even nightmares.

That’s the other point it’s important to clarify.

What may be a nightmare to one person may not be to another.

For some, sleeping pills might just cause what they describe as vivid dreams.

For another, it might be a nightmare.

So, again, for you, the best thing you can do if you’ve had a bad experience with one sleeping pill is to simply try another.

So, why exactly do sleeping pills cause nightmares?

 

Why do sleeping pills cause nightmares?

It’s going to be a little bit different for each kind of pill.

The basic essence, though, is that sleeping pills achieve their effects chemically.

When your brain is altered chemically, this can often lead to increased activity, weird dreams, and vivid imagery.

The exact mechanism of dreaming is important to elucidate, here.

While we aren’t fully sure what the purpose of dreaming is, our best theory suggests that it is a way for our subconscious to figure out the important memories and sort them from the unimportant ones.

When the brain is drowsed and confused by sleeping pills, this can mean vivid, nonsensical dreams and nightmares are more likely to occur.

At the same time, the simple deepness of sleep can also be a trigger.

When we sleep, we go through multiple stages, or cycles, of sleep. REM sleep, or rapid-eye-movement, is the deepest of these stages, and where most dreaming occurs.

If we are in a deeper state of sleep due to the sleeping pills, but our brain is also more active chemically, then we are going to be more aware of the content of our dreams as well as the fact that they are stranger in the first place due to the pills.

How can you stop the nightmares, then?

 

How to stop nightmares from sleeping pills

The first thing to stress is that there are many kinds of sleeping pills you can try.

If one doesn’t work very well for you or causes nightmares, then you should really just stop taking that sleeping pill.

Even if you feel you’re in a deeper sleep, if you are tossing and turning with nightmares, you won’t feel as well-rested.

So, the best advice is to try a different kind of sleeping pill.

Sleeping pills can sometimes be rather powerful chemical cocktails, so you should ideally consult your doctor before taking any.

If sleeping pills, in general, don’t seem to work for you, try a different method to aid your sleep.

Meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, a strict bedtime routine—all of these things are simple but effective means to help you sleep better.

 

Do sleeping pills cause night terrors?

It’s very unlikely.

In adults, night terrors affect a very small percentage of the population.

So, if you aren’t already predisposed to night terrors, it’s very unlikely you’ll have many problems as a result of sleeping pills.

Since night terrors involve waking up in the middle of the night, typically, if you are in a very deep state of sleep as a result of the sleeping pills, you’re very unlikely to wake up.

Children are at much greater risk, and though they shouldn’t really use sleeping pills, the use of sleeping pills would potentially make the problems worse.

Sleeping pill, really, is a bit too broad a term to say anything definitive.

While I have taken the angle that yes, sleeping pills can cause nightmares, it’s also worth bearing in mind that while one kind might for you, another might not.

Sleeping pills are fairly strong chemicals, usually, and naturally have pretty strong psychological effects.

This can very often lead to dreams and can cause nightmares, too.

But there are things you can do to make it easier—if only trying other brands!

 

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