Okay so I’m actually not exaggerating. Ever since I was a child I have had crazy vivid dreams. Dreams so vivid I would swear they were real and would get so confused. I hate going to sleep because I’m always terrified of what I might dream because I am certain to feel the effects of it years later.

The level of detail in my dreams is hyper realistic. In real life, I would never be able to absorb so much of my surroundings; in my dreams it’s almost terrifying how much I remember.
What seems like it would be a 2 minute concept to explain will actually take over an hour to tell because of the insane amount of detail. I can tell you the amount of stripes on a passerby’s T-shirt, the tube station I walked past, the closing time of a shop I went into, the number plate of a taxi I got into. What’s weirder is I will remember every detail for YEARS. I have hundreds of dreams memorised from up to about 15 years ago.

If it is a bad dream (it usually is) and something happens in a place I know in real life (it usually does) I will have some weird emotion attached to the place every time I’m there now. Years ago I had a dream that someone committed suicide on a bridge I drive under almost every day. Every time I drive under, I get this sense of dread and sadness, as if I actually experienced someone ending their life there in front of me.

I will wake up more tired than before I went to sleep, because I feel like I have already lived whatever has happened in my dream! Going to sleep is more exhausting than staying awake most nights. I nap a lot because I’m super depressed at the moment and I even have the dreams then.

Sometimes they are happy, sometimes they are so normal I can swear it was actually a whole day and feel like it all actually happened without a doubt in my mind. It feels like the previous day until I get a reminder, like seeing the date on my phone or hearing someone talk. However, most of the time they are so so so terrifying I wake up having panic attacks, crying, sweating so much I have to wring out my clothes and change my sheets (bearing in mind I live in London and will sleep in a vest and thong).

I have never ever spoken to ANYONE who has had this or even slightly understands it. Most people think when I tel them, I make them up as I go along to be funny or have something to talk about. I wish that was the case.

If anyone has any idea what this is, why this happens and how I can try to cope, I’m begging you to help. My doctor had 0 advice and told me ‘everyone dreams’ so that’s not really an option apparently :/

TLDR: my dreams are so vivid I wake up more tired. The level of detail and emotion attached to every single one is scary and dreams from up to 15 years ago still affect me greatly.