Enchanter wrote:robysue wrote:Enchanter wrote:
And if he put you on a CPAP, that meant the O2 levels were dropping precipitously as soon as you were asleep. Which is what you've been saying was happening all along. So now that there's hard evidence that you have a problem with your O2 levels during sleep, you want to claim you didn't sleep a wink?
Robysue. You have to understand what I'm trying to say. I remember being wide awake the whole time.
You have to understand what I'm saying: People with insomnia problems cannot reliably tell when they are asleep and when they are awake. This has been documented in a number of scientific studies.
The studies that document this have been run as follows: The subject is asked to sleep in a lab. They are monitored with much the same equipment that an ordinary sleep test involves. Periodically a tech will come into the room and "wake" the subject up and ask one question:
Were you awake before I came into the room to wake you up? The subject's answer is compared to the EEG data from just before the tech went into the room to "wake" the subject up. Sometimes the EEG data indicates the subject
was awake before the tech entered the room. And sometimes the EEG data indicates the subject
was in Stage I or Stage II sleep before the tech entered the room.
People without insomnia consistently told the tech the right answer: If the EEG data indicated the noninsomniac subject was asleep before the tech came in, they usually answered the question with, "I was asleep." If the EEG data indicated the noninsomniac subject was awake before the tech came in, they usually answered the question with, "I was awake." (Note: Even people without insomnia typically wake up for very brief periods of time periodically throughout the night; most of these wakes are post-REM and most last less than 5 minutes and the noninsomniac does not remember them in the morning.)
People with insomnia consistently got the answer wrong. As in they would have done better with
random guessing in terms of answering the question. When the EEG data indicated the insomniac was asleep, they pretty consistently said, "I was awake". When the EEG data indicated the insomniac was awake, they often said "I was asleep." In other words, the data showed that people with severe insomnia problems have a very difficult time distinguishing between whether they are awake or asleep during their "sleep period".
I mean I guess it's possible that my brain was technically asleep according to the test, but part of me was awake.
Yes, your brain was technically asleep. Which means you
were asleep. But as an insomniac, your brain has a harder time than normal distinguishing between what it feels like to
be asleep and what it feels like
be awake. And, like most insomniacs, when there's any doubt in your conscious mind about whether you were asleep or awake, you
assume/decide that you must have been awake.
But if you had me swear to tell the truth, I'd say I was 100 percent awake the whole time, much in the same way I'm awake most nights until really late. I remember everything and don't remember being asleep at all. Remember, what it says and what I feel are 2 different things.
Yes. And in this case, the data are correct about your sleep status and your
subjective interpretation of what you were doing is likely to be incorrect.
I didn't sleep a wink according to me and I remember being up all night 100 percent, but who knows maybe the test says I was asleep for 1 or 2 seconds. If I was asleep it was so small, that I didn't notice. It could have been less than a split second. You have to believe me. I felt wide awake the whole time.
I believe that you
felt wide awake the whole time. I also believe that you were totally unaware of small bits of sleep that you got here and there. But I also suspect that the sleep time was longer than a "split second" here and there. My guess is that you fell asleep for 10-15 minutes several times during the night. And that as soon as you fell asleep, the events started to happen and the O2 levels went down, and
that woke you right back up, but because you are an insomniac, your conscious brain mistook the 10-15 minutes of light sleep for staying awake the whole time.
Please understand: I see this in my own CPAP data from time to time: There are nights where I
subjectively have real trouble getting to sleep. I toss and turn and the BiPAP makes my stomach unhappy so I turn the dang machine OFF and back ON one or more times (to make sure the pressure is at my minimum pressure of 6/4) before I finally drift off to sleep. But when I look at the data the next day, what I see is clear evidence (judging from the way the flow rate curve looks) that I fell asleep for 10-15 minutes and then I woke up uncomfortable and turned my machine OFF and back ON. And then I fell asleep for another 10-15 minutes and woke up uncomfortable a second time. (On a bad night, I might even have a third repeat of this pattern.) This pattern of falling asleep for 10-15 minutes while feeling like I'm awake also happens on the bad middle of the night wakes that I subjectively remember as my being awake for a long time: I might think I was up for 30 minutes straight in the middle of the night while turning my machine OFF and back ON several times, but the regularity of the flow rate data implies that I most likely fell asleep for 10 minutes or so, woke back up and turned the machine OFF and ON again and fell asleep for another 10 minutes or so, with this cycle repeating for the duration of what felt like one long, bothersome wake period.
And this pattern has also been present on most of my sleep studies. On my last two studies, according to the data I actually fell asleep within 15 minutes of Lights OUT, but I also woke up about 10 minutes later. And was unable to get back to sleep (according to the EEG) for a prolonged period of time. My own memories? I was 100% awake for the entire first 3 hours of the sleep tests. But the data just didn't show that to be true.
