Bad dreams... anyone else?

[dominguezzzzz1]

Hi, ive been using cpap since october, and ist great, dont wake up choking no more... but last night ive had the wierdest dream, i was in a boat and it started going very fast...i got kind off dizzy, in my dreams but dont know if it was really happening and i was also very scard! then i suddenly woke up wen i felt off the boat!! what do you guys think yhay happened to me??? was it an apnea episode? or maybe was i having a panick attack??

[aguest]

Now that you get into REM sleep with your cpap, you can dream again...unfortunately all dreams aren't good ones. Just dreaming!

[Pugsy]

Maybe it was simply a bad dream.
There is no way to really tell why you had it. Could it have been related to an apnea event? Sure but it also could just as easily been a normal bad dream. Sometimes we want to blame all the bad stuff on OSA and cpap. Often there are other factors that mess things up.

[chunkyfrog]

I'm just the opposite: My apnea was causing bizarre, extremely strenuous dreams,
from which I would awaken with a very fast heart rate and somewhat out of breath.
Now, I rarely remember my dreams. I don't miss those dreams.
Now, I can sleep at night instead of in the daytime--(at work; while driving, etc.)
I feel so much more alive; and I've lost weight--not much, but it's a start.

[msradar65]

I was a very vivid dreamer before CPAP..after starting CPAP I still dream but rarely remember what I was dreaming. I started with night terrors during the Christmas holiday where I actually would scream, get out of bed and grab at things. I remember some of the night terrors and I wake sweaty, heart racing and confused.

My doctor started me on elavil 25 mg...and since I was still have terrors the dose went up to 50mg. Thus far no more night terrors and I don't remember waking up at all during the night. Still 100% compliant with my therapy.

[robysue]

Worst dream post-CPAP occurred on night 3 of therapy: I dreamed I was an intelligent goose being fattened up for foie gras through forced breathing---air being stuffed into my lungs at rates that were increasing faster and faster and faster than I could possibly take the air in. The "intelligent" part was that I knew why the air was being pumped into my lungs faster and faster and faster---and I knew what my fate would be: After a while, my lungs were destined to pop and I'd be chopped up and put on a plate in a fancy French restaurant with some outrageous price .... No surprise that I woke up with severe aerophagia. And the start of the insomnia that has continued to plague me ever since ...

Pre-CPAP, I dreamed and remembered my dreams a lot. Weird dreams, yes. Terrifying dreams, no. Typical apnea-related "choking dreams", no.

I can tell that I'm still dreaming. I'm remembering less of them. But the ones that I do are still typically weird. About a week back I dreamed about a guy I knew in high school (by name) and his parents (who knew my parents) for no particular reason other than that he played TROMBONE. That was the critical part of the dream---the guy played TROMBONE in HS and played T-bone as a 50 something old guy in my dream. (Yeah, he'd aged in the dream to be the correct chronological age). Hadn't thought about this guy in years. Hadn't thought about his parents in years. And the T-bone connection could only have been a random comment made by my son (who plays t-bone in college) when I talked to him on the phone that day.

Do I miss remembering my dreams? Not particularly. I remember enough of them. And as long as I remember that I dreamed, that's enough to satisfy me.

[NancyAZ]

Before CPAP I rarely, if ever, had dreams and if I did, I never remembered them. I had my first dream when they hooked me up to CPAP during my sleep study. I made a note of it on the report I had to fill out afterwards. I have been dreaming every night since I first got my machine...every single night....and I remember my dreams. They are still strange dreams (at first they were sometimes very upsetting) but they are getting better. I am actually happy to be dreaming again.
Nancy

[pj2448]

I would like to contribute to this discussion. After 16 years on XPAP and some investigations, I firmly believe, somewhat contrary to those who already responded, that bad dreams on CPAP means there is a mal-function of the equipment or problem with therapy in some way. Some of the things that have contributed to my bad dreams, only discovered after the fact, are a bad collection of rain-out condinsation in my mask that I am close to inhaling while asleep (very dangerous to ingest water into the lungs), or, a rain-out condition in the tube that is affecting (fooling) therapy pressure swings on my APAP, or, a blooming bad odor developing in the humidifier chamber, likely from lack of cleaning. The bad dream, in my cases, has been my body's way of trying to wake me to correct the condition. Some other circumstances that may cause problems in the middle of sleep are clogged filters, a kinked hose, leaky mask, an incorrectly installed filter on the CPAP, or a blocked vent port on the mask.

I'll be so bold as to suggest the bad dreams could not be from any other cause but a CPAP problem. The very definition of the word 'nightmare' is something everyone should look up. It's a problem with breathing during sleep, as like someone is sitting on your chest.

[robysue]

After 16 years on XPAP and some investigations, I firmly believe, somewhat contrary to those who already responded, that bad dreams on CPAP means there is a mal-function of the equipment or problem with therapy in some way.

Actually pj2448, my stuffed goose dream supports your thesis that bad dreams on CPAP indicate there is something wrong with therapy in some way: Some three weeks after this dream I had my first meeting with the PA in the sleep doctor's office. The PA took my telling her about this dream plus lots of other complaints and evidence from me and immediately suggested that I was likely over titrated and having problems dealing with the pressure being too high for me to tolerate. She ordered a week auto-titration and at the end of that my pressure was indeed reduced. It's just a shame that starting xPAP therapy with being over titrated for three weeks at a pressure that I genuinely could not tolerate triggered an insomnia monster that has since morphed into its own beast and has fed on a number of issues both xPAP based and non-xPAP based over the last four months. Fortunately this same PA is now providing me some excellent guidance in finally taming the insomnia monster.

Now dreaming about my old high school classmate was merely a bizarre dream---not a bad one. So I don't think that says anything about the quality of my current therapy.

[Big S]

I used to have really bad and bizarre dreams prior to cpap. Now I rarely have the bizarre ones, but have had at least 3 in six months that I can remember. I'm so used to the previous wild dreams that I calm down pretty quickly, but my wife's night is often ruined. I've even had reruns on occasion in the old days.

[jdoakes777]

Hi, ive been using cpap since october, and ist great, dont wake up choking no more... but last night ive had the wierdest dream, i was in a boat and it started going very fast...i got kind off dizzy, in my dreams but dont know if it was really happening and i was also very scard! then i suddenly woke up wen i felt off the boat!! what do you guys think yhay happened to me??? was it an apnea episode? or maybe was i having a panick attack??

I also have nightmares when using CPAP. This only recently started since starting the full face mask. I wake up about 3:30 or 4AM just about every day with dry my mouth. Apparently my mouth was open inside the mask. Told my Dr. about this but he just blew me off. Maybe I need a new Dr.

[kteague]

Before CPAP I had the typical choking, drowning, suffocating dreams regularly. When I first started CPAP things became more ominous, I'm convinced due to settings that really WERE suffocating me. Since then I've had only the rare bad dream, but plenty of bizarre ones regularly. For a while I would check my data when I had a bad dream or woke up like I'd just had an apnea - had so little success matching the timing of the episodes with anything concerning in my data that I quit even looking. Could the dream have been caused by something you were experiencing with your CPAP - sure it could have, but then again, life is full of things that can trigger dreams.

[kneemeister]

Before BiPap I had the same dream about flying like a bird then gravity took over, almost every other night, I also used to have "out of body" day dreams where I was dreaming that I was dreaming and trying to wake myself up if that makes any sense.

Now I just have regular dreams like I had when I was young. Sometimes weird or scary, sometimes just a variation on reality.

[sagesteve]

You can control your dreams to some extent. Here's what to do. As you lie there in your bed, ready for sleep and all hooked up. Program your dream! Think what you would like to dream about. Think about a beginning , a middle and an end. Think about the most pleasant things that make you happy. Once you have decided what dream you want, go over it and over it until you fall asleep. I have done this for years and it works. I have the most wonderful, lucid...Technicolor dreams. Another important fact. You "kinda" want to remember that you had a dream BUT you don't want to remember every detail (if any). If you remember every detail?...it will mean that you didn't sleep deep enough. Again, sleep hygiene is extremely important too and be consistent with the time you go to bed and the time you get up. Hope this helps. I LOOOOOVE to sleep!!! Also BE SURE your equipment is running right...everything.

[roster]

Somebody tell them about REM rebound. I gotta go to lunch.