on dreaming, dream remembering and hypoapnea

[skinnysleepapnea]

Before I start, I want to thank those who answered my newbe question a few days back. I took your advice and the machine and mask are fine. I'm still not sure I've been titrated with the right pressure, but my experience is improving each night. I would have thanked you on that thread but it disappeared.

Some one asked a question about dreaming/its apparent vs real time/ and there were opinions about dream recall being a result of hypoapnea... I put an answer on that thread, and then realized that it was pretty deep into a layer that was already passed, and since it seemed dreaming was a pretty recurrent topic, I thought I would put it as a new post.

my information is out of date, but I believe is still valid.
In the 1960's they used to believe that dreams took place very rapidly, but you remembered them in something like what appeared to be realistic time even if what happened was of course, dream reality. However, in studying dreaming patients I believe they came to the conclusion that dreams actually took about as much time to occur as the dreamer preceived them on memory the next morning... of if they were awakened during the sleep lab.
I am very surprised by the idea that remembering dreams may be a function of disturbed sleep... i.e. a hypoapnea thrusts the dream material closer to consciousness. May be true or true for some, but consider this:
some people train themselves to be very good at recalling and even acting consciously in dreams (see steven Labarge... and the topic lucid dreaming. Also Patricia Garfield: Creative Dreaming). Also some primitive societies have treated dream time as as important as wake time, or even more so. Australian aborigines (traditionally) are an example. These people learned to be prodigious dreamers, though a lot of what they call dreams may be more close to revery (dreams that occur in a resting state but still conscious... you can develop the ability to actually dream in this state... or in hypnogogic state... I have... of course the reason was I couldn't sleep normally). Still, they most likely remember deep sleep night dreams very well, and carry the memory a long time. Certainly their sleeping conditions were probably optimal... out in nature, more natural diet... if they were hunter gatherers, no excess body fat, no high blood pressure, etc.

[WAFlowers]

I wish I could find the reference, but I've lost it.

I recall reading that it isn't unusual for people to enter the "waking" pre-sleep stage after REM, particularly following REM cycles later in the night. That is, you aren't as likely to be "waking" after your first REM cycle, but the likelihood increases with each cycle until you wake up normally in the morning.

During the waking pre-sleep period we are transitioning from Alpha waves (indicative of relaxation) to Theta waves which appear during Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep.

It might be possible to train yourself to wake up enough after REM to allow for dream recall.

Also I'd expect that people are more likely to remember the dreams from their final REM stage as it is just before they finally wake up. This assumes they aren't woken earlier (during NREM) by an alarm clock.

Don't you wish someone would invent an alarm clock that would wake us up at our natural waking point immediately following REM sleep? It has to be better for us than to be pulled out of Stage 2 (or whatever) by some obnoxious device!

[Sleepless on LI]

Okay. Want to try a new mask. Was going to try the Aura, as per Rested Gal's, my hero, as she is for many others, claim of it being her favorite mask, I believe, next to my least liked mask, the Breeze.
Well, went on this site to check it out and did the fitting guide and it told me it would not be the best mask suited to my measurements. I was a bit disappointed. However, by the same token, it said the Breeze would. There goes any credibility I had for the measurement guide.
Can anyone offer any insight into why perhaps I wouldn't get a good fit with the Aura from personal experience? I am interested in trying something new and since I side sleep, it doesn't leave the field wide open. I also looked at the comfort lite, but it looks like the headgear is like a bicycle helmet without the cover part. And I've already read some comments lately about it being horrible. But then again, one man's ceiling is another man's floor in the mask game we all have to play.

[Sleepless on LI]

O,

So that's where this post ended up. It doesn't belong here. I thought I just lost it and didn't submit it, so I wrote a new thread on this. Oops.

I actually do know that RG reconstructed the Aura, but she still says it's one of her favorites. I don't mind doing a little lab ratting, as she puts it, to get something to work. Lord knows just about eveything I use has had to have some type of reconstruction. If CPAP equipment was a woman, she would have had lipo, Botox, a tummy tuck and everything else humanly do-able to get it to be its best by now.

I am actually probably not going to get the Aura after having so much trouble trying to see if insurance would cover it. This site doesn't deal with my insurance and the place that does doesn't carry it. I am a strong believer in vibes and fate, and it seems like someone is trying to tell me something. So for now, I will probably just stick with what works, the Swift.

Thanks, O.

[Guest]

As far as an alarm clock that wakes you while dreaming, they have better than that. Steven LaBerge sells the nova dreamer
http://www.lucidity.com/novadreamer.html which flashes lights while you are in rem in such a way that you are supposed to remain asleep, but can become conscious and act in your dream in a conscious, lucid fashion. I bought one of the early models of this, but was never able to use it. Why? I didn't realize then that I was already well into being a problem sleeper. Sure enough, the lights woke me up... when they were just supposed to make me conscious. It's a fascinating field... Garfield's book, Creative Dreaming is one my favorites, and LaBerge's studies are incredible. But they are not for me. Just let me learn to sleep! I realize now my sleep disorder was well on the way in my early twenties (I'm 59 now-- and just starting cpap) because I can remember fondly individual nights of good sleep that I had back then... individual nights! As if they were days on vacation. From what I've been hearing recently, I probably don't even know what good sleep is. I'm too early into cpap to know if it will get me there.

[WAFlowers]

Guest,
I probably didn't explain myself well enough. I don't want to be made concious at the end of REM in order to remember my dreams, I want an alarm clock that will wake up at the optimal point in a sleep cycle (just after REM ends) so that I can feel the most refreshed.

That is, If I set the alarm for 5AM I want it to hold off until the end of the next REM cycle.

Obviously I could only use such an imaginary device when I have the luxury of sleeping longer. And how often does that happen? .

[ozij]

Bill, you thought you were dreaming, huh?

New Alarm - Wakes You When You're Ready


Never underestimate cpaptalk....

O.

[Sleepless on LI]

New Alarm - Wakes You When You're Ready

OMG, Ozij, you are unbelievable!!! Where do you find these things ???

[ozij]

This is a case of my memory. I was around when it happened... to come up on the forum.

O.

[WAFlowers]

Ya know, if I'd have thought that such a thing might really exist I'd have searched for it. Really! But I thought it was just a pipe dream. Shows what I know.

[ozij]

Ya know, if I'd have thought that such a thing might really exist I'd have searched for it.

I have no doubt of that.
O.