I feel like I am living two different lives and it’s miserable.
Hi I’m new to posting on Reddit so apologies in advance I’m not totally sure how this works.
Let’s get into a little back story, I’m 21, female and it’s important to note that I’ve had significant sleep issues for most of my life. When I was 14–16 I wore a CPAP machine due to sleep apnea. It even left a permanent line on my nose, not exactly ideal as a teenager already dealing with life and trying to fit in and going to bed every night feeling like an old man lol
During that time I had multiple sleep studies done. Because of the sleep apnea I experienced severe nightmares, sleep paralysis, and what I know medically aren’t called hallucinations, but that’s what it felt like. I would wake up feeling fully aware. To other people, I was up and moving around. I thought I was seeing my room as it actually was but I was also seeing figures, shapes, objects, creature just really strange dream like things.
That went on for about three years and eventually after the sleep studies it turned out I had breathing issues and anatomical problems with my throat and nose. I had surgery and that mostly resolved the sleep apnea.
Fast forward to now at 21, I still struggle with nightmares but very rarely have sleep paralysis. I dream every single night, multiple dreams per night, and I’d say about 75% of them are bad. I often wake up feeling unrested.
That’s some background for context.
Now getting into the main issue:
I’ve always had recurring dreams. Usually, they’re the same exact sequence every time. For example, since childhood I’ve had a dream where I’m about seven years old at my childhood home. I walk outside and go down a hill near our garage and see my childhood cat with a bright blue collar. I make eye contact with him, and suddenly everything starts spinning. I lose my balance fall and hit the ground and then wake up.
That dream clearly feels like a dream very clearly things are off. I’m a different age, the world spins, and even how the cat moves doesn’t feel real.
But for the last year and a half something very different has been happening.
I’ve been having dreams that continue from night to night and It feels like I’m fully living a second life when I go to sleep.
This happens consistently every night. Not all of my dreams are part of this, but there is one continuous “life” that I return to. When I wake up, I also remember other unrelated dreams, but this one is ongoing.
In this dream life:
I am the same age as I am now and continue to age. When I turned 21 here, I celebrated my 21st birthday there that same night. I have a different job, drive a different car, and live a different life.
In that life I even have a daughter. I went through the full nine months of pregnancy, had her, and have been raising her. She’s now about a year and a month old.
Something that feels important to say is that in my real life, I don’t have a daughter, and I’m not in a relationship. Being a mom is something I think I would want eventually but it feels very far in my future. I have a lot of personal work I’d want to do before being in a relationship or having a child. That’s part of what makes this confusing I wouldn’t expect to be in that stage of life right now. But even with that, I love the daughter I have in this other life very much.
What’s also strange is how normal everything feels. There are no typical “dream” elements. No distortions, no unrealistic physics, nothing that feels off. I’m even fully aware of my actual “real life” when I’m in the dream.
It feels exactly like real life.
Time moves normally. I do completely mundane things:
mowing the grass
budgeting
cutting my nails
getting haircuts
showering
being sick or taking care of my daughter when she’s sick
dealing with my car breaking down
reorganizing a closet
following a weekly cleaning schedule
going to grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants I recognize and prefer
Waiting in lines or sitting in traffic
In this dream world, I’ve dealt with very real-life challenges. I’ve gone through financial struggles, relationship problems, and issues at work with coworkers. It’s not some perfect version of life. There are problems there just like there are here. There are political issues, things happening in the news when I watch TV, and situations that feel very similar to real life just with different people in positions of authority. I’ve even traveled to different places and experienced new things over the course of this year and a half.
It’s like I go to sleep here and wake up there, and when I leave off, I pick right back up the next night.
At first, for the first couple of months, it wasn’t a problem. The only thing I noticed was some confusion mixing up details or having moments of “did this actually happen or did I dream this?”
Around month four, it started to affect me more. I shared it with some friends and family, but the response I got made it feel like it wasn’t a safe space to keep talking about it. Hence why I’m posting this on a throwaway account.
Since then, it’s continued and the impact has gotten worse.
I struggle with keeping track of things like dates appointments, real life, work responsibilities, etc. across both “lives.” One maybe positive thing I’ve also noticed is that I’ve learned things in that world especially since my job there involves interacting with the public much more than my real-life job where it’s more corporate and team focused versus dealing with the public. I’ve genuinely grown in areas like patience and communication, and those things have carried over into my real life.
But the emotional side is where it’s getting really hard.
I’ve grown attached to people in that life.
I miss my daughter when I wake up. I miss friends and coworkers who don’t exist in my real life.
And it’s starting to feel like the lines are blurring.
Honestly, as much as I love certain aspects of that life, I wish it would stop.
It’s affecting my real-life relationships and day-to-day functioning.
What makes it even harder is that it goes both ways. When I’m in that dream life, like I briefly mentioned above I miss this life. I miss my family, my animals, my coworkers people who aren’t in that world.
So it feels like I’m constantly being pulled between two lives, never fully present in either one.
I’m at the point where I feel genuinely miserable. I don’t know why this is happening, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’m posting here to ask:
Has anyone experienced anything like this?
Any thoughts or advice would mean a lot.
I’m planning to post this in a few different threads (dreams, advice, maybe medical) just to see if anyone out there relates or has insight.
If anyone can give me a logical explanation to what’s going on, that would be greatly appreciated. I know our minds can be incredibly powerful so I’m hoping there’s some sort of medical or logical explanation for this!
I’m happy to go into more detail if that’s helpful I didn’t want to overwhelm the already very long post, but I can expand on anything if needed. Both with my dream life, and my “real life”
Thanks in advance.