Intense Dreams

I've been on CPAP for three months now and I'm still amazed by the vivid and intense dreams I've been having. Has anyone else experienced this. Also I find that with the CPAP I absolutely must sleep for 8 hours or I feel like crap. I think its because I sleep more deeply now so its startling to wake up after only 5 or so hours. What are your thoughts??

I get them too, but I wish it was every night! Amazing what the brain can do with a good supply of oxygen. I also feel sluggish if I don't get at least 7 good hours, but even then I feel a lot better than before.

I too have intense dreams that I feel are REAL when I experience them.

snookie wrote:I've been on CPAP for three months now and I'm still amazed by the vivid and intense dreams I've been having. Has anyone else experienced this. Also I find that with the CPAP I absolutely must sleep for 8 hours or I feel like crap. I think its because I sleep more deeply now so its startling to wake up after only 5 or so hours. What are your thoughts??

After years of needing to be on CPAP I didn't sleep consistently enough or go into REM enough to dream. So in comparison, I really dream a lot now! Vivid and memorable. I also need 8 - 8 1/2 hours sleep. I sometimes think how nice it would be to be able to jump back into my body before APAP and see how I felt then to what I think tired is now.

LINKS to dreaming - dreams - REM rebound
viewtopic.php?t=3524

rested gal wrote:LINKS to dreaming - dreams - REM rebound
viewtopic.php?t=3524

I always appreciate your tracking of links! Thank you for the time and attention to this that serves us all

gasp wrote:

rested gal wrote:LINKS to dreaming - dreams - REM rebound
viewtopic.php?t=3524

I always appreciate your tracking of links! Thank you for the time and attention to this that serves us all

indeed! Whenever I am replying to a post, i always think, durn, where's that post from RG with the links for XYZ...

We need a permanent link at the top of the forum to RG's collected links!!!! PLEEEEAAAASE!!!


I bookmark them on my computer but the title never ends up going in there the right way, so I have a million entries with "www.cpaptalk.com CPAP and Sleep Apnea DIscussion...." and I don't know what's where?!??! uuuurgh the aggravation of computers and information management.

I don't want to hijack the thread or detract from the links, but I'd like to make one of my overly broad and simplistic statements about dreams, so that my reductionistic conclusions can be corrected:

If I remember particularly vivid dreams, that may be good or that may be bad, depending. It may be good in that it may be an indication I'm making it into REM. But it may be bad in that it may be an indication that I'm waking up while in REM.

Thoughts? Corrections? Yea or Nay?

jnk wrote:I don't want to hijack the thread or detract from the links, but I'd like to make one of my overly broad and simplistic statements about dreams, so that my reductionistic conclusions can be corrected:

If I remember particularly vivid dreams, that may be good or that may be bad, depending. It may be good in that it may be an indication I'm making it into REM. But it may be bad in that it may be an indication that I'm waking up while in REM.

Thoughts? Corrections? Yea or Nay?

I think there is a bit of truth in both. How about when I remember my dreams I'm going into REM and have dreams I don't remember (which is good) and wake naturally when having one and remember it (which is good : )

So, (1) remembering is good and (2) not remembering is good.

Good. I like it! Thanks.

Once I dreamed that I couldn't remember any of my dreams, but it didn't come true, since I remembered, unless I just dreamed it.

jnk

jnk wrote:So, (1) remembering is good and (2) not remembering is good.

Good. I like it! Thanks.

Once I dreamed that I couldn't remember any of my of my dreams, but it didn't come true, since I remembered, unless I just dreamed it.

jnk

I think you've got it!

I'm gonna delurk because this has been something I just don't get.
At my Titration study the sleep tech told me (when he woke me up) that he'd let me sleep past the 5:00 am wakeup because I was dreaming. He said they are not allowed to wake a patient/client when they are dreaming because it is the most beneficial sleep. You could have picked my jaw up off the floor! Nights that I am aware of dreaming - whether I really remember them or not - are the nights that I feel as though I've been run over by a train! I wake up completely exhausted, wake with my heart racing all night, and am really frustrated at a night's sleep lost to dreams. I've been this way since early childhood.
Am I the only one who absolutely DREADS dreaming?

jjposey wrote: Nights that I am aware of dreaming - whether I really remember them or not - are the nights that I feel as though I've been run over by a train! I wake up completely exhausted, wake with my heart racing all night, and am really frustrated at a night's sleep lost to dreams.

Well, that was sort of the point I was making earlier. If a person's trouble is that he/she tends to wake up during REM (the stage during which a person generally has the most vivid dreams), then he/she may be remembering dreams simply because he/she woke up during them. In that case, remembering dreams can be an indication of "a night of waking up," which is remembered as "a night of dreaming."

So it may not be so much that you should "dread dreaming." Dreaming is good for us psychologically. It may be more that you "dread having a night where you wake up a lot"--and it just so happens that your indication that you woke up a lot is that you remember vivid dreams, since you repeatedly woke up in REM. So you associate those two facts.

In other words, the fact that you wake up feeling like a train ran over you may be because you had a night of fitful sleep. It could be that you dream just as much, if not more, on the nights that leave you rested--the difference is you slept through the night and so don't remember as many dreams.

Just a thought. And I'm no expert. Just opinionated.

jnk

I've always had intense and bothersome or worrisome and vivid dreams,I'm in the dreams,and it seemed like I was constantly doing things with people I know,in several dreams all night,I could have written books if I'd remember them,and some would wake me up just enough to go back into another one,I found out I had sleep apnea 3 years ago........60 apneas in 60 minutes,so my doctor prescribed 10mg of Sonata and CPAP then,the dreams are less intense and less often,with no side effects,but I've never been able to keep the mask on all night,I don't even know I'm taking it off.............I've had 3 sleep overs and don't know what to do next.

cpapuser05 wrote: . . . and don't know what to do next. . . .

What to do next is to keep doing what you're doing if you are still trying to keep the mask on all night. If you post specifics, I'm sure you can get great suggestions here from people who have used the same mask at the same pressure, etc. You may, for example, need a machine that will alarm when you take your mask off (although I don't think that is a very popular feature around here). You may need to increase your pressure if it is so low you have trouble breathing and that is causing the mask removal. Others may have better suggestions. Just don't give up. Keep trying things. You WILL find something that works.

This forum is here for you, cpapuser05.

And write down the dreams. Some writers would give their eye teeth to get free inspiration all night!

jnk