Hypoglycemia and Dreams
Have you ever had hypoglycemia and a crazy dream to go along with it? 
Please leave your personal story in the comments below!
A few years ago I woke after having a fast food restaurant dream. It all started at the Wendy’s drive-thru with my friend Michelle. We both ordered giant burgers, super sized fries and frosties. After we snarfled everything down we drove across the street to Burger King and reordered something similar to our previous indulgences.
After all of that food consumed, I woke up wondering what the deal was with my dream. I quickly realized I felt low and I was, 55 to be exact. Funny thing is, we are both vegetarians and never eat at fast food restaurants! My brain was focused on getting some source of large carbs obviously…
What makes us dream when we are low? Is it our brain cells deprived of the usual sugar bath that they should be soaking in? Hypoglycemia and dreams- I’m sure there is a connection.
According to LankaNewspapers:
“Low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, is another cause of vivid dreams. When the brain senses that glucose levels are low, it will do strange things to get stored glucose into the blood stream. One way it does so is through adrenaline spurts. If your vivid dreams are accompanied by a feeling of being wired (if, like me, you find yourself doing ninja kicks around your bedroom at those pesky alien invaders), it likely stems from a blood sugar issue. I solved my problem by adding more protein to my diet, especially before going to sleep. It keeps my glucose levels regulated throughout the night and I sleep much more peacefully.”
Please share your thoughts on hypoglycemia and dreams by posting a comment below!
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I am 29years old and have had diabetes since 8 months old . The dreams that I would get while having hypos at night were lets just say pretty unpleasant . They would seem to go on forever and only 3 separate dreams would come every time for my entire juvenile life. Each one would only last a short time and then repeat itself and continue until someone would wake me with a glucagon needle . First dream was me walking on a tightrope in endless black space and then fall off and keep falling in blackness untill I jolted then be balancing on the tightrope again. And repeat , and repeat and repeat for what seemed like an eternity… Next was in a huge boxed room with all sides shrinking untill it crushed me, then jolt and repeat., And the final one was running on a track with a giant stone ball rolling behind untill it ran over me then I would jolt and do the repeat thing again… Anyways the reason of me posting was has other diabetics had similar things in there life and like me did it stop when you got older? Was just interested to know if this is normal/ common
Hello Lee,
I have had eerily similar dreams to the ones you have shared here. One of mine was I would be idly watching as my perceived neighbor would take a chain saw to the stilt legs to my perceived house. I would jolt, terrified and it would repeat exactly as you said. Others that I remember less vividly also include situations where the ground would disappear from underneath me repeatedly. Thanks for sharing.
My name is nicole and i wake up this am checked my blool sugar it was 56 but last night i had a dream that i was being attacked by alligators and snakes
Sorry forgot to ask if thats normal
Nicole,
Low blood sugars make for weird dreams – read all of these comments!
Best,
Jewels
Diagnosed 9 years ago, and am 28 years old. For most of those years when hypo, I would wake up when low, no dreams. Over the past year something weird has happened. The first time it happened, I had a dream where I was running in shoes in some sort of a desert setting video game, and the last thing I remember before I woke up was thinking “Just keep running”. I woke up thinking this, and it was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. It was all I could think… literally. I didn’t know I was hypoglycemic. I thought I had gone crazy… one thing was on repeat in my mind indefinitely, and I freaked out thinking the dream had hit the crazy switch. If that doesn’t sound freaky, I guess I can better describe it as what you see in nursing homes or in the movie “one flew over the cookoos nest”… picture some crazy person in a hospital walking around saying one thing over and over again, and that’s all they can do. It was pretty much exactly like that, but in my mind. Very scary to go to bed “normal” and then waking up as a “nut” and not knowing why. It is the worst feeling I’ve ever felt to not have control over my mind, and just stuck in a loop.
After a minute or two of thinking I was a nut, I thought that it may be low-blood sugar related, and after getting food it went away. Ever since this day, when I’m hypoglycemic I’ll have dreams like this… but there’s no common dream. I am on site this because the one I just had was 100% random… with highschool friends, and one was talking on and on about some trip. Woke up, same deal. Awake but stuck in a dream where all I can think about is this dumb trip that a friend is supposedly planning. The worst part is, when this happens the brain is on the brink of not knowing even where to get sugar or how to eat any. I had one time I couldn’t figure out how to open the glucose-pill container, and was debating running across my apartment hall and banging on their door at 4am.
I’ve personally attributed this phenomena to neurons not getting enough sugar, so they can’t finish the circuit/thought you have in your mind, so they just get “stuck”. When this happens, my dream-like state just becomes a closed-loop of one thought until I eat sugar and it allows my mind to move forward. This is how I visualize it at least, even if I’m way off. Regardless, this is my experience with low blood sugar. Hopefully it helps someone else out there who may think they’re alone in this regard. It’s weird how my symptoms have changed over time. It is scary to get a new symptom of hypo and not recognize it for what it is.
I simply wanted to thank you for this interesting blog. I had been wondering for sometime if perhaps when dreams occur that I’m actually asking myself the question “I wonder if my having a low?” that I should heed the warning and respond appropriately. However, I noticed that sometime the thinking process is off a bit that disrupts making a decision to check my glucose. I know for many of us we’re financially strapped and trying not to use too many test strips, but my wellbeing should outweigh this, but it is one of those things that weigh heavily on the mind.
Of all the hypoglycemic attacks I’ve had, one at 14 putting me into a coma, I remember only one vivid dream. I was standing in a wooded area and was afraid because I had no idea where I was. I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I turned to find it was Jesus. He told me not to be afraid, that everything would be okay. He took my hand and lead me into a clearing where there was a helicopter getting ready to take off. There were several people inside the helicopter, but there was one seat available. I felt like I could take the seat if I wanted to, but I delayed. Suddenly, I became conscious, my mouth stuffed full of icing, with my husband and daughter standing over me yelling, repeating questions at me…. Who am I? Who are you? They were attempting to check my consciousness.
Evidently I went unconscious with my eyes wide open and my husband found me that way with a glucose of 21. My husband told me that my first answer to, “Who am I?” was, “Jesus.” He told my that my answer scared him, so he called my daughter in to help him. After swallowing the icing, mixed with bits of a candy bar we checked my blood sugar which had climbed up to 78.
[…] Fortunately, most people with type 1 diabetes will awaken when their blood sugar plummets (hypoglycemia). People with diabetes may describe having weird dreams prior to awakening with hypoglycemia. See She Sugar’s article “Hypoglycemia and Dreams” […]
I just had a severe hypoglycemic episode the other night.
I was dreaming that I was caught in a maze trying to follow someone out. We got to the end… and it was almost a contest to see who could breathe. I was having trouble, but wanted to compete…And then it became not only the person who could breathe, but the person who could spit out the blockage, who would win at the contest. But neither of us could bring in a proper breath.
I awoke, spitting up blood on my girlfriend, trying to be able to breathe. I had no glucose gels or juice at my house and was able to signal to her to call 911. It is so horribly aggravating to have your mind working enough to know what to do, but have a lack of glucose that you can’t communicate it to people around you, with no motor functions.
The paramedics arrived and gave me a couple of gel glucose tubes and, soon enough, I was back to normal.
I have had a couple severe hypoglycemic episodes before and have always had vivid dreams with them. Thank you for sharing your stories.
My fiancé has had insulin dependent diabetes for almost 4 years now and has always kept good control of his levels etc until a recent episode where everything that fell into place made the scenario look very scary.
I woke up in the middle iof the night as the whole bed was shaking to find the bedding soaked in sweat and my partner having a fit.
However, when trying to wake him, he turned over (still fitting) and with his eyes wide open, started to shout over and over again (no real words coming out), just mumbles so to me it looked like he’d had a stroke and couldn’t talk as in my eyes, he was now awake and fitting,
Obviously very distraught, I called 999 (we are in the UK).
For the next 8 minutes he continued to bounce on the bed, staring me dead in the eyes, grasping my hand and wailing at the top of his lungs. Everytime I spoke to him to reassure him, he wailed louder.
Then, just like that, the fitting stopped, he woke like he had been snapped out of a trance, a little confused but sat up straight away and started talking, asking me who I was on the phone to…nuts!
Anyway, he was fitting but it turns out he was having what he describes as a very vivid and lucid dream at the time (about his worst fear – being caught by a shark). He could hear me calling him in his dream but he couldn’t see me (he must have heard me talking) which is why he was shouting louder Everytime I spoke him.
As for being able to keep his eyes fixed on me during his dream, that’s got us both stumped but thankfully it was just one of those ‘perfect storm’ scenarios and much less sinister than it looked.
Just thought I’d share for anyone that may go through a similar thing. Just finding this blog has helped to reassure me that it’s something that can happen so thank you.
Hi all, type 1 here for 38 years. I know when im dreaming and having a low bloodsugar, my mind races to wake me up. However the continuity of my dreams is fantastic. Almost like a hyperdrive thru time and space, almost transcendent. Sometimes I wonder if thats what the cusp of death might be like. I dont mean it in a scary way but in more of a heavenly way. After all, when we get low, sometimes the lack of glucose to the brain is almost what happens to people that supposedly see the light before death. I know, I know, it sounds scary but thats the only way I can figure out the incredible dreams I have. I was diagnosed at the age of 3 and im 41 now. I know from the longevity of my type 1, its sometimes difficult to sense reactions or lows and I truly believe, when im sleeping, its the only way my brain cqn force me awake. Thoughts ?
This is amazing to find this! I’ve had Type I for over thirty years, and while I (fortunately) rarely experience severe night time lows now, I used to them. I could never even articulate, what a dreaming while low was like. The above description nails this bizarre (and for me at least), wonderful experience. Thank you so much! I never discussed this with anyone, never mentioned it to my doctor, because there was no way I could accurately convey these strange, yet wonderful, dreams.
Hi everyone, I’ve been a type 1 diabetic for over 12 years now and while reading these comments I’ve had a bit of an epiphany… I have the worst dreams during hypos – dreams just go on and on and on forever in utter chaos. I suffer from OCD and any sort of disruption/disorganisation, not to mention chaos, causes immense anxiety. My thought therefore is that the brain possibly causes us to dream about something that causes us great anxiety in order to get a physiological response – racing heart, high levels of adrenaline, etc. – either to wake us up or access the glucose stores in our bodies. Has anyone else experienced this? Do the dreams you dream during hypos cause a great deal of anxiety?
OMFG, I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS WEBSITE OFF & ON FOR PROBABLY 20 YEARS… I have these type 1 hypoglycemic vivid dreams 5 times a year for the past 20 years(I’ve been diabetic since age 12 & im 34 now). They are THE most interesting psychedelic dreams that can possibly exist. Some times they are multi-staged genius level geometric patterns fluctuating in these unexplainable & nonrecreatable technological performances of high brain functioning Cirque du Soleil-type light shows & computers performing transformer robot sounds & movements but on a microscopic level all for my amusement…
and other times (like the one i just woke up from) it’s an extremely complex movie scene where infinite Jim Carreys (that look like his character from “Me, Myself & Irene”) are all on independent journeys to accomplish this one goal & a few at a time are simultaneously running into eachother, seeing that the other “Jim Carrey” has the wrong equipment to do the destined “job” & arrogantly murders the slacking “jim carrey” only to take over & continue on the path of accomplishing this goal. I won’t go into detail any further because I’m starting to get to that point where the genius level is all slipping away from my memory.
I’m just so happy I found other people who have experienced this amazing gift of the Mind, albeit a diabetic mind. I’ve always said if there was a way to recreate these dreams all of us that experience them would be famous millionaires in Hollywood. Lol.
So I just woke up from yet another low blood sugar weird ass dream and I had to Google this to see if it was a thing. And I guess it is. I’m gonna do some more reading cause this is the first page I pulled up but it’s cool to hear stories from others with the same experience
The kind of dreams I have are lots of times where 2 things are supposed to be the same but one of them is off slightly. And repeating but the second time being off from the first time. Like matrix deja vu. So the one I just had I can’t really remember because ive been awake for a while now eating yogurt and im starting to forget… but I remember something with music being 12/6 beats then when the scenario repeated the second time it was weird and I kept seeing 12/5 and it just didn’t seem.right, and it woke me up.
So I don’t have an explanation but it’s not the first time a weird dream with odd repeating quirks has woke me up due to low blood sugar ..so this is me researching and sharing my experience. . Goodnight all
Thank you to all that have posted before. I just had an extreme low blood sugar, and have had multiple in the past as well. I’m currently 33 and have had type 1 diabetes since I was 11 years old. Each time that I go low while sleeping, my body tried to wake me up through dreaming. Like most of the previous comments, the dreams are often repetitive until I’m successfully awake. Unfortunately all of my recurring dreams are horrific in nature. All of my dreams start out happy and continue to repeat… But with each repetition the dream progressively gets worse. By worse I mean that “the world begins to end in a horrific way.” What’s worse is I’m the reason it’s ending. In all of my nightmares it’s like I’m a keeper of the universe, and with each repetition of my dream my grip on that responsibility loosens. For example in one low I was on a plane and it started to crash. It kept repeating until it got to the point that I had literally let go of “my corner” of the universe that I was supposed to be holding and in my dreams it all started to fall apart. Bombs exploding, people all around me dying, and my only thought in these moments turn to my wife. How I’ll never see her again and it’s all my fault. This morning I woke up and rolled over my wife and tried to go through the window because I thought I had made a horrible mistake and I’d never see my wife again. All of these dreams do seem like I have the power to travel in time, and with each decision I make, the more damage I’m doing because I’m trying to travel in time to be by her side. This morning I thought I had changed the path of history because of all of my “time travel” and was trying to run away from my wife because I thought that I had done so much damage to the world that I needed to go further in the future to try and have our paths cross again so that we could be together. It’s scary stuff but reading these posts helps me realize I’m not the only one, and that’s calming. I hope you all live happy long lives and have fewer of these dreams moving forward.
I find this interesting. i’ve been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes since I was 21. I have always had these weird dreams vividly, but after getting diagnosed I noticed that my sugar was low. I exercise quite a bit and notice that I have these dreams with hypoglycemic lows more often when I I do. I know it is obviously because I am burning more calories so I need to reduce my insulin intake. I have tried everything from reducing my insulin to eating a piece of chocolate when I exercise to avoid disrupting my sleep. I noticed that nothing has really worked because regardless I wake up with hypoglycemic lows around 4-5am. I dislike it very much bc It really has an effect on my day and feel tired when I wake up. Sometimes I wake up later around 10:30am and still feel tired. I don’t really like this unproductive routine. I wish I can really get a grasp of this bc I just finished college and it is having an effect on my lifestyle to find a new career.