Used to dream before cpap, now it's rare. Is this a problem?

[jzak423]

Before I was treated for my OSA, I used to dream very vividly and would remember them in great detail. Now that I'm on cpap, I don't remember as much. Does this mean that I'm never hitting REM on cpap? Should I be concerned?

Sometimes I miss those wacky dreams of mine.

[Tracy]

The same happened to me. Prediagnosis and treatment, I often dreamed of drowning or falling........

I asked several docs over the years why I dont dream any more and they all said the same thing, " you are dreaming, you just dont remember them"

I've had 14 sleep studies over the 15 years on bipap and this is confirmed in the sleep lab titrations......I do spend the appropriate time in REM.

I guess not remembering dreams is better than the old nightmares I used to have!

Tracy

[CarrieK]

I dream still, but less often (I was just putting that down to getting older).

I used to have horrible nightmares almost every night, then at least every week I'd be woken by a really bad one that would make the whole next day seem 'wrong'.

Since I've been on cpap I haven't had any of the really bad ones, and I've only had one of the others.

I give my cpap full credit for that and I think it's one of the major things that has kept me compliant.

Yes, I miss having more good dreams, but I've always been good at day dreams !

Carrie

[rested gal]

My unprofessional opinion: Assuming that you are indeed having REM, I think not remembering your dreams is a good thing. Peaceful uninterrupted sleep during REM, even if it means not remembering the dreams.

As CarrieK says:

quote

Quote:

Yes, I miss having more good dreams, but I've always been good at day dreams !

I miss remembering them. I hope I'm still having them. Day dreams..,yesss!!

[ October 16, 2004: Message edited by: rested gal ]

[snork1]

from my completely non-professional understanding.....
A couple of things can happen to dreaming related to CPAP.
1) you can never get into REM sleep from Apnea and then not have anything to remember.
2) To remember a dream, you usually have to wake up immediately following the dream. So if you are sleeping soundly and gradually transitioning from deep REM, by the time you "emerge" from sleep, you have forgotten the dream.
3) There are those of us that are getting CPAP to only marginally work and therefore barely get into REM sleep on a good night,before popping awake again for whatever reason. So we get more REM than we used to and wake up fast enough that it seems we are dreaming a LOT more.

Thats my theory anyway.

[<Lucky>]

I agree with points 2 and 3 that Snork1 has said. This is also what has been advised to me by my sleep Doctor, and he put it so simply it made perfect sense:

when you come out of rem to fast, you remember what you were dreaming about, wether it is apnea's or not that are bringing you out of REM fast enough that you remember; only a sleep study will properly tell.