Sleep study - no dreams while on back

[Mainemagoo]

The sleep study tech advised me I had a good nights sleep with he cpap mask on but they did not see me dreaming on my back. I only dreamt on my side.

Is that bad or just a fact?

I'm not sure how to interpret this information.

[Julie]

It's a fact that back sleeping provokes many more apneas. Now, if you're someone whose mask leaks very little while on your back and your stats look good and you feel fine, it may not be a problem, but for many people it is one. Not dreaming, or possibly having too vivid and violent dreams can be signs of untreated apnea (or e.g. a leaky mask), while 'regular' dreaming is not.

[robysue]

The sleep study tech advised me I had a good nights sleep with he cpap mask on but they did not see me dreaming on my back. I only dreamt on my side.

Is that bad or just a fact?

Just a fact.

But it may have some implications for your CPAP's setting.

Some people need a bit more pressure if they are in REM. Some people need a bit more pressure when they are sleeping on their backs. Hence, some people need more pressure to manage the OSA when they hit REM sleep while sleeping on their backs.

As a result, the techs and sleep docs really like to see some REM supine sleep during the titration study. But they also know that they're not always going get data from REM supine sleep. And when they don't see any REM supine sleep on a titration study, there's always a chance that the recommended pressure setting may be too low to handle the OSA in REM supine sleep.

So once you start CPAP, you need to watch the data. If you start seeing a lot of clusters of events that occur at times when you might be in REM, that may mean that your titration study resulted in an undertitration due to no REM supine sleep. If this happens, the fix is easy enough: a slight increase in the pressure is usually enough to take care of the problem

[chunkyfrog]

Dreaming only while on your side may not be meaningful, except that the tech found it unusual.
Ask the doctor; who should know.
Remember, this was only one night, and what happened that night may not be typical for you.