"please keep me updated about oximeters "
Sleep Apnea Forum Bringing Power to the Patient
New? Free Sign Up
Then check our Welcome Center to a Community Caring about Sleep Apnea diagnosis and Sleep Apnea treatment:
CPAP machines, Sleep Apnea surgery and dental appliances.
CPAP Supplies
Latest Activity
Lucid Dreams?
Now that I can keep my mask on at night (yeah!), a new issue has arisen...Lucid Dreaming. I am still exhausted and falling asleep at work but now every time I fall asleep (even if it is only for 5 minuets or less) I have very vivid dreams where I am fully aware and able to create and change things within the dream. I believe this is Lucid dreaming. And I am more and more afraid right before I got to sleep at night. (look folks, I'm not a little guy, It takes a lot to make me fearful and it is fear without reason.) And this has messed up my sense of time, big time! During a 12hr shift at work, I fall asleep for 2 minutes while standing up, and while asleep in dream land I experience 4hrs. This means I experience a 16hr shift. This is really strange and I don't really get it. Any thoughts or ideas? Am I crazy or has anyone else had this happen to them? Hmmm... maybe I should lay off the boos for awhile, just kidding folks- I don't drink!
Views: 264
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Mary Z on
-
Those 12 hour shifts are tough. I hope your cpap catches up with you so you won't be falling asleep. As for the lucid dreams- I envy you, been trying to have them for years. Still the time mess up does not sound comfortable. Are you having lucid dreams during your regular sleep time? Is there such a thing as a sleep psychologist?
-
Permalink Reply by Mark on
-
lol, um...yes every time i fall asleep it happens- but they are not happy dreams. Well not until i change them that is. I work 80 hrs a week. I don't think there is a "psychologist" that will help my crazy self. :^P
Mary Z said:Those 12 hour shifts are tough. I hope your cpap catches up with you so you won't be falling asleep. As for the lucid dreams- I envy you, been trying to have them for years. Still the time mess up does not sound comfortable. Are you having lucid dreams during your regular sleep time? Is there such a thing as a sleep psychologist?
-
Permalink Reply by sleepycarol on
-
Sounds like you work the crazy hours my hubby does!!! He often works 80 to 100 hours per week. Check stubs can verify this.
He doesn't have the dreaming you do though -- it is me that experiences these "weird" dreams. I am really tired the next day and blame it when it happens on the dreams. The dreams don't necessarily expand time, just really active and vivid. I remember them when I wake up. I have wondered what a dream analysis would show :).
Thankfully I don't have them but 2 or 3 times a week. :)
-
-
well it's kinda cool i guess, it's just scary- like living in 2 worlds.
Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream "Neuroscience J. Allan Hobson has hypothesized what might be occurring in the brain while lucid. The first step to lucid dreaming is recognizing that one is dreaming. This recognition might occur in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is one of the few areas deactivated during REM sleep and where working memory occurs. Once this area is activated and the recognition of dreaming occurs, the dreamer must be cautious to let the dream delusions continue but be conscious enough to recognize them. While maintaining this balance, the amygdala and parahippocampal cortex might be less intensely activated. To continue the intensity of the dream hallucinations, it is expected the pons and the parieto-occipital junction stay active."
Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_apnea#Central_sleep_apnea
"Physiologic effects of central apnea: During central apneas, the central respiratory drive is absent, and the brain does not respond to changing blood levels of the respiratory gases. No breath is taken despite the normal signals to inhale. The immediate effects of central sleep apnea on the body depend on how long the failure to breathe endures. At worst, central sleep apnea may cause sudden death. Short of death, drops in blood oxygen may trigger seizures, even in the absence of epilepsy. In people with epilepsy, the hypoxia caused by apnea may trigger seizures that had previously been well controlled by medications[verification needed]. In other words, a seizure disorder may become unstable in the presence of sleep apnea. In adults with coronary artery disease, a severe drop in blood oxygen level can cause angina, arrhythmias, or heart attacks (myocardial infarction). Longstanding recurrent episodes of apnea, over months and years, may cause an increase in carbon dioxide levels that can change the pH of the blood enough to cause a metabolic acidosis."
The brain is an interesting thing, I wonder if I have Mixed Sleep Apnea and not just OSA. Or maybe it's narcoleptic related. Any thoughts?
sleepycarol said:Sounds like you work the crazy hours my hubby does!!! He often works 80 to 100 hours per week. Check stubs can verify this.
He doesn't have the dreaming you do though -- it is me that experiences these "weird" dreams. I am really tired the next day and blame it when it happens on the dreams. The dreams don't necessarily expand time, just really active and vivid. I remember them when I wake up. I have wondered what a dream analysis would show :).
Thankfully I don't have them but 2 or 3 times a week. :)
-
Permalink Reply by RockRpsgt on
-
Have you been tested for narcolepsy? I just read that you were waiting on the results to find out if you were narcoleptic. How long have you been on PAP?
-
-
I have been known to have crazy reocurring dreams that can go on for days. Due to my shedule i am usually carrying some sleep deprivation around with me. For this reason I will sometimes sleep 10-12 hours at a time. Adding an extra sleep cycle or 2 in the morning hours greatly affects the amount of REM sleep I get. I attribute this for the crazy dream patterns that I have.
I read fantasy, mystery, and medical research. I read way to much for a person with an active imagination. Since beginning my sleep training almost all of my dreams have become lucid. I have fun with it. One of the most useful dream tools that I have learned is the ability to wake myself up. If you could learn this ability it may help you cope while your ridding yourself of sleep debt. It is not an easy process. I hear it is different for everyone. Overcoming the fear of it not working is probably the hardest part. Sleep paralysis plays a big role in this anxiety.
-
-
I guess I should probably tell you how I wake myself up. I learned this from a post on binary on lucid dreaming. Anyway you have to wear a watch or have some kind of timepiece for this to work. When you are dreaming your mind has no concept of time.Start checking the time as much as you can when you are awake. I mean everytime you think about it until it becomes habit. Once it becomes habit make it more difficult. Put your clock in your pocket, turn your watch around on your wrist. make it so that this habit requires some effort. Finally when you check the time in your sleep it will wake you up.
I believe that this experiment was first initiated by Stephen LaBerge.
In real life my dog is always with me. It is natural that he is also generally in my dreams. Only he is almost always as big as a horse. i ride him and everything. When the clock thing does not work my dog bites me to wake me up. I have never figured this one out as my dog is not a biter. It is one of the few things in my dreams that I have no control over.
-
Permalink Reply by John Krainik on
-
Mark,
Your comment to my response on the "take it off" discussion was:
" My prescription is for a 25 setting, the CPAP will only do 20, and they said that my sleep study was nuts, I am trying to get my results. I will keep you posted."
My first thought is that you are only using your CPAP at 16 cwp. According to your response, the doctor prescribed 25 cwp. It is good that you got your ramp problem straightened out. But you stated in the last discussion that your wife said your snoring is better than it was. Problem is, you are still snoring. My guess is that you need the pressure determined during the titration study. It sounds like the 16 cwp just isn't enough pressure. If you don't use the CPAP at the proper pressure, then you will still suffer the effects of untreated sleep disordered breathing, and you ARE describing the signs and symptoms.
Many people report that they start dreaming again when they start CPAP. In your situation I would bet that your CPAP is high enough to allow deeper sleep than you were used to, but not enough to treat all of your disordered breathing. The result is broken sleep and the skewed sense of time you are experiencing. Once you start sleeping the night through, you will see the effects of the broken sleep you describe, disappear.
My best suggestion is to get the pressure situation straightened out. Many CPAP machines only go to 20 cwp. Talk to your DME provider. They should be able to arrange for a machine that will provide your needs.
-
Permalink Reply by Banyon on
-
Mark said: Lucid dreams .... not happy dreams ....
Mark,
What is happening to you is an excellent indication of good therapy. When I started CPAP, I went through the same thing - many vivid dreams and many of them unpleasant. Many other beginning CPAPers report the same thing.
Here is what is going on. Prior to CPAP you had many respiratory related arousals (RERAs) which caused you to get very little REM sleep (and maybe very little sleep at all). Now these arousals are being greatly reduced by CPAP and you are experiencing what some call "REM rebound".
When transitioning from a state of little REM sleep to a state of good sleep, the portion of time spent in REM sleep will be unusually high. The most dreams occur during REM sleep and people are more likely to remember dreams that occur during REM sleep. REM rebound can last a few nights and some people report it lasts for weeks.
What can help a person with the fear is, first, knowledge that REM rebound is a normal, healthy experience; second, understanding that everyone's dreams are strange by one standard or another: and third, knowing that the amount, vividness and strangeness of the dreams will subside in time.
I had been sleep deprived for a long time and it took several weeks before the dreams subsided. Fortunately I was informed about REM rebound and kept telling myself it was normal and would eventually go away.
Some people like to record their dreams in a journal. (My real life is so strange and wonderful that I didn't take the time to record the dreams. :))
Here is a mention of REM rebound - http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/sleep_deprivatio...
-
Permalink Reply by D. W. Conn on
-
Mark,
Usually the Lucid and vivid dreams will pass after a while.
Make sure you follow up with your MD. Tell Her/him about the constant dreaming. All thought this is very normal and expected. I am concerned that you continue to have micro-sleep and dream.
Make sure your getting as close to 8 hours of sleep as possible.
Talk to the Physician about the possibility of an MSLT or MWT exam. Also maybe a re-titration of your nPAP. There are medications that can help.
There is also the issue of weight. If you are overweight maybe think about shedding a few pounds.
My benefits of CPAP greatly improved once I began to drop some weight. My case was being 5’ 6” and topping out at 260 or so pounds made my OSA much worse and harder to treat.
-
Permalink Reply by bonesigh on
-
I don't know much about this but I saw a documentary on sleep (think it was a NOVA program) and they did a study where they woke someone up during different stages of REM dreaming. They said we used to think that we only dream in REM but found there was another stage of dream sleep. The patient was awoke in the two stages. He filled out a questionaire. During one stage all his answers were positive and uplifting. In the other stage all the answers were negative. They believe that it is necessary to have both stages of dream sleep. They believe that some people only dream in the negative stage and they say that this may be a main cause of depression.
I know for me that I never have good dreams. There is always some element of anxiety or danger, etc. I've had a handful of lucid dreams. What really made me take note of not having good dreams was the show I mentioned and that I recently had a part of a dream that felt good and happy and, well I just can't really explain it in words, it was so alien to experience. I'll never forget that dream or the feeling inside it. I don't know why I dream this way. I currently have a pretty good life. Well except for the OSA and Plantar Fasciitis. I'm doing well with apnea therapy now though it was a long road to go down. Stay strong Mark and hopefully this will all work out for you soon.
© 2025 Created by The SleepGuide Crew.
Powered by
