Nightmarish Deja-Vu and anxiety attacks. What's going on?

I notice I get these "episodes" more frequently when under a lot of stress and lack of sleep. If I don't sleep well the night before, it seems like I didn't get my "REM" cycle and through out the next day I have these weird "flashback" moments of dreams Or something. And I have had déjà vu episodes since my early teens, they always seem to intensify when I'm worried or agitated or if I'm not taking my meds regularly

What I m wanting to know is if anyone else has experienced flashbacks during the day. I still get these, but only rarely. I had one this morning after being up for about 10 minutes, but I ve also had them in the middle of the day.For no reason for just 2-3 seconds I will start to recall some element of what I am sure I can only have dreamed or hallucinated. I am awake and aware of what is happening, but the vague familiar  images in my mind (which I can never remember afterwards) are accompanied by dizziness, nausea and FEAR.Experience is mostly confusing and disturbing..Also I suffered from anxiety, panic attacs and sleep paralyses for years...Sometimes i wake up with fear after 45 minutes of sleep, but with  no memory of bad drem/terros... These flashbacks happening only when I awake in interactions whit s some elements during daytime. Are these brief "Dream flashbacks" from hypnagogic hallutinations or maybe from night terrors or Migraine aura??? This is very disturbing... Should I be worried??? This happening for 5 years on and off...

I was in 2 neurologist. Ct, Eeg...all clear and fine.

sorry for my bad English :-D

Thank you and have a nice day :-)

I've had these panic attacks deja vu things all my life but for the last 2 weeks they have been coming several times a day I'm exhausted.I finally picked up the nerve and went to see my doctor .he's prescribed me some beta blockers I haven't had one yet so fingers crossed they are ruining my life xx

I had a very similar experience to these yesterday.

 

I tie it back to a Salvia trip months back. I have done Salvia 2 times in my life and had very similar experiences. I would summarize my Salvia trip as "waking up" and seeing life and existence for what it truly is. I would summarize the experience as an eternal hell (not in a biblical sense). The trip which lasted a couple of minutes in our time gave me a taste of what a hopeless, depressing, eternity tastes like. 

 

Now the strange part. For the last week I have felt very off because I had a friend/neighbor pass away suddenly at a young age. I've been in a place of questioning the purpose of life & noticing my brain rejecting the concept of death, gone, and forever. I noticed how my various feeling regarding the loss of my friend tied me back somehow to the Salvia trips that I experienced. I was sharing these details with a friend yesterday when I felt a "glitch" in reality. Once I noticed the glitch I began experiencing my Salvia trip while talking with my friend on the couch without having smoked it for months. I froze in mid sentence and was suddenly transported to another world which I "remembered" I had wanted to forget. (deja vu feel but much more) I was suddenly aware that "my life" was just a dream that I am experiencing because my true existence was too painful to be present to. 

For a minute or two in "regular time" I left this world again to what felt like an eternity of suffering. At this point I remember understanding that there is no such thing as death and that everything is a constant loop of consciousness for eternity. I felt terrified and depressed and was wondering how I could ever accept what is truth as much as I hated it. I knew that I had re-opened Pandora's box and that I might never get back to my "happy world" that I was sleeping in. It was very clear that I knew what reality is and that I have purposely tricked myself into "sleeping" so that I didn't have to experience the horrible pain of witnessing a purposeless life that I have no control over.

I finally began to come back to "everyday life" and I saw my friend's face concerned and asking me if I am okay. My brain began questioning what is real and analyzing a few different scenarios. The first one was that my experience of "reality" was true and that I was somehow popping back and forth between reality and my life/dream world. I felt TERRIFIED to go back but I was struggling to judge if it was real or not. Even a day later I notice myself questioning if this could be my true existence.

The 2nd possibility was that I was still sitting on my front porch 3-4 months ago and that I was still high. The 3-4 months of what I thought was "my life" was actually just a loop inside the experience of smoking salvia and that it would be repeated over and over until I came out of my high. The glitch was me forgetting that I was high and getting lost in a hallucination. 

The 3rd possibility was what I'm hoping reality is in that everything here is "real" and that I somehow tapped a part of my brain that was tapped while I smoked Salvia. I'm hoping that the brain is very busy and constantly creating things that are not real and it is a matter of my training my brain to not dream things up. 

The trip into the terrifying experience is difficult to put words to but I'll try. My "reality" that I woke up within is that there is no end to anything. Everything reaches a point and then starts over. The "me" in my experienced world is nothing more than consciousness that exists within an inanimate object of a much larger world. I awoke to see that I am simply a cog in the machine or a lego that snaps into place to form a pointless object. I woke up to watch the making of an object that I am a part of and then the destruction of it. I then forgot that I was an object and would "re-awaken" to remember that I was aware of this process at a previous time. I had a pre-determined future which I had no control over and I would continue to forget and re-remember to watch what a meaningless part my process in existence is. I had no control over anything and was struggling to accept my depressing existence without purpose.

Last night and today, despite the horrifying experience that I re-discovered, I found my brain wandering toward the "door" that goes to that world. I know the path back through my brain to that experience and I notice that my brain desires to take another peek although my body still trembles with fear of the thought. I find my mind questioning why it was so terrifying. I think part of it was that I was the only one that was awake (loneliness), my judgement that I need to have control, my judgement that I want a "purposeful" existence. I find myself very curious to see if I can make peace with this alternate reality, see it for whatever truth it is, and accept that it is out of my control. It still scares me that my experience could be the truth but I also think that it is at least an important lesson about accepting what is not in my control. 

The few times I've drifted toward this "door" I can feel another experience creeping in, pushing the edge of a "glitch" and I begin to panic fearing that I will not be able to come back. I imagine that this feeling is on the edge of what "crazy" is. I could exist in a completely different world and lose sight of what I thought real life is (aka getting locked up in a crazy bin). It also feels very apparent during this time that nothing in "normal" life matters. I feel like it owning a house, car, money, having a job... none of it matters. I have a strong desire as I get closer to this point to reject everything about this life.

I have been pulling back at this door and not fully entering into the world because of fear of "losing it" when I have responsibilities that I need to fulfill here. Very curious to explore still. 

The mind is freakin' crazy!!!

 

I have experienced this too! I have suffered anxiety my whole life and in high school I begain experiencing these short burts of dream-like episodes. My heart races and a very negative feeling comes over me. I feel incredibly uncomfortable and a little scared. flashes of what-feel-like memories come over me as if I'm remembering a dream - but right after the attack is gone I can't remember any of the things I just "remembered". I wish I could be in an MRI machine during an episode but they come on so randomly it would be impossible to plan! It's nice to be able to share this with people who might actually know what I'm talking about! The sensation is so dificult to explain to people.

:O Oh thank goodness I am not the only one... I'm only 15 but these deja vu attacks have been happening so often it's been making me feel nauseous and weak... And they hit me hard and out of no where!! Like, I have to stop what I'm doing and calm down... I do have really bad anxiety though, so that may have something to do with it... I'm just glad I'm not the only one... I'm so relieved :-D

Be strong, you are not going mad... :-)

Hi I get these too, they are really scary, first one i had I thought I was dying. But I think they get less problematic as they go on, and I can now almost stop them from happening - if you get a flash that it is about to start, immediately try to do something to take your mind off it - leave the room, or start talking to someone, or make your mind go elsewhere. 

Hi, I have the same thing going on and wanted to ask... For those who found out it was seizures, what did your eeg look like? My neurologist thinks it maaayyy be seizures be is not sure. One came back with very slow waves, and the other came back "weird" in his terms. Which was a 48 hour eeg. I just dont know what to think about all this. Im scared to go anywhere and it feels like I am dreaming. I was put on tegretol an anti seizure med. But so far it has made me very high so I feel it is masking my symptoms. Ughh. any input about peoples experiences is appreciated because this is very new to me and scareing me. Like ppl said up top.. I feel like im dyeing every time it happens. Thank you guys! Please take care

I posted right above and I went back to the neurologist and he showed my my eeg. He thinks that they are petit mal or complex partial seizures. Im being put on zarontin to see if it helps. My test showed that several times during 24 hours my brain would wig out for seconds. And symptoms of petit mal or complex partial can give you deja vu or jaim na vu. So hopefully it will help. I really like knowing that im not the only one who experiences these. They are so scary.

I get them too. Sometimes certain smells trigger them, sometimes it's things that I see. I get reminded of recent dream and all of a sudden I break out in sweats and start shaking and Become very frightened. It's definitely not a pleasant experience to say the least. I'm a 24-year-old male who was diagnosed with ADHD As a young child

This just happened to me on Friday. I was replying to an Email and I got a sudden flushed feeling and was convinced that the email was part of a dream I had had the night before but I felt panicked that I couldn't recall the dream. A less intense version where I felt I was recalling dreams happened a few hours later, leaving me feeling anxious and fuzzy.

I'm 49 and I have had panic attacks before and also migraines---I get the zig zag visual aura and sometimes see mosaic patterns. My Googling suggests that deja vu can be a precursor to a migraine which makes sense to me considering my history.......Oliver Sacks writes about migraines like this too.

Tony, I am a 23 yr ild female and was diagnosed with the same.thing and haveing these everyday. Have they ever told you that they were seizures? Ive gone to several neurologist and heard different things from them. Going to try seizure meds to see if they help. Will post with any updates

I have been having this same exact thing happening to me for the past several months and its driving me crazy. Like you, when it happens i feel sure that it is intense deja vu from a recent dream, but cant really recall the dream. It is literally one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced in my life, and it continues to happen more and more often. Its comforting to know im not the only one that feels this, but i wish the answer to it all was more clear...

Was wondering if anyone has had any weird side effects after one of these spells? I feel drowsy and out of it the rest of the day. Would like to compare