My son has been using the patch for a couple of weeks and yes, it's really helping him to quit smoking but incredibly he has been having horrible hallucinating nightmares since he's been using them.
I told him that I doubted that there was a connection but he showed me on the box that there is a warning stating that these patches might cause these kind of dreams. Anyone know why these nicotine patches would cause this to happen? Thanks.

Nicotine is, to a degree, psychotropic....it affects the mind....when awake, we percieve the effect as relaxing, calming or, here's the connection, assistive to the creative process..."I think better when I smoke"....when you're a smoker, you are not actively taking in nicotine during sleep....with the patch, you are... several friends reported that the nightmares stopped when they stopped sleeping with the patch, or in two cases, used a lower dose patch at night, and they are still smokefree, despite having to deal with the morning craving...Good luck to your son.

I got very very weird dreams when I was on the patch.

They were super lucid and really strange. I actually enjoyed that part of quitting. I'm still having dreams about smoking over 4 months later.

My husband had nightmares when he was using the patch, and they didn't help him to quit smoking either.

I've been using nicorette patches for the past four days and every night without a doubt i have had the most random dreams.....really really strange ones..but i love it haha.they dont make sense wot-so-eva...and have 2-3 different dreams a night.
for instance,last night i dreamt there were three tornado's near my house,that were made up of thick black smoke.I went outside to take photo's and they went up into a big ball of fire...then turned into a river of volcanic water :s (if there is such a thing,but thats what i "knew" it was in my dream.
oh...and it has really helped with the smoking.
anyone else wanna share their dream with me

I had minor sleep issues with the patch, and then just began taking it off to sleep and putting on the next day's patch after my morning routine. Though it made the morning cravings a bit more noticeable, it also allowed me to sleep a bit better, which helped in its own way.

Here is the side-effects website:

You're encouraged to report side effects. They don't include nightmares so far.