Nightmares...maybe REM isn't such a good thing

That's a good idea. I have probably been going to be too 'full' far too often.

Elle wrote:My sleep study (2006) showed that I needed a pressure of 10. My machine until last december was set wrong (8) and I didn't find out until I got the S9 that I required a higher pressure. I gained weight so am not surprised. I have it set 9-14 and my 95% is 13+ I don't often get to the 14 mark so I think it is ok. I may figure out how to change it to go in the range of 10-14. Not sure that will make a difference.

That means that it has tried to go higher then 13+. Maybe you need to open the top range to 16. If it can't get high enough during REM you will get events.

It doesn't go to 14 though so I don't think I need it higher. Also, I have good AHI rates. Usually under 2. I wish I was lucid enough to put it all together. I can't seem to make a connection to AHI, leak rates, quality of sleep, nightmares.

For example I had a crappy sleep last night (or at least it seemed to be except I woke up not too tired) but I had only one event (which really doesn't even qualify as an event I think since it was a CA for 10 seconds.

I just got my first replacement machine after seven years and a lowering of pressure from 14 to 10. I realized the second night that I had dreamed and had not been doing so for quite a while. I now wake in the morning on my own when it's time for me to get up as opposed to DH having to shake me and sic the dog on me to get up. I was worried the lower pressure would make problems but these are good changes.

I had a terrible nightmare right before I woke up this morning. Search the forum for "REM rebound". Basically, you're brain is trying to catch up on REM sleep. I've been on CPAP three weeks and this is the first really bad nightmare I've had.

That is interesting about "REM rebound". Thank you.

Last night it wasn't a nightmare but I was quite worried during and after waking because the dream was about me trying to convince Obama that sleeping with Oprah would not win him the election. I was extremely frustrated in the dream since I was hired to help him (not sure how) and he was determined that this would help and I couldn't get through to him.

I was on cpap for a while until I had dreams again.

You do have to remember that we are all different. It may take some of us months before our bodies and minds can relax and dream and others may have that happen much faster.

My solution for a nightmare:
It's MY dream.
I'm the writer, actor, and director.
If I wake up and the show is not to my liking, I rewind and do a mulligan.

When I was a kid I used Lucid Dreaming to overcome the occasional nightmare. It worked but I havnt had a good lucid draem in many years.

I believe that the following video demonstrates the latest scientifically recommended method for stopping nightmares:

http://www.wimp.com/stopnightmare/

jnk wrote:I believe that the following video demonstrates the latest scientifically recommended method for stopping nightmares:

http://www.wimp.com/stopnightmare/

Adorable! I can hear everyone going AHHH!!

I believe that all dreams are actually "repeaters". Our minds go over and over common unresolved issuesin our lives and when you examine the content, they are "About" something that is usually an ongoing lifelong battle of some sort.

Some people, myself included, really struggle with night battles, or for some people night terrors. I suspect it is partly because a small percentage of people have an intermediate sleep state in which theyre almost half awake. Then they can literally act out their dreams and they seem more intensely vivid.

THese kinds of sufferers awaken and for several minutes cant really tell what reality is: the dream, or their wake state.

Theory aside, what to do about it? For one thing, examine your serotonin levels, your chemical intake, your food intake, particularly after dinner. It could be something as obscure as a bad mixture of meds, or an allergy to MSG or aspartame. Im a big believer that those two chemicals are poisons.

It could also be a milk or peanut allergy. Hard to say. But chemicals and stress definitely affect these things, as obviously does your overall 02 and c02 levels as they vary during the night.

Some drugs induce nightmares. My wife takes propranolol, a common beta blocker. She had to wean off of it for testing at the Mayo Clinic and at the end of the testing we met with a genius neurologist that said to her, "You are sleeping much better now, no nightmares, correct?" My wife said, "Oh my God, yes! How did you know!". He said propranolol crosses the blood-brain boundary and disturbs sleep and causes nightmares. We now have a clue why her Zeo brainwaves look like she's in pain when she sleeps, much differently than mine.

My dreams after starting APAP are less frequent and less severe. I have more apnea events during REM and before APAP I would wake frequently, locking the dream into my memory. The dreams back then were more severe because I was being Apnea-strangled in my sleep. Now on APAP I sleep through the REM more often and so don't remember them, they are not as severe and I don't remember as much detail as before.

I second what nanwilson says about the too spicy food before bedtime. Booze can do it, too. The last time I had a little too much wine before bedtime, I had a bad dream that the brakes in my car wouldn't work.

Elle wrote:What worried me were the body responses post bad dream. I had a racing heart and had a hard time setting down all day.

If you had an apneic event during REM sleep/nightmare, it could have been the event and not the nightmare itself that woke you up. I have no physical explanation for the hard time settling down though.

I could never remember my dreams--for years and years--except a lot of dreams about drowning. I must have been not just severely sleep-deprived but severely REM-deprived during the "lost years" before diagnosis. The moment they slapped a mask on me during my sleep study I started experiencing REM rebound. It was fascinating. I was almost sorry when it settled down.