Vivid Dreams: Why You’re Having Them and How to Stop Them (UK)

What are vivid dreams?

A vivid dream feels unusually real. The colours, sounds and emotions are strong, the story can be detailed or strange, and you often remember it clearly in the morning. Some people find them fun; others wake up tired or unsettled.

Building a steadier evening routine? Our guide to CBD oil for sleep in the UK compares oils, capsules and magnesium by need, with drops per 10mg.

For other options people try, see our guide to the best natural sleep aids UK, with what the evidence says for each.

Sleep talking is another common, usually harmless night-time habit. If it bothers you or a partner, see how to stop sleep talking.

Most dreaming happens in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. REM makes up about a quarter of adult sleep, and each REM period gets longer through the night, from around 10 minutes in the first cycle to up to an hour towards morning. That’s why the longest, most intense dreams tend to come in the early hours.

Whether you remember a dream depends a lot on when you wake. Waking during or just after REM, from an alarm, a partner or a need to pee, means the dream is still fresh. So “more vivid dreams” can partly mean “more waking up in the middle of them”.

What causes vivid dreams?

Why am I suddenly having vivid dreams?

When vivid dreams start out of the blue, the trigger is often something that has squeezed or blocked your REM sleep for a while. When it lifts, REM comes back strongly. Common examples:

• A run of short nights. After a short night, your body makes up for missed REM the next night: you enter it earlier and stay in it longer. This is called REM rebound.
• Cutting back on alcohol. Alcohol delays the first REM period at every dose, and moderate to high doses reduce REM across the night. Many people doing Dry January or Sober October notice unusually vivid dreams in the first week or two. See alcohol and sleep and Dry January.
• Stopping cannabis. Strange dreams are one of the most consistent symptoms of cannabis withdrawal, and they tend to start a little later than the other symptoms. The brain’s cannabinoid receptors return to normal within about 4 weeks of stopping, which fits with how long the dreams usually last.
• Coming off an antidepressant. The NHS lists strange dreams among antidepressant withdrawal symptoms. Never stop an antidepressant suddenly: your doctor can help you reduce it slowly.
• A stressful patch or a loss. Worry, big life changes and grief often show up in dreams.

Medicines and supplements that can cause vivid dreams

Important: if you think a prescribed medicine is causing vivid dreams, keep taking it and talk to your GP or pharmacist. They may be able to change the timing, the dose or the medicine.

• Antidepressants. A systematic review found that SSRIs (such as sertraline, fluoxetine and citalopram) and SNRIs, and even more so stopping them, seem to intensify dreaming, and can sometimes cause nightmares.
• Beta blockers. The NHS lists difficulty sleeping or nightmares as a common side effect of propranolol.
• Varenicline (a stop smoking tablet). Abnormal dreams are listed as very common, meaning they affect more than 1 in 10 people.
• Nicotine patches. Sleep problems, including abnormal dreams, are listed as very common with 24-hour patches. If they bother you, ask your pharmacist or local stop smoking service about other ways to use nicotine replacement.
• Melatonin. The NHS lists strange dreams as a common side effect. Melatonin is prescription-only in the UK: see melatonin in the UK.
• Vitamin B6. In a trial of 100 adults, 240mg of B6 before bed for five nights increased how much of their dreams people remembered, but not how vivid or bizarre they were. That dose is far above the NHS advice to take no more than 10mg a day from supplements. See vitamin B6.
• Magnesium. Some people say magnesium at night gives them vivid dreams. We couldn’t find good research on this either way, so treat it as anecdote. If you notice it, try a lower dose or take it earlier in the evening. See magnesium for sleep.

Some herbal supplements, such as 5-HTP and valerian, also have vivid dreams among their reported side effects. If dreams started when you began something new, that’s the first thing to look at.

Vivid dreams in women: periods, pregnancy and menopause

Pregnancy

Vivid and strange dreams are common in pregnancy, though on their own they aren’t a reliable sign of it. Hormone changes, more night waking and natural worries about the birth all play a part. In one study, women in their third trimester reported more bad dreams and nightmares than women who weren’t pregnant, and more bad dreams went with poorer sleep.

For many women the dreams settle on their own. If they’re frightening you or affecting your sleep, mention it to your midwife or GP. We don’t recommend our products during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

Before your period

In a study of 944 women, those who recalled a dream more often described it as pleasant in the second half of the cycle, after ovulation. Poorer sleep before a period also means more remembered dreams. See insomnia before your period.

Perimenopause and menopause

The NHS lists night sweats and sleep problems among common menopause symptoms. A sweat that wakes you in the early hours often lands in the middle of a long REM dream, so dreams feel more vivid. See night sweats and perimenopause symptoms.

Can vivid dreams be a sign of illness?

Usually not. But they can go with some conditions, so it helps to know which other signs matter:

• Sleep disorders. The NHS lists intense, real-seeming dreams as a symptom of narcolepsy, alongside severe daytime sleepiness. Sleep apnoea breaks up sleep, and in studies nightmares improved with CPAP treatment.
• Mental health. Depression, anxiety and PTSD can all change dreaming.
• Dementia and Parkinson’s. Vivid dreams alone aren’t an early sign of dementia. The sign that matters is acting out dreams, which the NHS lists, with talking in sleep, among the sleep changes in dementia with Lewy bodies. See sleep and dementia.
• Cancer. Not a recognised sign, though treatment and the stress around it can bring vivid dreams on.

In a sleep-lab study of 505 US veterans, those who spent more than 25% of the night in REM were over twice as likely to report a vivid dream.

Why do I wake up tired after vivid dreams?

Feeling tired after vivid dreams usually means your sleep was broken: you remember a dream when you wake during or just after it, so many remembered dreams often means many brief wakings. Stress, alcohol, a full bladder, night sweats and sleep apnoea are common reasons. If you wake unrefreshed most mornings or snore loudly, see a GP. Our guides to waking up tired and waking at 3am cover the other common causes.

Vivid dreams vs nightmares vs night terrors

A vivid dream also isn’t the same as a lucid dream. In a lucid dream you know you’re dreaming; in a vivid dream it just feels real. If you wake and can’t move for a few seconds, that’s sleep paralysis. A loud bang or flash as you drift off is exploding head syndrome, not a dream.

How to stop vivid dreams

You can’t switch dreaming off, and you wouldn’t want to: REM sleep matters for memory and mood. But you can make dreams calmer and wake up in them less often.

1. Keep regular sleep and wake times, even at weekends. This stops the short-night, rebound-night cycle.
2. Stop alcohol a few hours before bed, and expect a week or two of livelier dreams if you cut it out completely.
3. Wind down for an hour with dim lights and something calm. See our bedtime routine for adults.
4. Write down what’s on your mind before bed so it’s on paper, not on loop. See journal prompts for anxiety.
5. Avoid frightening or stressful content late at night: horror films, the news, work emails.
6. Eat earlier. Research on food and dreams is thin: in one survey, 17.8% of students thought certain foods affected their dreams, most often dairy. A lighter, earlier meal is still kinder to sleep. See eating before bed.
7. Keep the bedroom cool, dark and quiet so you wake less in the second half of the night.
8. For recurring bad dreams, try imagery rehearsal. Write the dream down, change the story to something less upsetting, and rehearse the new version for a few minutes each day. It’s the approach the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for nightmare disorder.

Some people like a warm, alcohol-free drink as part of their wind-down. Our Magnesium Glycinate Sleep Complex is a berry-flavoured powder with magnesium bisglycinate and citrate, L-theanine, chamomile, passionflower and hops. Magnesium contributes to normal psychological function and to the normal functioning of the nervous system. It isn’t a treatment for vivid dreams.

Others add a few drops of our Sleep CBD Oil, a broad spectrum oil with passion flower and a terpene blend, to their evening routine. CBD isn’t a treatment for sleep problems or nightmares. The FSA’s 10mg a day figure is precautionary advice rather than a legal limit, set while longer-term safety research continues. At Evopure we think it is a very cautious figure, and many adults use more. If you go above it, increase slowly, and check with your GP or pharmacist first if you take any medication.

When to see a GP

iSee a GP if:

• vivid dreams or nightmares are regular and distressing, or leave you scared to go to sleep
• they’re affecting your mood, energy or work
• they started after a new medicine (keep taking it until you’ve spoken to your GP or pharmacist)
• you have recurring dreams about a traumatic event, which can be a sign of PTSD
• you shout, punch or kick in your sleep, acting out your dreams. This can be REM sleep behaviour disorder, where the muscles don’t relax as they normally do in REM. It can be linked to some antidepressants and to conditions that affect the brain, such as Parkinson’s disease, so it’s worth getting checked, even if it seems minor.

Adults in England can refer themselves to NHS Talking Therapies for help with anxiety, depression or trauma. If you feel unable to cope or have thoughts of harming yourself, call 999, NHS 111 or Samaritans on 116 123.

People on GLP-1 medicines often ask about this: see Mounjaro vivid dreams and broken sleep.

Some people link strange dreams to the moon; here’s what the research says about full moon sleep.

See also do beta blockers make you tired?