TBI and Dreaming

hi, I don't really post ever but I have been experiencing an interesting phenomenon and I was wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences. in my life, I have had a lot of trouble with sleep and dreams. the two most significant periods of sleep / dream disruption being the Torture Carnival nightmare period, and the period of time in early high school when I attempted to practice the WILD technique to become adept at lucid dreaming. the Torture Carnival period was around the ages of 3-5 years old, where I would try my best not to sleep at all due to horrific nightmares every time I fell asleep revolving around this carnival I would visit where all the rides were excruciating tortures. a pretty rational reason not to sleep, especially as a little kid, if you ask me. the second period in high school was going fine, actually inducing the best sleep of my life up to that point, even having a few lucid dream experiences! until I hit a brick wall in the WILD training and began having nightmares that I will not share information about due to the nature of their content, which occurred any time I slept on my back. that period of back sleeping induced nightmares lasted until very recently, although it could be mitigated by either taking strong gabaergic sedatives, or simply by sleeping any other way than on my back, both of which ensured no dreams at all. so a few months ago I suffered a traumatic brain injury, a pretty damn bad one, and since then I have had dreams again, in any sleeping position. not just dreams, but good dreams. even if I fall asleep on my back, or roll onto my back in my sleep, the dreams are great! I have even started having dreams with positive sexual content, which I have never had before in my life, even back when I was in puberty. it's so strange to not fear dreams every night, and the shift seems to have come from... getting hit in the head really hard by a rock?? does anyone else have any experience with this kind of thing, a brain injury changing their relationship with dreams and sleep like this, or at all?

>>7270 I had an opposite experience. I was once hit in the head with a baseball bat several years ago and ever since then I have had very eerie, liminal dreams. Sometimes they turn into nightmares, most of the time I'm in some abandoned place and cannot escape no matter what I do. Once in a while I'll have a "normal" dream, but they're always odd in nature and I can barely understand them. Before this injury, I guess I had normal dreams? They typically reflected on my day, were very bright and colorful, expected of just anyone. I also developed insomnia with this injury.

Brain injuries can cause a variety of changes in personality and behavior. There are cases where people began to speak in foreign accents after brain injury. There are cases where people can no longer do simple arithmetic but are otherwise unaffected. It all depends on what part of the brain is destroyed, and how much of it. Maybe OP was lucky and the part of his brain causing the nightmares got destroyed.