OT: Dreams involving CPAP or sleep docs

Not quite sure what to make of it, but twice in the last two weeks I have had two very vivid dreams involving CPAP of machines or sleep docs.

A couple of weeks back I dreamed that I was the invited speaker at some kind of national meeting for sleep medicine professionals---sleep docs, their PAs, the RTs, etc. I was given 50 minutes to speak to them about a variety of issues including a patient's perspective on why compliance rates are so low with PAP therapy, what it's like to use a PAP machine night after night when you are dealing with an extended and difficult adjustment period, what quality patient education and support would actually look like, and how little education and support most of us receive when we're given our machines. The audience for the talk was rapt with attention. At the end during the Q&A period there were gobs of questions, often preceded with remarks like, "I never dreamed that CPAP could be so disruptive ..."

And last night I dreamed that Dr. Next Sleep Doc (who has NOT yet been selected) insisted on a new diagnostic sleep study as part of his initial consult me. And then I dreamed of the sleep study itself: A sleep study where I actually slept well for the entire night. And then going back to Dr. Next Sleep Doc for the interpreted results: Dr. Next Sleep Doc hands me the condensed graphs and states: "I don't think you've got OSA. Look at that event table---there's nothing there; you had no apneas or hypopneas or any other respiratory events. So stop the CPAP and see how you feel ...."

Clearly my unconscious mind still has some issues with this diagnosis and treatment even after a full year of therapy.

Anybody else ever dream of sleep docs or their PAP machines?

robysue wrote:Anybody else ever dream of sleep docs or their PAP machines?

It's bad enough that I have to wear one (mask), but dream of one, or sleep doc who happens to be a woman... NO!

I have had nightmares about FORGETTING MY CPAP machine and having to fly back home and pick it up.

robysue wrote:Clearly my unconscious mind still has some issues with this diagnosis.
Anybody else ever dream of sleep docs or their PAP machines?

Cpap has brought me a wonderful world of dreams.
I look forward to going to bed every night,
with wonder and antisipation of where my dreams will take me.
Clearly, my unconscious mind is lov'n cpap.....
as is my brain.....and my body.

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Funny.
I had many dreams before PAP--most disturbing, frustrating and extremely strenuous, waking me breathless many times a night.
I do dream now, sometimes about work. (yuck)--fortunately, not often.
I don't remember most of my dreams, but I remember I was dreaming something. . .
Is this symptomatic of "old-timers' disease"?
Or am I just sleeping too well to recall my dreams?
I can live with that.

Lately, I've been dreaming that I am scuba diving. (Duh!) Nothing about my doc or PAPpy, but plenty of revenge fantasies featuring my Resp Ther, who keeps acting offended when I say I am still not sleeping well or feeling terriffic.

BlackSpinner wrote:I have had nightmares about FORGETTING MY CPAP machine and having to fly back home and pick it up.

Even with all the trouble I've had adjusting to CPAP, I have to admit that I'd hate to forget the CPAP on a trip. And dreaming about such a thing would be a bad dream.

chunkyfrog wrote:Funny.
I had many dreams before PAP--most disturbing, frustrating and extremely strenuous, waking me breathless many times a night.

Pre-CPAP I had a very vivid--as in Technicolor and Dolby Surround Sound---dream life. Almost always wierd and only very, very seldom disturbing. I'd remember a dream about once a week or so. I'd wake up knowing I'd been dreaming (and vividly) almost every morning even though I couldn't remember the dreams. And on the days when I woke up feeling as though I'd not been dreaming, those were typically days that I felt at my worst.

Pre-CPAP, I never once woke up breathless or with a sense of drowning. On the very rare genuine nightmare I'd wake up with my heart pounding. But we're talking about waking up that way once every year or two. Hardly enough to count as recurring. Although way back in college I did have a two week string of genuine nightly nightmares which triggered my first major bout of insomnia as an adult. They vanished almost as quickly as they started. And cleaning up my sleep hygiene a bit took care of the residual insomnia. (That was when I learned to NOT watch the clock at night.)

Pre-CPAP, I did have one recurring dream that would wake me up several times a year: I would be jogging in a very heavy, pea-soup fog: As in I literally could not see my feet or the ground that I was jogging on. And I'd trip and jerk awake before I'd hit the ground in the dream. In these dreams I was never running away from something in fear: No, I was merely jogging along and I'd trip and I'd jerk myself awake. I'd wake up startled and feeling a bit shocked. But not out of breath. And I'd be able to settle back down reasonably quickly unless my leg was cramping up. Haven't had this one yet on CPAP. And I'm dreading the first time it happens since that is one thing that really could jerk Kaa off the night table.

I do dream now, sometimes about work. (yuck)--fortunately, not often.
I don't remember most of my dreams, but I remember I was dreaming something. . .
Is this symptomatic of "old-timers' disease"?
Or am I just sleeping too well to recall my dreams?
I can live with that.

Right after starting CPAP I did have a series of very disturbing dreams---the worst was the stuffed goose dream that I wrote about here. And I also had several dreams where I jerked awake feeling like I was unable to breathe. Most disturbing and unlike anything I'd ever experienced pre-CPAP.

Then there was a long period of several months where I was waking up feeling like I was not dreaming at all during the night or not dreaming enough during the night. And this period corresponded to my darkest, most dysfunctional period of maladjustment: I'd wake up exhausted feeling like a zombie. I felt as though my mind had gotten no rest even though I'd been unconscious with the mask on my nose for 6 or 7 hours. And I most definitely felt as though I was not dreaming. And I don't mean just the experience of not remembering my dreams, but rather I mean I'd wake up with that nasty feeling from pre-CPAP on the mornings after a night where I'd felt like I'd done no dreaming at all. I can't prove it obviously, but I really do think that during Oct and Nov of 2010 I was getting little or no REM sleep even though I was using the machine every night, all night long.

After switching to a biPAP and starting the organized War on Insomnia, I slowly started dreaming again. I certainly don't remember as many dreams as I did pre-CPAP, and I do miss that. But I am now dreaming again in full Technicolor and Dolby Surround Sound---when I remember the dreams. And I'm waking up more often than not with the old, familiar and welcome feeling that during the night I've been doing some pretty intense full color dreaming and, as a consequence, I wake up feeling like my brain has had a chance to rejuvenate itself during the night.

I dreamt several weeks ago that my hose and mask were filled with some nasty mold organism. The hose and mask were just filled with orange moss/vomit-looking stuff. Creepy as hell! I know I do have anxiety about mold in the hose. I've read here that some people routinely clean the hose and others do not. I'd prefer to clean mine, but worry that in the time it would take to dry out inside, mold might grow. It does love plastic, and our house has mold and mildew in the kitchen and bathroom, so it would be a short trip to the candy shop.

Sometime in the past few months, I've woken up laughing at something in a dream. But I couldn't remember what: darn! When the muscles of my face shifted when I laughed, the mask started leaking and woke me up.