Nightmares and cold sweat

During the first year of my recovery from alcohol, I used to get terrible nightmares and often woke up in cold sweat, not knowing where I was. At times it seemed to me like I was leaving my body while I was asleep and visiting places far away from this reality. Those places weren't always welcoming and filled with light. No, at times I felt like I was in hell. But hell in my perception was stagnation. I was stuck in barren, dead places, unable to move. I was frozen in some kind of endless grey desert. Often, I had the feeling that I was awake, but unable to wake up my body.
It took me quite a long time to find my inner balance again, where I didn't feel so much out of control anymore.
How about you? Did you experience nightmares or any unusual psychic phenomena during your recovery?

Yes, I have the exact same symptoms when I'm taking a break from weed. I would sleep and get sweaty and have extremely vivid dreams...sometimes they would be nightmares but they were more just regular dreams with exact details. Like usually I wouldn't remember everything that happens in a dream. I would only remember like a minute of my dream...But I remembered like a whole hour of my dreams a few nights. Like I could've written a movie of some of my dreams. LOL

I never had dreams or anything subconscious like that - for me, it was more an active, anxious feeling. Constant thoughts of "how am I going to get through this without drinking?" were thoughts that plagued my mind. I feel like drinking had become my coping mechanism for anything seen as remotely difficult in life - so I felt alone and scared initially without it. It took time for those feelings to gradually subside.

I feel so sorry for you, and symphatise wholly. I'm so proud you stuck by it to achieve your goal

I have never taken drugs or been an alcoholic so there's no recovery stage for me to go through. My uncle was a substance abuser, though. From what he told us, his road to recovery was pretty uneventful. He simply followed the advice given to him and stopped using (I guess he was that simple-minded). There were no nightmares although it took some time for him to get used to a quiet life.

I think the nightmares and the not sleeping is pretty common with alcohol as a lot of people use it as a drug to make them sleep so when you stop drinking, obviously it's going to become an issue.

Cold sweat is a common symptom of anxiety related illnesses. It if often mistaken for heart ailment symptoms. I used to have unpleasant but obscure and vague dreams, which disturbed my sleep. The quality of my sleep was not good though not totally compromised. We all face these symptoms and when actually facing them it is good to practice deep breathing and drinking lots of water as they give immediate relief.

I don't know what causes cold swears, eventually it's what you say Bonzer, anxiety of simply our system got messed up for life, intoxicated and that is the way it has to clean itself.

I regularly experience the feeling of being awake, but unable to move - it scares me sometimes. I also have really weird dreams and nightmares, and often wake up in a cold sweat. I generally suffer with fevers and chills even on nights when I don't have nightmares. I think its quite common.

I’m anxiety-prone and I would definitely say I have more nightmares and sometimes cold sweats when I’m in a state of high anxiety, especially when I’m trying to bottle it up. This was actually something I figured out during a recent crisis, and it was what told me I had to stop bottling things up and do something to change my situation. I still have the occasional nightmare or horrible wake-up, but they’re starting to subside.

Being anxious and nervous messes up with our whole nervous system, but to have nightmares and cold sweats is a step further and indicates something more serious. We do what we want with our body and mind, but from a certain point on the body/mind do collapse.

I'm not an addict in recovery so I don't personally know however I had a family member who was and the nightmares and sweats seems to be pretty normal. He had nightmares every night for months!

I can understand why you have had that. I haven't been necessarily addicted to alcohol but to something else and I can relate to it. I know that it could be caused by anxiety or fear, but considering alcohol is physical it's no wonder your body would begin to sweat because of the pressure and feeling the need for it.

Did you have the same symptoms kyler? When we are sick the body sweats a lot to put out all the toxins, the same with exercise, so eventually we are dreaming with one of these situations?

I have been clean and sober for almost two months now and I too have nightmares

That's not something that goes away easy or fast. I've been reading about nightmares and they speak about some gateway that is opened to hell? Well, maybe I was reading in the wrong place.