Let’s talk dreams. Now I’m not talking about your aspirations and plans as much as they are important and probably very interesting. I’m talking about those dreams we have whilst asleep. We have all had the ones which have been vivid and have woken us with a start. Those that you can’t remember. I’ve had recurring ones. Ones that I can still remember from when I was young.
I mentioned previously that my husband has vivid dreams and I’ve had random conversations with him while he has been fast asleep. The best recent one was him asking if I could hot wire his tractor because he couldn’t find his key. Don’t ask. These got worse due to the side effect of one tablet.
So it seems that these dreams and the lashing out which sometimes comes with them are a side effect of Parkinson’s. They can be so vivid for the sufferer that medication is required to take the edge off the dreams. Some couples have reverted to separate rooms because of the severity of the problem. As things are for us at this moment that isn’t a solution unless I want to sleep in the bath.
Thankfully his dreams, while sometimes are vivid, haven’t got to the stage that I fear for my safety. Some of the stories I have read are worrying. Some funny too; they probably weren’t at the time. I have become tuned into his fidgeting which usually happens before he starts lashing out. Most of the time me talking to him sternly stops it. Worse case I turn my back as a smack to the back of the head is preferable to a bloody lip.
It got me to wondering if these side effects materialise way before the diagnosis but we just don’t pick up on them. I remember one occasion and it hasn’t happened since. The main link road which our flat overlooks had been resurfaced during the two previous nights. I was woken by a rattling. Realising my husband wasn’t in bed I called out. I could hear him by the front door. I asked him what he was doing. ‘Just going to check out the tarmac’ was his reply. Thankfully me telling him to get back into bed stopped him.
We laugh about it now but what if he had gone onto the main road in the night. How far would he have got if I hadn’t woken up? What if a lorry driver had taken his attention off his driving and hit him? He has never done anything like it since but was that an early sign? Is this something that we will have to deal with going forward?
Only time will tell if we will have to deal with this issue and it does become more common place. Most of the time it doesn’t affect me as it’s only a short period of broken sleep in the night but if that becomes more than once a night then I may be hiring scaffold to keep the eyes open at the day job. That or investing in a futon and duvet for my office. I think if I suggest that to my boss he will be telling me to dream on.
I suppose if nothing else, if husband is true to form his dreams will provide plenty of things for me to write about as I am constantly sniggering at the comments he comes out with in his sleep. Sometimes I wonder if I should record him as he doesn’t always believe me. Maybe not, just in case I do it too and he doesn’t remember. E x
Hi E My dad used to have vivid dreams, almost nightmares. He had them before his diagnosis i believe, but as you say was that an early sign. When we stayed i would here him sometimes moaning and shouting out, It frightened me, and i worried about him hurting himself but he assured me that it went that far, and he didnt really remember although most times he did know it had happened,