Can Worms Cause Nightmares?

Can Worms Cause Nightmares? (Helpful Content!)

by
Parasitic worms can have a great many effects on your sleep, any of which could ultimately lead to increased nightmares. It can very often depend on the person, but virtually anything that gets in the way of a good night’s sleep can lead to vivid dreams and nightmares. Some forms of parasitic worm are even nocturnal.

 

Worms can be a horrible thing to experience.

There is any number of ways in which worms, at least indirectly, could lead to an increased frequency of nightmares.

Worms of any kind can have profound effects on our ability to rest well, so let’s find out more.

Can Worms Cause Nightmares?

 

Do worms lead to nightmares?

Parasitic worms in the body, whether they are in your muscles, your digestive tract, your brain, or anywhere, can indeed lead to nightmares.

If nothing else, they very much get in the way of restful sleep, and this is where the most common problems come in.

Generally speaking, the less restful your sleep, the more likely you are to have vivid dreams and nightmares.

This speaks to the underlying mechanism of dreams in general.

It’s a common piece of received wisdom that we dream every night, and how much we feel we have dreamt is more dependent on how well we remember those dreams.

Broadly speaking, this is true.

Most dreaming occurs in REM sleep, the deepest part of sleep.

If that cycle of sleep is disturbed, it will lead to greater retention of our dreams and we will feel them to have been more vivid.

There are of course many ways in which any type of parasitic worm, where ever it has taken hold, might disturb sleep.

Worms are most commonly a digestive parasite which live in your gut and intestines.

They lay their eggs near your anus, and this can cause itching.

Furthermore, they tend to be nocturnal, meaning they are going to be active at night while you are trying to sleep.

Brain worms can, naturally, be even worse, having profoundly debilitating mental effects.

This alone can cause nightmares even if you are not normally prone to them.

The stress and anxiety of dealing with the problem on the whole can certainly lead to nightmares.

So, it is somewhat important to realize that worms don’t necessarily cause dreams on a physiological level.

The side effect of stress and the way it impacts your sleep then cause the circumstances which lead to increased dreaming and nightmares.

 

Can worms affect sleep?

Worms definitely affect your sleep and they will do so more and more the longer they go untreated.

Whatever the kind of parasitic worm you have, and where ever it happens to have taken hold, one way or another its disruption of your ordinary pattern of living can certainly have a profound effect on your sleep.

Being able to sleep soundly is based, perhaps more than anything, on your level of relaxation or stress.

The more stressed you are, the harder a time you will have falling asleep.

Stress of any kind can cause this.

Even when you eventually do fall asleep with stress, it will continue to disrupt a solid sleeping pattern.

The biggest factor in all this is that most parasitic worms, as I touched on, are nocturnal.

They will be active at night while you are trying to sleep.

Pinworms are among the most common offenders, and they will be very active at night which can cause immense discomfort.

Of course, at the same time, there are many cases of people with intestinal worms for years that have no symptoms and do not even realize they ever had worms.

So, while it can be different for everyone, they will eventually lead to some kind of symptoms which will get in the way of your sleep.

How can you know if you have them, then?

 

How do I know if I have worms at night?

The most common symptom to tell you that you have worms is the anal itching that I mentioned.

This is often very difficult to ignore and will go on more or less continuously when caused by worms.

Other things can of course cause anal itching, so make sure to take all the most important basic steps to avoid this.

Keep the area very clean and make sure to wash up thoroughly after using the bathroom.

If you suspect you have intestinal worms, see a doctor as soon as you can.

They will be able to put the question definitively to rest.

 

Do worms cause night terrors?

Worms are unlikely to cause night terrors in adults who are not already predisposed to night terrors.

They are much more common in children, so it is not impossible that worms could trigger night terrors in children.

Equally, if you are an adult who suffers from night terrors, then worms could indeed make them more likely to occur.

If your child has worms and suffers from night terrors it becomes even more urgent that you address the problem as quickly as you can.

 

Worms are really awful for anyone to experience, so it’s really important you move to treat them as quickly as you can.

There are a whole host of ways that they might interrupt your sleep and this can indeed cause terrible nightmares for some people.

Your best chance at reducing the impact of the worms is to get them treated as quickly as you can to stop them from multiplying.

 

More in nightmares

 

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

Leave a Comment