Does sleep apnea cause nightmares and bad dreams? Does CPAP alleviate that?

I got a personal question.

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately. I don't know if it's due to the Coronavirus stress or not. But even before that event, I had a lot of frequent nightmares. I don't know if it's midlife crisis or unresolved subconscious issues or whatever. They cause a lot of anxiety during sleep though, since they usually involve bad dreams where I'm lost or naked or back in school where I feel out of place or can't find my classes or can't keep up with the homework, etc.

But I was wondering, could nightmares and bad dreams also be due to sleep apnea? Is sleep apnea known to cause that? Did any of you have bad dreams and nightmares while you had sleep apnea? If so, did they go away after you started using CPAP? Can any of you share your experiences on that?

Thanks.

Big yes! And they changed to nice 'social' dreams after going on Cpap.

WWu777 wrote: ↑

Fri May 08, 2020 6:51 am

But I was wondering, could nightmares and bad dreams also be due to sleep apnea? Is sleep apnea known to cause that? Did any of you have bad dreams and nightmares while you had sleep apnea? If so, did they go away after you started using CPAP? Can any of you share your experiences on that?

Thanks.

Sleep apnea causes you to be suffocated in your sleep, that'll cause all sorts of nightmares as your brain freaks out, so, yes, it's a fairly common thing, and yes, they went away for me.

Most definitely YES.
The big clue was that most of my pre-cpap nightmares were primarily effort-centered.
Running, climbing stairs, desperately trying to accomplish impossible tasks--
all while feeling very, very winded.
Even as a child, I remember dreaming about running for my life,
or trying to catch a hundred runaway chickens.

Wow..funny to read this actually. I thought it was just me.

If I fall asleep without my CPAP on (yes, I know I know), I have very stressful dreams. I can't always remember these dreams, but it usually deals with some sort of conflict, argument, screwing up my job, etc type of dreams. I wake up relieved it was just a dream. With my CPAP, my dreams are usually not stressful at all and I wake up feeling good.

For me it's seems like the brain's way of trying to keep you from forgetting to breathe. As a kid, I would wake up because I'd heard someone call my name, usually a parent or other relative of authority. Of course nobody had called my name. "It was just a dream. Back to sleep." After a while that stopped working, so my brain became more creative, offering startling scenes, vivid black-light imagery, flying, falling... Then that stopped working, so bad dreams, suffocation, drowning, bleeding, etc. It seemed like as I got older my brain continued to find more creative, startling, horrifying ways for me to wake up. That pretty much stopped with CPAP. It also made me realize what was happening. I started to think, well, maybe if my brain could come up with funny ways to wake me up, or startling ways that don't involve monsters, falling, etc., that might be more useful and less obnoxious.

I still get some bad dreams, but as often as not, I'll wake up these days laughing at something ridiculous that happened in a dream.

Chris

In my late forties/early fifties I felt like I was dreaming all night long, and the dreams were often frustrating, not good dreams but not nightmares either.

Within about 6 months of being on CPAP I started to no longer recall dreams. I think it was once I had adjusted to sleeping with the mask on etc. and I started waking up less and less at night.

On the odd occasions when I have not used my CPAP in the past few years the dreams come back immediately, a reminder of how it was.

So to answer your question, yes, successful CPAP treatment alleviates my recall of dreams, resulting in much more restful sleep. Since I no longer recall my dreams I don't know if their content has changed nor do I care. Sleep is so much more peaceful now.

WWu777 wrote: ↑

Fri May 08, 2020 6:51 am

But I was wondering, could nightmares and bad dreams also be due to sleep apnea? Is sleep apnea known to cause that? Did any of you have bad dreams and nightmares while you had sleep apnea? If so, did they go away after you started using CPAP? Can any of you share your experiences on that?

I sometimes had stressful dreams before cpap... and I sometimes have them now. More people say once they started cpap the stressful dreams stopped, but mine didn't. Stayed exactly the same. I've always had vivid dreams and still do.

My advice is to buy a cheap night vision camera off an online marketplace and record yourself. As a suffer from epilepsy + sleep apnea my biggest mistake was not recording from the start. I wasted years finding a medication to treat my epilepsy only to find out it wasn't the reason for my insomia.

Good luck in your search.