His and Her Health

Recently, I'm 50, I have been waking up in the midde of the night because of endless dreaming or from fright. I go back to sleep and it happens again and again. My doc gave me Ambien but it seems to made me hallucinate. I can fall asleep ok but a sound one is what I need.<P>Assume it is hormonal in nature. Any ideas of what I can do to stop the dreaming and get into a deeper sleep?

Check into 5-htp. 100 mg before bedtime, but you'll need to get off the ambien first. It's a precurser to seratonin, which helps you sleep faster and deeper. Do a quick search online for more info, esp. on drug interactions (if you're on anti-depressants, sleeping meds, anxiety meds, or certain anti-coagulents you can't take it). It's extremely effective for many people, it's natural, and you can usually get it at your local GNC or other nutrition store. I would recommend really reading the labels for any herb/supplement/etc., since they aren't FDA regulated. <P>Hope this helps.

Some people believe that dreams are your subconscious's attempts to bring information to your conscious mind.<P>So you could try figuring out what your subconscious is trying to tell you & maybe the dreams & fright would subside.<P>A book which can help you do that is "Dream Dictionary" by Tony Crisp. This explains how to interpret dreams and gives a list of what symbols could mean, but it is not one of those books which insists on a narrow interpretation of what each symbol means.<BR>