I read when I first went on Prozac a few months back that one of it’s side effects could be nightmares. So I got into “hope for the best, expect the worst” mode and low and behold, the worst is starting. Well, not really I know things could be much worse, but I have been having quite a few nightmares lately and last night I had a full anxiety filled night. Last night’s wasn’t even actually a nightmare but I was in a social situation where I was having panic attack after panic attack. And after a night of that much anxiety and panic, I was really thrown off for whole day today. The full on nightmares I’ve had lately weren’t as bad as this was.

So today I was thinking about the fact that a side effect of Prozac is nightmares and I started to wonder why. I’m usually a very research oriented person, and I’m sure I’ll look into the actually scientific causes soon. But I developed my own -has no background in science at all- hypothesis. Maybe the drug can control the anxiety and panic in your conscious mind by controlling certain chemicals, etc, but the anxiety/depression still manifests itself in our subconscious. All of that panic and anxiety that is suppressed down all day finally has an outlet that it can get through at night, via our dreams.

And one of the real life nightmares that I’ve started experiencing (one that I didn’t even know was a side effect until it actually happened and I looked it up) is the inability to reach orgasm. I knew that it could suppress your sex drive but I hadn’t read anything before about it actually stopping the female orgasm all together. Luckily I haven’t experienced the lack of sex drive, it’s still the same and I still enjoy sex as much as before, I just can’t come. This little side effect (which I have to wonder why it only effects women) is actually making me think about cutting back on my dosage to see if I can still stay balanced while cutting back on the negative side effects some.

If anyone else has any experiences you’d like to share with this (or any other anti-depressant), feel free to do so. Also feel free to correct my faux hypothesis if you know the scientific reason for the nightmares.