Did dreams become more emotionally real after starting HRT

[Rowan Rue]

I found that after a few months on HRT I started to have dreams (often nightmares) that felt emotionally real to me. 
Ones where I'd wake up in a blind panic after experiencing a full adrenaline dump, and would haunt me well into the day and sometimes for several days if the dream was particularly bad.
The fist time this happened was a bit of a revelation to me.  I'd always puzzled that my ex could (and frequently did) have her whole day ruined by a bad dream. 
While I was still running a Testosterone based OS I'd have the occasional bad dream, but within minutes of waking and sense of realness quickly faded.
By contrast, I've had almost all my cis female friends report having dreadful nightmares that would leave them on edge for the whole day or longer.
Now that I've experienced this myself it's really opened my eyes to something I would have written off as an over-reaction before.  A dream in which my daughter died left me just about useless for two days, and emotionally raw for over a week.
By contrast, male friends who I've asked all report that their dreams lack much emotional realism, and that even the worst ones are quickly forgotten.

So what have your experiences been?

[kathyk]

Only in the first few months when I was so messed up.  My dreams now are more of less like always, the difference is I'm at the same place in being a woman in dreams as in real life.  I guess they grow as I grow.

[evecrook]

well, luckily so far I haven't had any night mare since stating HRT over 2 months ago. My dreams though have been quite vivid. my dreams lately are dealing with events that have actually taken place in my life. They are very real in the sense they are recordings of what actually was going on during the time in my dreams. The first dream was quite beautiful. I'm deeply religious and had this real beautiful dream of a church and people eating beautifully and perfectly baked loaves of bread( I love perfectly baked bread with perfect crust) . Another dream was quite sexual and I won't go into details but was quite vivid. The dreams seem to be more intense.

[FalseHybridPrincess]

Oh man so last night I had this very wierd dream ,

I was infront of the mirror and I was looking completely like a guy ,so I was looking to myself I remember feeling soo depressed , but after a while of just looking I suddently gained some kind of consiousness and starting telling to myself that I would never look like that again and kinda saying to the dream  to leave me alone...

I usually watch nightmares ,,,

[nonameyet]

i havent gone through hrt yet but if my dreams get more vivid im in for a real treat. theyre already pretty vivid and weird. i will say that the only dreams ive had as a woman were fairly intense. as eve said i wont go into details. but im also with false on this one. i usually let dreams go on as long as possible with rare exceptions. somehow my let it be mentality slips into even the most frightening nightmares.
not all of them. but most.

[suzifrommd]

So what have your experiences been?

Now that you mention it, I have noticed that dreams are more vivid since starting HRT. I've never been emotionally affected by dreams, and that's still not a problem, but I used never to remember my dreams, whereas now I usually remember one of them every night.

BTW, good to see you back, Rowan. I've missed your posts and wondered how you were doing.

[Ashey]

I've mentioned it here before, but I had a dream a few days after starting spiro, and about a month after starting HRT overall. It was very vivid, negative, and (to me) deeply profound. I see it as the moment that I started seeing myself as female. It affected me for days afterward and I still think about it sometimes.

Other than that, I typically don't have negative dreams and certainly not nightmares. I'm rather calm and observant in my dreams. They do seem to last longer and involve more detail than they used to though.