recurring nightmare, is it really about apnea?

I was telling my wife about a frequent recurring nightmare i had as a kid, starting when I was about 8 years old. I used to have this dream about 10-20 times a year. She had an interpretation that never occurred to me.

Basically the nightmare went like this:
I wake up in my bedroom. It is be pretty dark, but not pitch. I go to turn on the bedside lamp and the light doesn't work. So i get out of bed to turn on the room light and it's not working either. I think this is strange. Then I go to open the door and my bedroom door is locked. Then I begin to panic. I try to scream and voice is weak and nothing comes out. Suddenly something big grabs me from behind and starts to strangle me. Its all black, faceless or masked, more monstrous than human, like 10 feet tall. I struggle to get away but I can't get free, the more I struggle the stronger the hold. I can feel myself smothering and everything fades to black... I wake up in my bedroom. It is be pretty dark, but not pitch. I go to turn on the bedside lamp and the light doesn't work. So i get out of bed to turn on the room light and it's not working either. I think this is strange.... (you get the idea-- the nightmare would repeat three or four times). It was horrifying, eventually i'd wake up and I knew it was finally the real world.

Anyhow, after my wife heard it she said "Maybe you were actually having apneas, and that was you mind's reaction to your body's struggle to breathe".

That hit me like a lightning bolt. Of Course!

But then, at the same time, it got me a little down. I thought, what if I'd had sleep apnea even as a child? Why didn't my parents recognize it?
In my late teens, I learned how to control the nightmare using lucid dreaming techniques. It took practice, but I trained myself to wake up when I tried the second light and it didn't work. I haven't had the dream again since 2004.

Well, what do you think?
Your feedback is appreciated.

lebowski8 wrote:I haven't had the dream again since 2004.

Is that when you started your CPAP therapy?

Dreams are such a guessing game, but after journaling several dozen dreams I believe were sleep apnea induced, your theory about yours sounds logical to me, every piece of it. By the way, how long have you been on cpap?

Did you have a lot of tonsil trouble as a child, or is your jaw structure obviously narrow? I don't know how old you are, but an awareness of obstructive sleep apnea in kids is fairly new. My daughter snored horribly and had chronic ear infections and allergies, and at age nine she had her tonails and adenoids out. Nobody mentioned a possiblility of sleep apnea, they were just concerned about her ears and everpresent nasal congestion. I doubt your parents had any way of knowing to even suspect a problem if there was one. I'm just glad to not have been born a generation ago.

bailachel wrote:

lebowski8 wrote:I haven't had the dream again since 2004.

Is that when you started your CPAP therapy?

No, 2004 happens to be the last time i remember having that dream. I didn't get the OSA diagnosis until April 2009. Having said that, as my apnea got worse, dreaming got harder and harder to remember. Until getting the CPAP, then suddenly dreaming got really incredible again.

kteague wrote: Did you have a lot of tonsil trouble as a child, or is your jaw structure obviously narrow?

I'm not sure if it was any worse than other kids. My mom says they were terrible, but i don't know how you can compare. My father, a dentist, has said i have a combination of a smaller jaw, bigger neck, and larger tongue-- but he never studied OSA. The sleep doc looked at mouth & throat and said i had an rather small airway opening (and then scheduled me for the overnight sleep study)

Happy Birthday, Lebowski8 !!!!!

Ditto -- happy birthday!

Sure sounds like the brain trying to get you to wake up and breathe.

lebowski8 wrote:I was telling my wife about a frequent recurring nightmare i had as a kid, starting when I was about 8 years old. I used to have this dream about 10-20 times a year.

In speaking with my RT during my 2nd Sleep Study (w/CPAP) we talked about this. He stated that it is a very common thing for OSA sufferers to have dreams like this.

My dream, when I was a kid, was being in a swiftly moving river and struggling to stay above the water, then holding my breath and still unable to break the surface until I would wake up.

I agree, both dreams sound just like an apnea event.

lebowski8

Dreams are magic space

It was Freud who called them 'the royal highway to knowledge of the unconscious aspect of the mind'. Still today that seems a pretty good summary.

As I understand it, many psychologists & psychiatrists regard dreams as the human brain's way of passing messages to the conscious mind (memory of the dream) but so often bound up in symbols & images. The imagery is typically transmuted (e.g. instead of dreaming of being unable to breathe due to an apnea, we may dream we are unable to breathe because an 'evil' creature is strangling us). Images are easier for the mind to conjure up than cold hard factual detail. The images are usually highly charged with emotion which underpins the experience in our memory ('evil' (emotion) creature rather than say an image of a blocking throat (image of factual detail)).

So, yes I think your wife sounds like a good and intuitive dream therapist

There are some great techniques for exploring the emotion attached to the imagery. But that would take a lot of work. One famous therapist who pioneered one such technique (a part of his practice of 'Gestalt Therapy') was Frits Perls (long since deceased). But he was one cool therapist in this area.

DSM

Fritz Perls & Gestalt Therapy & Dream Analysis
http://www.here-be-dreams.com/psychology/perls.html

More about the Gestalt approach
http://spiritualblog.com/2407/gestalt-d ... ion-method

I've often had the lights don't work and its dark dream.....that's why I try to keep my home brightly lit, and hate dark places, etc.

The Dreamer.

Your parents would be hard pressed to get a reliable diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing in their kid NOW, let alone when you were a kid. It seems there's no agreement about how to measure it in kids.

thanks for the replies and the birthday wishes