Hyperactive Dreaming: High Sensory Content

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I guess I should start by pointing out my dreams aren't so much terrifying, exhilarating, anxiety-driven or similar that likens it to nightmares or bottled anxieties. It's just that they're so elaborate and sensorily vivid (not in the sense that they're too fantastic but too real and filled with sensory activity I would expect when I would be awake).

Sights, scents, smells, tastes and sensations of touch. They're all there in my dreams. Just yesterday I had a dream about tasting several kinds of foods- including a raspberry vanilla cake and cheese bread (which is the most distressing part because I react badly to gluten) and it left me with feelings of stomach upset during the dream as well when I was awake. The most uncomfortable thing is not being able to sort out real world memories from the dream ones left (which are all pasted on my internal hard drive with painstaking detail). There's also the distinct feeling of searching through my memory (I call it my own personal indexing process when I have to scrummage my brain to round up some important detail that's cluttered with all the other files that are dumped into the queue). That sensation comes up a lot when I dream and to me it feels like there's some high activity mental compartmentalization going on that's infringing on my sleep time.

I had trouble sleeping because of this for a long time and I was wondering if others experienced something similar, how they're dealing/struggling/overcoming it etc. and what could be the triggers behind it. I've come to dislike the idea of sleeping because of it as it all too much feels like I'm going towards a stage of more mental exertion rather than less.

That's a new one on me. If you are wanting to avoid sleep because of these intense dreams, maybe you should see a sleep clinic.

I know that intensity of dreams can vary, because I had very vivid dreams when I was pregnant, much more than other times in my life. Maybe there's a med that can make your sleep time more peaceful.

Good luck, and please come back for replies.

I tried going the medication way, but honestly it feels like I become resistant to them far too quickly than is expected. I have no attachments to them and if I didn't remind myself daily to take them- I'm pretty sure I would just forget about them. Recently I went on a small dose of Clonopezam and it does offer some relief though it's effects are somewhat paradoxical compared to what's listed. I feel a bit more active after a couple of hours after taking the dose which I'm sure is not right considering I'm taking it for sleep and it's meant to be an anti-anxiety/sleep med.

I considering going to a sleep clinic for a polysomnograph but I put it off for the time being.

Honestly, even though I feel like I'm taking the computation analogy too far, it feels as if my sleep is tampered because my mental file system is all over the place- so to speak. It feels like that the limiter switch which tells your brain to rest after it had too much to process for the day is sort of nonfunctional. I feel like I'm taking in way too much input all the time, especially when I'm outside or when I'm studying.

And really my definition of what it means to dream vividly seems sort of skewed compared to what other people talk about when they say they had vivid dreams. The things about remembering conversations, textures, colours and expressions to me seems like a completely normal thing as far as I can remember. I could recollect conversations, images, pages of books, facial expressions and even give dialogues to people I've met with their own speech pattern (as if their vocal inflections were memorised by me). At times, it almost feels as I'm consciously making decisions in my dreams and analysing details in the dreamworld (such as a note on the refrigerator, a chipped door handle, another person's tantrums) and deducing ways how to deal with them.

One motif which is fairly common is a sensation of loss of control and fuzziness or balance loss as if my body's somehow very faintly in sync with my mind.
I've come to the conclusion based on past experience that less sleep somehow makes me feel better throughout the day as in that even if 6 hours of sleep doesn't feel quite restful- 8 hours just makes me weary.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here.

Is it possible that you sleep walk, and raid the fridge in your sleep?

Folks who go on severe diets sometimes do that (walk in their sleep and raid the fridge with out waking up). And that you remember the vivid taste of that food because you really were eating it in your sleep? In fact it would make sense that you might seek out food in your sleep that you're trying to avoid when you're awake.

Ive only had one "taste" dream that was memorable. I dreamt that was eating a steak dinner endlessly. When I awoke I realized that I hadnt flossed, or brushed before going to bed and still had residue of the beef stew on my teeth from the night before (thus explaining why my mind generated a dream about eating beef).

I think that's definitely impossible for me considering I live in a dorm and my refrigerator is generally empty if not inactive. Plus the various sensory features of food in my dreams (semblances of texture, sweetness, saltiness, etc.) aren't much the focal part of the dream as much as just part of the flow of sensory information that makes the dream vivid. Although, I do notice that when I eat something that is on the higher end of gastrointestinal mayhem (gluten for one which causes me to have a headache, brain fog and bloat within minutes of consumption- I'm sure it hasn't reached the intestinal tract in such a short time period.), the dreams rev up to such an active state that I'm lucid in them- actively conscious that I'm dreaming and even trying to consciously change the dreamscape and exit the dream (only to lay in my bed- somewhat awake- paralysed with the ceiling in my sight).

I'm pretty sure I don't sleepwalk (mainly because of the ceiling montages and the bouts of sleep paralysis) though I do sometimes turn in my sleep. I think that that the sensory content in my dreams might be due to a poor memory management system (I tend to remember things in vivid photorealistic detail) but I have no voluntary control over it because I don't remember focussing on them- hence I don't know what to remember- but yet they crop up often when I'm inactive or resting during the day and in dreams. I have a feeling that my convoluted dreams are a just my brain's way of indexing all the files that got dumped in heaps during the day. Honestly, it feels as if there's a profound disconnect between my mind and my brain and most of my struggles have to do with keeping up synchronisation.