Depression Affecting Dreams?

[workingatperfect]

Not so much about how it affects my dreams, but it seems to be affecting my reaction to them?

For the last year or so I've mostly been having very mundane dreams. Stuff about being in class, or going for a walk. Boring shit like that. And I would just wake up and be like, ...ok... whatever. But when I did have the occasional nightmare, I had to typical reaction. Wake up with my heart racing, still a little frightened, etc.

However, for the past couple months I've been really depressed and I've been having "nightmares" every night. 2 in particular are every single night. In one of them I'm in a mall with a friend and we're running from someone who is trying to rape one of us. Sometimes its me, sometimes it's the friend. This one is pretty vivid and feels pretty real. The other one though feels 100% real, even 10 minute to an hour after I'm awake. In that one, I'm in my room which is just as it was when I went to sleep, and there's some sort of evil.. presence in my bed and he tortures me in some way. One time he grabbed my shoulder and my blood went ice cold and I could feel it going through my veins.. Another time he took his nails and slit my chest down to my stomach.. it changes every night.

Anyway, the point is... I don't react to these like I would have reacted 3 or 4 months ago before my depression got bad. I might have a little bit of discomfort and there's definitely pain, but for the most part it doesn't affect me. In the dream, I'm pretty calm. And when I wake up from the torture one, I still feel everything that this demon thing did to me and at first I don't even realize that it was a dream.

Normally, I wouldn't think twice about this, but, here's the weird thing. I've been having normal dreams too. The other day I had a dream I was out with friends, just walking around having a nice time, and for some reason I woke up shaking and could barely breath.
EDIT: Forgot to mention this somehow, but the shaking and inability to breath turns into a panic attack about half the time.

So... is this a normal thing?

tl;dr: Nightmares don't scare me anymore, but I seem to react to boring, normal dreams as one would normal react to a nightmare. It's been like this since my depression got worse. Thoughts?

[Fiction]

Well depression changes your reaction to everything, especially when it's been there a while. That's one thing i've noticed since i've got better from mine. I can now get extremely paranoid and worried over the thought of death, whereas while I was depressed it didn't bother me. This could be sort of similar to you? You're not panicking about death as much because your depression is numbing you? As for the panicking about the normal everyday situations perhaps that's because it's the type of thing you can no longer enjoy as much as you once did, and that scares you?

As for having the nightmares, when I was particularly depressed I wasn't sleeping enough to dream, but when I did have dreams it was usually, like yours, about being raped. Now i'm sleeping more i've continued to have the nightmares and I do continue to have them everynight (although no reperated dreams nowadays). I don't really get why, or what it is, but you're not the only one that it happens too.

[workingatperfect]

Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense, Thanks (:
But even before the depression got worse, I was never really afraid of death (unless it was someone else dying)

And another thing I found strange was that in the last month or so they've gotten so much realer. Normally my dreams have that kinda hazy feeling and things don't quite make sense, but lately everything is crystal clear and seems to make sense (apart from a demon occupying my bed). And it's gotten harder to separate my dreams from reality. Instead of waking up and thinking "Well that was a fucked up dream" I wake up and can feel hands on me, or blood dripping down my neck and I'm thinking "Is he still here? What just happened? Am I imagining this?"

[Fiction]

Similar has happened to me. The last few months i've woken up crying and panicking, which before then I had only done once when I was very little. Feeling physical pain in my dreams is also something that has never happened before the last few months too, but i've had dreams of bleeding to death and of drowning that have felt way too real, so that's happened to me too, I guess it must be a pretty normal thing in these circumstances.

[Extreme586]

It almost sounds like your reacting to the loss of these friends or maybe something that happened between you? Maybe this is the root of the problem and the reason you are reacting this way. Maybe the lack of what used to be is really upsetting you and you need to come to some kind of closure with it? Just theories and I pray that you will start to feel better!

[workingatperfect]

It almost sounds like your reacting to the loss of these friends or maybe something that happened between you? Maybe this is the root of the problem and the reason you are reacting this way. Maybe the lack of what used to be is really upsetting you and you need to come to some kind of closure with it? Just theories and I pray that you will start to feel better!

Yeah, I considered that, but that's just one example, and they were actually friends I'm still close with. But there's other things, like going grocery shopping with my mom. Or, like last night, I had a dream I was shopping at Hot Topic and I was happy in the dream, but I woke up much more stressed than seems normal.

And thank you :)