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You might be wondering "Just what is Complex Sleep Apnea?". I found the following YouTube video that does a great job of explaining Complex Sleep Apnea:

http://youtu.be/CU-XTcfg3M8

Though written by Resmed, it is not product specific. Also, though it is written as if it is for a medical practice, it uses layman's terminology, so most anyone can watch and learn.

And here's how it is recognized during a polysomnograph (PSG) [Sleep Study]:

http://youtu.be/0WpZka7wYow


... Edited to add "Recognizing Complex Sleep Apnea" ...

It would be very interesting to see if any studies have been done to see if there is a correlation between dreaming and central apneas. Some dreams could cause one to hold their breath for 10 seconds or more, especially the ones where you're falling off a cliff...

Issac: I have wondered the same thing. then it occurred to me that it may actually be the other way around. Perhaps you're having Centrals and your brain is trying to explain why it's feeling oxygen deprived. Here come the dreams of drowning, getting caught in an avalanche, falling out of an airplane, etc. I'm still pretty new to all this but I have noticed that since I started therapy, I don't seem to have as many nightmares.

Central apneas often occur during non REM sleep .. not during REM sleep. So they are only loosely associated with dreams.

JohnBFisher wrote:Rested Gal, I decided to add some of my entries to your list. Hope it helps others. . . .

Thanks, John. Those posts are very helpful. Am just now boning up on centrals, which continue to be dominant over my OS by about 3:1 after more than a year on CPAP/APAP. Just found your post after reading some of rested gal's, to whom you referred the reader for more on the topic. What a great job she did.

-- papit

rested gal wrote:First, a link to JohnBFisher's great post about studies and articles about Central Apneas and Complex Sleep Apnea:
viewtopic.php?p=457468#p457468 . . .

Rested gal, you outdid yourself with that beautiful list of central apnea topic links. Was referred to them by a reference in one of John's posts. Am still going through them, but wanted to give you a big thank you for the remarkable job you did. I expect I'll have an appt. with a new sleep doc in a med center soon to see if we can rid or at least reduce my dominant central apneas. I'm still having a sustained ratio of ~3/1 for centrals/obstructives with AHI down to a steady ~12. (Been using the S9 Autoset and the Swift FX pillows mask for over a year now .)

Check out her and John's lists, all you high-Centrals members. Some are a bit dated, but all are very informative.

--papit