Effexor XR....Weird Side Effect

The fact you don't remember dreams may not be directly related to the medicine, but more indirectly. See I hardly ever remember my own dreams, and I sleep VERY soundly and deeply. I'm always very hard to wake up. All these symptoms made me wonder if I had some sort of sleeping disorder and so I went and had a sleep study done. When I asked the doctor about not remembering my dreams, or even remember having them (when I sleep there is just a percieved short period of blackness then I'm awake) she said you won't remember your dreams unless they are interuppted by you waking up. So perhaps the medicine is making you sleep soundly enough that you don't interupt your dream state. While I'm not on medication I did worry about the same symptoms, but the EEG they had me hooked up to while sleeping at the sleep study showed that in the three hours of sleep I got, I hit REM (Rapid Eye Movement, or dreamstate sleep) like 3 or 4 times. Most people achieve REM 90 minutes or so after falling asleep so I actually had a little higher than normal REM but never remembered my dreams. It still happened, it has too, it's a natural function of your brain, but I was just too deeply asleep to notice is what it boiled down too. maybe the effexor is making you sleep more heavily and as a consequence you percieve that you stop dreaming, a side effect of a side effect essentially. hope this helps.