I'm just curious about others?
- Too many nights lately, in my dream I'll find myself frantically trying to find my missing purse with pump supplies, or searching for an open pharmacy because I'm out of insulin, Oh no!... Argggh! Wake up exhausted feeling PO'd because, Geeze Louise, aren't the waking hours enough diabetes for my goofy brain!?
How about you?
-Linda
Lately I keep having these dreams that everyone around me has a pump. Like I'll be at work and a coworker's tubing poke out of their shirt. Or another dream I had we were in a conference and someone asked if anyone had a pump and tons of people pulled theirs out and I was happy.
I think those dreams are easy to interpret.
I've also had the can't-find-my-insulin dreams too.
Hmmmm...you got me thinking. I have a lot of anxiety dreams but I've never had a diabetic anxiety dream that I can recall. I have occasionally had diet-related anxiety dreams where I started eating a large quantity of something super-unhealthy and then freaked out because I realized what I'd done (all while still dreaming) and felt terribly guilty about it, not due to blood-sugar fears however -- more a feeling of "oh, gosh, I've completely broken my diet! What was I thinking!?"
When I wake up from one of these I'm greatly relieved to be still in my bed unfed and not inhaling a mountain of lard-based wedding cake frosting or whatever.
You would think that after injecting insulin for so long I'd have regular diabetic anxiety dreams but perhaps my dream state is also a place of respite from diabetic worries as I worry about diabetes more than enough while conscious!!!
99% of the time, no.
Occasionally, I'll have a dream about a specific aspect of being diabetic. The last time that happened, I was dreaming about my Omnipod and it was a lot like a Borg implant. Seemed perfectly normal during the dream.
After a few months on the pump, I dreamed I was gardening & my pump came unattached & rolled under a hedge, I reached under the hedge but it was out of reach & then a rabbit appeared & made off with my pump! Then I woke up very nervous about what had happened to my pump but there it was still attached to me. No I had not been reading or watching Alice in Wonderland!
Me too! Place of respite - dreaming used to be, but not lately :-( Back in the '70's I quit smoking and for years I would dream I had started again and be heartbroken. Such a relief to wake up still on the right side of that fight.
-Linda
These are all so funny! I love it!
In most of my dreams diabetes doesn't come up as an issue let alone the focus of a dream and really can't say whether I am or not. For those dreams where it does come up thou I'm usually a much younger version of myself and usually involves a situation which starts out innocent enough but escalates to where I'm panicking from out of control sugars and/or can't find my kit with my supplies. That's when I usually wake up. Guess I know what my fears are!!! LOL
I have never been a diabetic in my dreams. I guess lucky to have the mind shut if off during rest time. Even when I had night time lows I was dreaming of other things.
I dream about carby foods (cakes, breads, etc) and can wake up feeling concerned that I've really eaten these things. These dreams were pretty regular in my first year after dx, then they dropped off, but they have returned.
Just last night I dreamed that I was at a banquet/buffet and was trying to survey the table to take just 2 carb exchanges. But I was over-serving myself and feeling guilty. Woke up exhausted, but glad for the dream to end.
Sometimes I think these dreams are simply a good outlet for my carb-craving & mourning foods that I miss, but last night was definitely about being diabetic.
I have never once been diabetic in the 18 years since I was diagnosed. In a nice way that is something of a "vacation" from diabetes.
On the other hand when I'm slipping into a low at night I almost always awake with symptoms. A great many times they are accompanied by a very vivid nightmare of some type. For some reason those nightmares stick with me all of the next day unlike regular dreams. Low glucose does funny things to the brain and I chalk it up to that and have come to accept it as another symptom not unlike the emotional panic that sometimes happens during a low when I am awake.
That is very interesting. Non-emotional attitude as a key to dream content... Sorry your dreams are even worse than being diabetic in impending doom situations. Sounds scary!
I had a dream about a huge fruit salad. There were grapes and cantalope slices. Blueberries and pineapple chunks. And then I took a large shot of insulin. It was a very vivid dream.
My wife thought it was strange that I was a diabetic in my dream. I thought it was pretty natural.
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: I’m LADA that is not yet on insulin therapy (long, ugly, obnoxious story, and yes I know by all modern healthcare standards I should be on at least basal). I had a dream a few days ago that my wife and I went out to dinner, and I tested after getting home and feeling a little funny. 180mg/dL. Well, that ain’t good, thought my dream self…so one hour (of dream time later), I test again. 240mg/dL.
So, in my dream, I literally say “Oh crap, Honey, I think I need to go to the hospital!” She takes me to the ER, where my BG is now 400mg/dL, and they deduce that I’m in DKA (don’t think there were other symptoms yet, but… dream doctors are authoritative).
At which point, the ER doctor (in my dream) lectures me on how Type 1s have to be on insulin, while his nurse is hooking me up to an IV drip. And my wife is crying that it’s all her fault for being scared of insulin (semi-true IRL), and the dream kind of broke up from there with me trying to figure out how I was going to afford a pump and CGM when I got out of the hospital.
The best part was that while the nurse was hooking me up to the IV, I literally told my wife in my dream: “Honey, the folks at the diabetes online community say to never let the nurses control your insulin, I’m pretty sure she shouldn’t be hooking me up to an IV!”
Yep I’ve dreamed about my bg’s. I have lots of dreams with recurring themes such as having too many things to carry, getting somewhere on time.
I don’t usually remember my dreams unless I’m low and then they are very vivid. I’m always scared or in some sort of dire situation. The most memorable one was when I was about five and I was hanging over the edge of a cliff wearing a blanket like a cape with Superman and Batman standing over me refusing to pull me up (I wasn’t even interested in superhero related things).
The dreams are either about falling or being trapped and the trapped ones are always things that I wouldn’t be scared of IRL like puppies sitting on top of me or something like that.
Diabetes itself tends to stay out of my dreams, so far, though I have had dreams where I go to a doctor appointment and suddenly can’t remember why I’m there, what I wanted to ask, what I hoped to gain from the appointment, etc… The doctor then goes into a monologue about whatever was interesting him at the time, then dismisses me and hands me the bill…
. o O ( or did that really happen? 
)
I’ve never had a dream that included diabetes in any way. Actually, that would be a more pleasant dream than many I have. A more common theme is an intruder about to do me harm and I end up screaming my head off and waking my partner. He has to play knight in shining armor, wake me and rescue me about every three months.
Same for me I don’t think I ever had diabetes play a part of a dream. Not sure what that means !! Good or bad ?
No, never. In fact in my dreams I don’t have any of my complications and I’m young and handsome again! I try to dream a lot.