Dreaming

[ozalchemist]

Something I have noticed, especially as I come up on my first anniversaty of APAP...

I DREAM.... I always used to dream, but they were disjointed, brief affairs, quickly forgotten.

Now I have detailed, complicated, benign (i.e. unstressfull) dreams, and remember them in detail he next day.

I presume this is a result of finally experiencing a proper REM patter, but has anybody else experienced this?

[hades161]

For me at least, dreaming is a marker of success.

When I started treatment from an apnea index of 67.5, apnea/hypopnea index of 116.4, and desaturations occur to 57% with a mean saturation of 85%. Now I have my AHI down to 3.0 or less.

I didn't dream hardly at all that I could remember. Once I started Xpap treatment, I started dreaming again. I have found that at least for me the better I dream the more rested I feel. After tweaking my treatment over the past year, I found that as things improved so did my ability to remember them and the dreams themselves got better, more clear, less muddy, more in focus.

I am a lucid dreamer but for a long time during the tweaking stages I found dreaming almost to be a strain, like one of those dreams you struggle to stay in but end up waking from. For a long time I was having that feeling all the time. Now that most of my tweaking is done though, I find that dreaming is the pleasure it was back when I was much much younger.

So to me if the numbers are good and the dreams are going well, I think your treatment is most likely working or well on its way to getting there.

GL and Sleep Well

[Captain_Midnight]

O-Chemist writes...

Now I have detailed, complicated, benign (i.e. unstressfull) dreams, and remember them in detail he next day.

I presume this is a result of finally experiencing a proper REM patter, but has anybody else experienced this?

Precisely.

My dreams during OSA were very often turbulent, fragmented, peril-filled, nonsensical, scattered snips, often nightmarish, and occasionally terror-filled. My worst ones put my into claustrophobic situations, yuk. I had no idea that OSA hypoxia was responsible. Bad dreams were apparently part of a defense mechanism to wake me up when I was not breathing.

One of my first signs of CPAP therapy success was the more user-friendly, sustained, and pleasant dreams. I don't remember many, unless I'm awakened before the end of a sleep cycle, but I do love the difference now.

Regards all - - Tom