deep muscle massage and back-ache self-medication ftw dreams-wise

OK my friend Dr Vick came over and pummeled and squeezed and worked my shoulders and upper back last night (she knows what she's doing, her parents were both trained physios), and then to send me off to sleep i took a max cuprofen and two panadol extra (naughty but needed)

so WEIRD DREAM ALERT (i assume it's the caffeine)

i: i very rarely have violent dreams, but a recent alarming meme is of someone attacking me, and trying to stab me in the face, and me catching the knife in my mouth (and thus avoiding injury) (doesn't seem like it would work so well irl)
ii: also very vividly recall a section where ilx's beloved R.Stornoway (Tom D.) had taken out adverts all across London, huge Jenny Holzer dot matrix boards, that he was sending texts to mocking ilx for being less aggressively hostile to the Anglican Church than he felt was deserved.

carprofen not widely used anymore except for veterinary use, but wouldn't expect either of these meds to cause those effects.

cuprofen max is just ibuprofen, which is anti-inflammatory but has always had zero effect on me, pain-wise or any otherwise, tbh; panadol extra is paracetamol and caffeine -- when the latter doesn't just keep me awake (i only use it when i'm really tired) it does sometimes seem to induces hypnagogic sleep paralysis, though these dreams were longer and more vivid than the ones i usually get then

(my sleep paralysis dreams tend to be very murky, with weird sinister but hard-to-discern activities going on in the shadows)

I've been prescribed Ambien (zolpidem, not sure what the brand name is in the UK) for years which i find induces a deep yet usually dreamless sleep, wonder if it would work for you - although its effects seem to vary dramatically in different ppl.

i don't mind the dreams! but i'm interested in what causes them

i: medication (as noted above)
ii: massage? (release of stored toxins from muscle into body?)
iii: sleeping warm not cold (i prefer cold -- window open right by bed -- but vick said draughts and back aches go hand in hand, so i'm making an experiment of window not open and being much better wrapped)

#3 is the most likely culprit I'd suspect, but #1 and #2 probably have an effect as well. I find my dreams are more vivid if my sleeping environment is different from what I'm accustomed to.

lol, really still haven't properly learned the "draughts cause backaches" lesson

also lol at my Tom D dream of six and a half years ago