Need advice.

[ahmedkobz89]

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and could not tell if it was a dream or actual full awareness but I felt like I was buried and I was slightly scared but could not remember the rest. I am a person who is always thinking about death and fears it a lot. I want to no if this is anxiety playing with my mind during sleep. Thank you

[Gambit62]

I think thoughts of death are quite normal when you are feeling highly stessed - the brain is looking for an out and death is the ultimate out. However, you can get into a feed-back loop where the thoughts of death become a source of anxiety so the brain feeds you more and more of them - however, they are thoughts and if they are getting distressing you can consciously tell them to go away and think of something else instead. They will come back but if they do you just tell them 'thanks but no thanks' and go back to thinking about something else. Eventually (relatively quickly in my experience) the brain gets the message and retrains itself. Now if I get a stray thought about death my response is 'okay so I'm feeling stressed' ... ie acknowledge it and move onto something else.

In terms of the dream - I find that if I sleep on my stomach I dream about being crushed and wake up feeling quite panicked - same can happen if one of the cats has gone to sleep on my stomach and I'm lying on my back.

When something like this that is really distressing happens I think the really important thing is to acknowledge the thought is there but not get caught in the trap of going round in circles wondering why the thought is there. Thoughts come and go. Concentrating on your breath or checking out what other feelings the body is having is a good starting point for not falling into the trap of driving yourself mad with worry.

If you think you are depressed then it would be a good idea to go and see your GP - or if the anxiety is starting to affect your ability to do day to day things. Both depression and anxiety are things that can be caused by very treatable conditions so it is worth getting that checked out.

Hope you manage to beat the anxiety.

[thomson1898 in reply to Gambit62]

Hi Ahmed, just wanted to say hello & that I agree with everything Gambit said.

Do take care x

[ahmedkobz89 in reply to Gambit62]

Thank you soo much gambit62, this is really eye opening to see how anxiety can play with you.