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Has CPAP helped with nightmares and "harsh awakenings"?
#11
RE: Has CPAP helped with nightmares and "harsh awakenings"?
Hello. i have similar symptoms. I had nighmares and vivid dreams before being diagnosed but after one year of bipap use the situation is the same. My sleep is terrible, full of vivid dreams so I cannot rest. I still think it has to do with the apnea. but i dont know
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#12
RE: Has CPAP helped with nightmares and "harsh awakenings"?
(06-18-2013, 07:37 PM)archangleçççHello. You mean you can have the cpap and have the terrible nightmares. SOmeone asked me to see my ahis. According to the resmed 10 I barely have. (if I trust it, i dont know if its good or bad and it is what i see on the machine itself). But my dream is very bad with vivid dreams. I also had a dream monitor in a private hospital with bipap and even my apneas were zero, my dream efficiency was real bad. Wrote: I believe I had my CPAP set wrong in the past.  Once I got it right, I've tinkered with it and gotten it adjusted a bit better.

I would sometimes have panicky, sudden wakening dreams.  They seem to have been much worse when my CPAP was badly misadjusted and got less and less as I adjusted it better.  Sometimes they were suffocation or claustrophobia related dreams.  

I'm firmly convinced that some of the bad dreams I had in the past were caused by apnea when I didn't have my  CPAP set right.  I even find that I have fewer of this particular panicky type dream with abrupt wakening when I increase my minimum pressure a bit above where my AHI essentially goes to zero.  

However, on the other hand, many apneas find out that they do dream more vividly or at least remember their dreams more vividly.  This seems to be true both for good and for bad dreams.

If you have a good CPAP machine with data collection, you can check your data and see if you were having breathing problems just before you woke up.
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#13
RE: Has CPAP helped with nightmares and "harsh awakenings"?
Before I got a CPAP, every time I woke up my heart was pounding and I woke up very startled and mad.

Now with a CPAP, every time I wake up I feel super peaceful and soft. It's quite amazing!

I've slept without my CPAP only one night since getting it (about 6 months in, I just totally forgot to put the mask on when I went to bed), and that morning I woke up startled and with a pounding heart. It made me realize just how much abuse my heart has received due to untreated sleep apnea.

With regard to dreams... Before I got my CPAP, I had a variety of dreams (I had nightmares once a week to once a month.) Once I got my CPAP, I started having crazy and vivid dreams. After a month or so, my body seemed to have adjusted, and now I hardly have dreams. I think I've only had 1 or 2 nightmares in the year I've had my CPAP.
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