Are vivid or strange dreams a side effect of Strattera?

Answer 1

i took it for one day and already had 2 strange dreams. the first was something about bill from King of the Hill, which is weird cuz usually i am myself in my dreams. In the second i was standing up from my bed (i thought i was awake, but i was unable to open my right eye. meanwhile my left eye kept blinking on and off.

I started Strattera last August, as i went into my sophomore year in college. It was an amazing drug for me. Although it gave no kick or intensity, it subtly made me calmer, happier, more attentive, and helped me wake up in the morning. Although, after a few months i started getting really intense nightmares, i would wake up and not know what was real and what wasn't. It progressively got worse to the point that i would wake up screaming, covered in sweat, and be so confused as to what was real. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what time of day to take the strattera to avoid night frights?

I started taking Strattera about a week ago and noticed the strange and remarkably vivid dreams right away. Normally I do not remember my dreams, but since taking Strattera I have been waking up with fairly vivid memories of parts of what I dreamed. Also, my dreams seem to be somehow different than usual...sometimes it seems like I'm just reenacting memories of what happened earlier in the day.

I've heard from others who have experienced this same effect from Strattera -- so I think it's safe to say that it's nothing to be concerned about. :)

I have taken ADHD medications for a number of years now (I'm 20) and I've always found that dreams are more vivid, even lucid, when under the influence of ADHD meds. Not as much with Strattera, but if I happen to fall back asleep after taking dexadrine (current med) I experience very vivd, detailed dreams that I can remember really well.

I think it has something to do with the natural process of dreaming. Perhaps a normally inactive portion of the brain that is responsible for consciousness and awareness is artificially stimulated by the drugs. I think this allows it to register the goings-on of the rest of the brain which is always firing away as we sleep (to reenforce memories, and whatever else it does.) When we wake up, we've been paying more attention to the internal stuff and we experience richer dreams as a result. They may not make much sense because it's like a raw feed that hasn't been formatted.

eh, just a theory, but I usually enjoy the effect

I just started taking Straterra a couple days ago and have experienced the same effect. Very vivid, very disturbing dreams.

My Son is 8 years old and has been taking Straterra for about 6 months. Last month he had too terrible dreams in the same week and woke up while My husband & I were still awake and came out to us shaking and his little heart pounding like he had been running and telling us that he had the worst dream of hislife and that he loved us with all his heart.....then a second later he would say get away.......get away......then hold his fist together and look so scared. It scares me and my Husband so badly. He did this again tonight which is now the tird time in a month. We are making an appt. with his Dr. and I am insisting on a CT scan just to make sure that something else isin't wrong........It really scares me and I HATE givng him anything......Especially new meds that they don't know what the long term effect will be.

My 5 yr old daughter started Straterra last week. She became scared to sleep in her own bed so now she sleeps with me. The bad thing is she has these dreams all night long and I know I'm not getting any sleep and I question how restful her sleep could possibly be with these dreams. She's always crying about someone she knows as if those people are hurt or something. Last night she was asleep and I was in bed reading. She would start talking in her sleep and sometimes she would get upset. She would open her eyes while still talking in her sleep. Eventually her eyes would meet mine and it was like she started to wake up (perhaps I didn't fit in with the dream?) and then she would say "nevermind" and then roll over and go back to sleep. This just seems really strange to me.

I am 23 years old and I have been taking stimulant medication to treat my ADHD for six years following my diagnosis. Three weeks ago I started taking Strattera. Since beginning the medication I have experienced vivid, lucid, and often disturbing dreams every night. They sometimes become so real that I will wake up and be unable to distinguish between my dream and reality This is disturbing, however it is not disturbing enough for me to stop taking the medication. I have been able to get out of bed without hitting the snooze button 7 times; my apartment is more neat than ever; and I have been able to focus at work and actively participate in conversations.

I started Strattera about 4 months ago, within the last month I have started to remember my dreams. Sometimes I can remember "all" the dreams I had the night before. The interesting thing is that I can remember them for hours, sometimes all day if I focus on them after waking and attempt to 'think them through'. I haven't had any scary dreams (violence) but I must admit remembering my dreams is kind of cool after waking up and having no clue what I dreamt (sp?) for so many years. The dreams are always vivid, lucid and I often want to go back to bed to continue them. Good luck & best of health to all.

Very vivid dreams since taking Straterra. Strange this didn't happen when I took it a year ago. Kind of freaking me out that these dreams are so real and sometimes I feel relieved upon waking. Wife likes me on the Strattera moreso than Adderall - more calm and more "yourself" she says.

I definitely noticed a difference, I've been on it for 1 1/2 yrs and the dreams are so real! real wierd, too. Disturbing more often than not.

I have been taking stattera for about 7 weeks now. Doctor told me I could take the 40mg 2x a day. She suggested starting out 1x a day for a couple weeks and move to 2x if I wanted. The strongest side effect I have had by far are scarey, very vivid and often reoccuring dreams. It's as if I'm awake when I have these dreams because I seem very aware of my surroundings and am aware that I am dreaming. These dreams only occur when I take strattera 2x a day.

i am not on strattera I'm on adderall, but I've been remembering my dreams like woah. i have never been one to remember my dreams at all but recently they've jsut been really weird. not like CRAZY but just kinda weird. the strangest part about it is that i seem to remember every little detail. colors, sizes, locations... etc. i could tell you the furniture arrangement of a room i was in in my dream. it's really bizarre. I've been on it for about 4 months now and the dreams started like 2 months ago. I've been searching desperately trying to find out if adderall causes vivid dreams and this thread is the closest thing to an answer I've found all night.

I was on Ritalin SR for the past 8 years or so, but found that the effectiveness was diminishing. My doctor suggested trying Strattera, and I've been on it for about a week. I too have noticed strange dreams involving violence, which are totally out of the norm for me. In fact it's the only reason I am out researching the drugs. On Ritalin, I never noticed any side effects other than hunger-suppression. On Strattera this is the only side effect I've noticed so far. I am being eased on to it right now though, so I hope the effects don't get worse. Thus far, I have had dreams every night that are either weird or involve me being violent. I have never been a violent person by any stretch of the imagination, so these dreams are a little disturbing. I haven't noticed any carryover in to waking hours, but if I do I will probably tell my doctor that I'm not prepared to continue with the drug. At any rate, I thought I would add my story here, because this is the only side effect of the drug I've experienced and I think it must be an effect of the drug since I have never experienced anything like this before.

Wow, glad I'm not the only one. Vivid? Try downright lucid! I hadn't remembered a dream in almost 10 years. I started this stuff and it's like taking a weird vacation every night, with plenty of memories when I wake. So far, only one nightmare.

However, the sexual side effects are a total downer. I NEVER in my life thought I could become a person uninterested in sex, but on this stuff the whole process seems completely uninteresting to me. Before, I was the type to have sex daily even after masturbating a few times.

Some say this side effect wears off after you've been on it a while. I hope so.

I am also not on Strattera but Adderall. I have only been on Adderall for about two weeks now and these side effects only really occur when I take a larger dose. In addition to vivid dreams I find myself daydream about old memories. Often times these are horrible memories of me doing something stupid that got me into a great deal trouble or just overall bad memories of something gone wrong. They can be pretty disturbing because of how clear they are. They aren't really just thoughts about the memory, it's almost as if I was reliving the memory with all the feelings associated with it. They seem to come up when I am really concentrating on working on something like an assignment for class. I don't understand why the memories come up at all because the assignment would be completely unrelated.

last night was the first time took strattera and earlier in the day i had watched the movie "Insidious" i woke up at 4 A.M and sat and stared into 1 corner of my room thinking the demon from that movie was standing there staring back at me saying "there is nothing you can do"...but in my head at the same time i felt like i was in a movie and was talking to the director who was me and the rest of the actors were close friends and me. i normally sleep through the night and never wake up i will see if anything like this happens again.

Answer 2

My son, age seven, began having nightmares shortly after starting Strattera. The nightmares continued every night until we switched him to Adderall. He has not had one nightmare in the three months on the new medication. The negative side effects were very bad for my son on Strattera.

Another answer!

I am 21 and had nighmares, HORRIBLE nightmares, on Straterra, I didn't have a good nights rest nearly the whole time while on Strattera, I know this is nasty but I also had diareeha all the time while on this medicine. My doctor told me that if I had any bad side effects, just stop taking the medication since he had started me on a low dose. So I did and I can sleep without waking up remembering horrible things from my dreams and the upset stomach is no longer upset!