One day last October, I was walking back to my dorm from a class. While I’d usually take the time to admire the changing leaves and the wind that funneled through the strip of road I took, this time, I was deep in thought.
I’d recently begun having weird dreams. These dreams were not like any I’d ever had before—they were hyper-realistic, incredibly apropos to recent events in my life and nearly lucid. During my walk, I took stock of all the changes that could have been inducing the dreams. Eventually, I had a realization: what if it was because of the medication?
I began taking a low dosage of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) Sertraline in September of 2021 to help regulate symptoms of anxiety and depression. Along with making some other changes in my daily life and working through some of my worries in counseling, the medication helped me feel more stable and calm throughout the day. When the dreams started, I was so new to the medication that I didn’t initially think there was a correlation. When I got home that day in October, I went online to see if anyone else had experienced this side effect.
I was not alone. My first internet stop was the r/Anxiety Subreddit, where I read about people who had also experienced strange dreams. I learned they were a fairly common side effect of SSRIs. In addition to the dreams being strange, I was usually able to remember them with ease when I woke up. I also had many dreams that felt like playing a video game and completing quests. According to the Subreddit, this was all pretty normal.
Although amateur scientists on Reddit can help quell fears about being alone in an experience, a few true scientific studies and qualified professionals have also broken down what’s happening with these dreams. A study published in Sleep Medicine Reviews in 2013 reported that SSRIs and related antidepressants can shorten REM sleep cycles. A proposed explanation for the intensity of SSRI dreams is that less REM sleep causes people to experience more dreams. This means a person who regularly takes an SSRI is more likely to have vivid, lengthy dreams due to the activity of their brain during deep sleep.
The research on this topic is, unfortunately, fairly sparse. Once I understood the basics of what was happening in my brain, however, it was interesting to observe the effects these dreams had on my life. I started allowing myself more time to wake up in the morning because I usually woke feeling disoriented and shaken up by an intense dream. Sometimes, I would feel tired from all the dream activity, like I hadn’t slept much at all. I even kept track of the dreams on a dream journal app (although that only lasted for a week). Perhaps the most concerning effect I experienced was the occasional inability to remember if something had happened in reality or a dream. While this may sound ridiculous, it is a testament to how realistic my dreams were. It can be disorienting and confusing, but this side effect is interesting and can provoke some beneficial introspection.
The most important thing to remember if you’re someone who is experiencing this side effect of an SSRI medication is that it is normal and you are not alone in your experiences.