New here, hypothyroidism causing wild lucid dreaming

Well I am new here and am the type that barely remembers any dreaming at all. I know what lucid dreams are and have had them when I was younger, but not for years. First some background on me. I am a 33 year old Male, and was recently diagnosed with Thyroid cancer. I am going to be fine eventually, I have the best, treatable kind. Let me go into this a bit, as it is very pertinent. They removed my thyroid on September 7th, and immediately put me on cytomel, a fast acting replacement thyroid hormone for temorary use only. There must have been a little active good thyroid tissue left because I never got any hypothyroid conditions. Even after they took me off the medication. Well the second part of treatment is Radioactive Iodine, which I just got this weekend. They take me off all hormones, and eliminate iodine in my diet for two weeks, this depletes my thyroid tissue and any loose cancer cells in my body of iodine, which they love and soak right up. Well I went back to the hospital last Thursday and after giving me a shot of Visterol for nausea, they had me swallow two radioactive idodine pills. (And they check me daily with a geiger counter before letting me go home, because I have a 15 month old.) Which of course go right to the thyroid tissue and remaining cancer, wherever in my body it might be and destroys it. I can feel my neck area is inflamed right now from the radiation concentrating there, which is a good sign. Hurting lungs would be a bad sign, get the picture of how this works? Anyway, the point of this is that now my thyroid is destroyed, or almost destroyed and I am experiencing hypothyroidism, which can cause wild dreaming. I was lucid the whole time last night, but it was different, I never fell fully asleep. I will cut and paste now from my post to the thyroid cancer support group site that I made this morning at about 5am when I gave up on sleeping anymore. Also, FYI: I am sleeping in another room separate from my wife on a blow up matress for a few days more just as an extra precaution because there is still some radiation coming from my neck. And I am not to touch her or the baby until next week.


OK, well that’s it! I’m not going back to bed. I was doing so well, not having any hypo symtoms. Well it’s 5:30 I guess I got enough sleep. Vivid dreams, you guys aren’t kidding! The good ones are fine, but I want to stop before the bad ones get worse. At first tonight I am trying to relax and as I doze off I am already entering REM before fully asleep, it’s like a half asleep. I am sleeping in another room on a blow up matress because I am to sleep alone forthe next few days. Well, anyway as I drift off, I start to take off. The matress comes off the ground and starts flying away, it feels like. Now I’m not really scared at this point because I know what’s going on. I wake up, calm down, and try to think of something else and drift off again. Same thing happens, only this time even faster. I decide to not wake up and see if it quits. It doesn’t. It just speeds up. I can swear I can feel the wind from it! So I wake again and realize this happened when I moved to my side, so I move to my back and try again. This time I am fine, for a while. Except now it’s dreams combined with Old Hag Syndrome, and those of you know what that is, it can be very bothersome. Again, I’m not totally freaked out because I know it’s just the hypo. But I had had enough, so here I am at 5:30, writing to you guys. Man, I’m tired. Just took my first does of sythroid as I type this, I have a long way to go. I slept fine the first half of the night, but I took a half tab of cytomel mid day and a xanax at about 11pm before bed, but that usually wears off at 3 or 4, when all this began pretty much. I
can’t handle this every night. I am used to not remembering my dreams at all, even waking from good ones is disruptive for me. Any pointers for this?

Now I fully expect to have some kind of dreaming like this tonight, but maybe not because I am taking some replacement cytomel (optional for my comfort, but must be regular with it, only for this week) along with my startup of permanent synthroid (this is mandatory, but will take 4 to 8 weeks to take full effect), of which I will take for the rest of my life. Xanax will keep lucidity away for about 4 hours as it did last night I am sure. (As an aside, I take xanax very sparingly, and it is legally prescibed for me and in small doses, I have just needed it a bit more often with current events) And if I take another tab of cytomel this afternoon, I may not lucid dream at all, but I have to work and function, and cannot let my body get run down and gain weight just in the name of lucid dreaming. I will become very tired and mentally slow without it. I can, of course, skip the xanax if I feel calm and tired tonight, but if I don’t sleep then I won’t dream either. Now what I failed to mention in the other post was that the person in my last dream was my mother, and she had come to comfort me as my wife must have called her and told her I having trouble sleeping. But then logic took over and I realized that it was the same night, and she’s thousands of miles away, and this was not possible. Of course logic has no place in normal dreaming, and this is what made me realize I was lucid dreaming. So it wasn’t a bad dream, it’s just I tried to wake and I opened my eyes, still dreaming. I would think that you guys here know what Old Hag Syndrome is, so I am not going to explain it here as I had to in the other forum. Also, I never had that happen to me since childhood. So I am thinking I may have some more dreams tonight, and thought I might as well have fun with them. I’ll try to skip the second dose of my cytomel as it is not critical, but I have to take it in the morning, and I have to take my permanent synthroid. But for a few short days, I may have some more lucid dreaming. My reason for posting is to see if there are any other hypothyroids here who know what I am talking about or maybe if nothing else, to add to your collective knowledge of how a medical condition can trigger lucid dreaming. Many hypothyroids experience wild dreams, but lucidity is rare. I would like to have some fun with it tonight instead of another bout with Old Hag Syndrome (I hate that my mother, whom I love dearly, had to be the old hag in this episode. Trust me, she’s not old and definitely no hag).

Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot of background to give and babbling is also a symptom of hypothyroidism.

Hey shahram72, welcome to the forum!

Although I did not understand all of your post (lots of difficult medical stuff for a non-native speaker :razz:), it is nevertheless pretty interesting. You say that people like you often have wild dreams but not often attain lucidity, and I wonder if that is merely because they don’t know about it, if it seems currently to be so easy for you? Anyway keep us posted on your expriences, and good luck with getting some decent rest!

Thanks I will. I have always known what it was and experienced it widely as a child, but very rarely as an adult. My experince has brought me here for information, as those on the thyroid cancer site do not know a lot about lucid dreaming, as you guys do not know a lot about thyroid cancer, which is lucky for you. That’s why my post was so long. I was trying to explain how in my case, a hormone imbalance from my condition, was causing and triggering sleep and dreaming patterns that are out of the ordinary for me. Please, post any questions, I will be happy to elaborate and explain. I think it would be informative for all of us. I feel good today, so I am going to skip my afternoon dose of cytomel, which will help me be calm in the evening, but the small amount I am on may have already corrected the hormone imbalance in me to the point where I cannot replicate last night. I will update the thread tomorrow. Maybe someone else here has hypothyroidism and can add their two cents. If not, you have someone now, but hopefully for my overall heath, it is temporary, but this may have retriggered a old ability.

OK, well I had to take my other dose of temp thyroid med today as I was really feeling slow this afternoon, but that was hours ago and I’m not going to take any xanax tonight unless I can’t sleep. But I was doing some more reading here and the sensations I was feeling were more like OBE than LD. Does it sound like it from my description, because the flying and pulling and speed and wind sensation are all completely new to me, I never had them before. It is important to know that my brain is probably in a state it has never been before in my life and it’s only temporary. It’s very interesting, nonetheless, and I came here so I could learn more about it, instead of just being scared from it. I’m feeling a bit slow right now and it’s not late at all so I should be in a similar state as last night. I am going to quit reading up on this sight for tonight as there are some kinda scary topics and anything I read or think about at this time can manifest itself in my dreams, and I don’t need any help in that department. Anyone think this was a borderline OBE? Don’t think I actually got there, or even if I think it’s real, but I’m an open minded person, but I got up before it got too intense. Remember, it happened just as I relaxed to sleep and not after, I never fell fully asleep, I cannot be sure, of course. I was pretty tired. I just hope tonight is not unpleasant. I’ll post again in the morning with an update.

Personally I claim these experiences are nothing like “real” OBE’s (NDE) at all even though they might look extremely realistic. To me for such a thing to be real you would actualy really have to leave your body which means that it is not something which happens merely in your head (mind). In your case it is safe to say whetever happens is related to dreams, not to OBE. And another thing, if you are scared of any topics here on the forum (old hag, SP, etc), remember that the only scary thing is the fact that you scare yourself about harmless phenomena. If you deceide not to fear then you probably won’t.

Yeah, I’m now convinced it was just dreaming, And nothing happened last night out of the ordinary, not that I can remember anyway. I really thought something would happen, possibly a nightmare, and I was a little scared to go to sleep. I was visualizing some scary things as I was dozing off, so I am surprised all my dreams were pleasant. Plenty of normal, but not lucid dreaming. I know because I woke after each one. And I was feeling hypo at bedtime as I am now. But every day, that changes. It may have been just a one time thing, but I have no doubt it was triggered by the hormone imbalance. Will watch it and report back here if something changes. One thing I noticed however, is that my mind, and now I realize that it’s always like this for me, starts to formulate dreams that are illogical(as dreams are) just as I doze off, but am not yet asleep. I catch myself dreaming and thinking of dreamlike, illogical situations before I am even asleep. This only happens when I am fully relaxed. If I take notice of it, I wake up. It has always been this way, but I never fully noticed until now. Is this normal, to dream before you are asleep? This explains the dreams starting early on Monday night.

Yeah its normal, at least to me :smile: