Nightmares and Night Terrors on the CPAP

I have mild OSA. Since starting on the CPAP (about two weeks ago) every single night that I have used my CPAP machine (and I admit to skipping a night or two) I have had, with out fail, a nightmare or woken up in utter terror. It only happens when I use my CPAP and started the first night I used the machine. Has anyone else had this happen to them? Is it something that will go away? Should I look into alternative apnea treatments? I feel really lost.

Welcome to the forum, WiltingRose! My guess is that your pressure isn't high enough, so you feel a bit suffocated. What does your data show? Tell us more so that we can help you better.

I've had very little trouble adjusting to the mask or the pressure (0.08 I think). My AHI is 1.4 with the machine. I started wearing a chin strap a few nights ago because I was mouth breathing and losing the effects of the CPAP. When I was mouth breathing I wasn't getting the nightmares, or at least not as bad. Right now it's a trade off. I sleep longer with the machine on, but sleep more peacefully with out it. The nightmares are not about suffocating. I thought they might be- I have an intense phobia of asphyxiation (unrelated to having OSA), but they're nightmares about other things. It's possible they are unrelated, but it seems to be too big of a coincidence for that. It has been suggested to me that my brain is finally getting enough oxygen at night so I'm finally getting all the way through my sleep cycle and therefore remembering my dreams, but that doesn't explain [to me] why they're all bad dreams and sometimes I don't remember the dreams, just wake up feel the intense fear.

I have always had pretty vivid dreams, but for the first month or so on CPAP (which was a really difficult adjustment) I did not seem to dream at all, which I found disturbing.

Once my therapy got on a good track, the vivid dreams returned, and a lot of them nightmares. I think it's just a normal thing because you are having much better and longer REM sleep, but unfortunately the vivid dreams you are more likely to remember are nightmares.

If it gets to be a real problem, talk to the sleep lab.

I just woke up again from a night filled with tense nightmares. There were two VERY bad ones & I literally heard myself YELL OUT LOUD last night "Help" and "Police" at two different times. It's a miracle my neighbor that lives in the apartment next door didn't call the police or come knocking on my door to check on me.

I'm no stranger to bad dreams; in fact I've been suffering from them since childhood. So vivid in fact, that I often wake up EXHAUSTED from living them all night (or so that's what I've always thought). But it could be that I've been waking up exhausted because I've had sleep apnea all these years. However my nightmares have actually become MUCH worse since wearing my C-Pap!! And this yelling out for help OUT LOUD? It's super-disturbing to me! Not to mention if I were to sleep with an open window & someone in the apartment complex hears me? I could really end up scaring someone else!

Even though it was 2 yrs ago that I did my sleep study and was given a C-Pap. I only started wearing this lovely contraption just last week when I went on a trip & shared a hotel room with a friend. I've had friends & family telling me for years that they can't believe the enormous sound that comes out of me when I'm sleeping. I read many of the other stories posted here and it's amazing how much I can relate. It may be kind of a twisted thing to say but it's sort of a relief to hear stories of dysfunctional health & lives of others that sound so similar to mine. I feel like I'm not such an odd ball after all cuz there are many out there just like me with all the same problems and similar life experiences.

It seemed like such an unfortunate and horrendous thing though that the solution to many of my problems was to wear this hideous looking contraption when I climb into bed. As if being an overweight, middle-aged, single, lonely woman with declining health wasn't bad enough? Seriously, WHO I ask you, is going to be able to fall in love with me in this thing? But also, who would ever be able to fall in love with the woman who's snoring could wake the dead? So I finally decided if I'm going to be alone, I might as well try to start getting a better night's sleep AND try to do something to fight all these ailments that have been worsening over the years (weight, depression, fatigue, anxiety, RA, high blood pressure, chronic headaches and now high cholesterol). I've been saying for years I know I'm a walking, ticking time bomb for a heart attack or stroke.

But I have seriously digressed..... the reasons I ended up on this bulletin board is that I woke up sideways in the bed; it took me about 5 seconds to orient myself & figure out how to get out of the bed! This was like the last straw, after yelling out for help in desperation last night from another 2 ridiculously vivid nightmares! So when I woke up I thought, "I wonder if this has anything to do with wearing the C-Pap and if others have experienced the same phenomenon? And so, voila'.... here I am.

Thank goodness all this writing is making the memories of the nightmares fade. See, sometimes my nightmares bother me SO much they affect how I feel throughout the day. Sometimes they're so disturbing I just feel depressed all day because of them. They're torturous experiencing them, and continue to torture me because I can't stop thinking about the details all day.

I think I finally understand how people can write horror movies. I've never understood WHY ANYONE would have the slightest interest in going to see one of those movies. Maybe if I started to write my nightmares down, I could end up with a screen-play on my hands?

I'm astonished in disbelief when I see some people write that they're saddened or think something's wrong if they don't dream or if they can't remember their dreams. I say to them, "BE GLAD YOU FOOL! What's wrong with you?" I'd give anything to be freed from having these experiences!

I just hope I'm not awakened some night from a loud knock on my door by the police because someone called to help me!

WhoCoulLoveThisHoseHead- what a tragic user name. SleepingUgly is going to come in here and yell at you for that.

Of course, her user name is also tragic.

Sorry to hear about your nightmares. You may want to read up on dream therapy- Jungian analysis. It helped me in the past, I was dreaming terrible things about my husband, my therapist helped me learn that what I was dreaming were different sides of myself.Once I looked inward for a while I stopped feeling so bad about myself and others. I am overweight and suffer from depression at times-- but not so much for the last month- since I joined a gym. Its like night and day- the days I work out (45 minutes on an elliptical machine, and maybe a 5 or 10 minute swim) I feel energized, happy, no foot/leg pain, and I sleep better. I haven't lost any weight yet, but have gained a better sense of self. I'm 49 and put off the gym thing for 5 years, also kind of knew I had sleep apnea for the last 10 years or so, only sought help last February when my new doctor gave me a complete physical and asked me questions about my sleep.

I remember one night within my first two weeks of therapy, I woke up sideways on the bed, went to get up and was dizzy and nearly fell to the floor. Didn't happen again, I think it may have been my body adjusting to the pressure? I was also dizzy a few times, but it passed.

CPAP=more oxygen to the brain=feeling good.It's worth it!!!

I've had terrible dreams all of my life. When I started CPAP, almost three years ago, that didn't change. All of my dreams were bad and I would wake up with my heart beating fast and I couldn't go back to sleep thinking about what had happened and how I could have prevented such a tragedy. After a few months, I realized that I was no longer dreaming, maybe one of two a year. The ones I have are still bad, but not as scarey and I can go back to sleep. Keep using your CPAP. You will get past that stage. Do you know if you are still having apneas? Do you have a data capable machine with the software to monitor your sleep?

Please post your equipment and maybe someone can help you.

Bev

There are two kinds of dream states 1 -REM where you mind processes all the scary stuff in your life and 2- regular sleep state dreams which is mostly the fun sweet stuff. Without cpap you were probably not experiencing much REM so now you have a lot of garbage collection to do. It should ease up soon.

I know you're all focused on Cpap or OSA as problems, but is it at all possible there are other things going on in your life that provoked nightmares, even a scary movie recently, or noisy neighbour? How about menopause - that can do a number on anyone, especially if e.g. the weather's been strange (or just hot and humid)? It's important not to just blame Cpap for whatever's going on, and very important to be sure you have the right mask in the right size. Have you tried those background tapes to help you sleep, e.g. surf crashing, etc.?

Before I got good results from xpap treatment, sometimes I got 'intensive' dream and woke up with fast heart beats. I used to 'smooth-out' the bad dream during half-sleep to turn it into something more positive. It helps for me.

Now with good treatment results, I don't have those bad dreams, even they are virtually in the same 'theme', they don't bother me much at all. I associate those bad dreams with my sleep apnea events.

I believe environment factors, body chemistry in general can cause bad dreams. I would try not do anything too excite hours before sleep, watch what I eat and drink and try to relax.

Sleeping is such a complicated process, what seem to be so nature for someone can be so difficult to deal with someone else.

Hopefully uneventful (no apnea) sleeps can help us all.

I had bad dreams pre-cpap that I believe were born out of untreated OSA. But once I started cpap, they worsened to the point of seeing myself dead. After one of those I'd go a couple days without sleeping because I was scared to go to sleep. After coming here I realized I was suffocating myself every night with misuse of the ramp feature. It was set at 4 for 30-45 minutes (memory still not perfect), and per my doctor's instruction, every time I woke up I hit the ramp to go back to sleep. Only problem was, with my limb movement disorder, I woke every few minutes, so I was never sleeping at my prescribed pressure. The 4 was nearly killing me. Raised the ramp pressure and shortened the time on it to about 8 minutes and the dreams went away. Even if at the prescribed pressure, if the few events one has happens to be of long duration, they can still be problematic.

Then again, dreams are a bit hard to be sure about. It's really anybody's guess.

Jaylee wrote:WhoCoulLoveThisHoseHead- what a tragic user name. SleepingUgly is going to come in here and yell at you for that.

Of course, her user name is also tragic.

I just saw this post! For the record, when I created my handle, yes, it was a play on Sleeping Beauty. By UGLY I meant my sleep architecture, not my appearance. Also, Sleeping Beauty sleeps endlessly, which I thought was a good name for a hypersomniac.

As far as you, WhoCouldLoveThisHoseHead... It's my opinion that whether someone uses CPAP or not does not make any difference in whether they find a partner or not. I think your overall health, and your feelings about yourself, are far more important than whether you use a contraption when you sleep at night. I know that if my EDS subsides and I return to my old "self", my husband will probably kiss my CPAP machine.

My dreams disappeared on CPAP !

The one night I did a home sleep study after 1.5 years of heavenly CPAP -----> bad dreams only that one night.

The only nightmares I have these days are about some of the posts on this forum. And breaking wind in the middle of the night as the blinds are taking a beating. Seriously? If you can get your head wrapped around those nightmares you should be able to get them under control. If they wake you up write down what you were dreaming. In fact, I have reached a point where I can actually awaken myself during a nightmare and then go right back to sleep thinking good thoughts.

Of course, as the shrinks would say, if you have issues or baggage in your life you need to address them in order to rid yourself of the nightmares and I would tend to agree. I have great faith, not necessarily in a God per se but in something that is bigger than me and watching over me. I have great faith that life will progress as it is intended to and that in the end if I live my life cleanly and with great compassion and heart that MY life will turn out just fine. And it always seems to. Somehow.

Be happy. Don't worry. And your nightmares should gradually diminish and disappear. They are a picture of your inner sould. Get rid of any baggage you may have and stop reading the posts on this forum unless you are able to resolve them to being good advice and nothing more.

I used to dream about my business failing, about falling, about drowning, and a million other things that were unpleasant. Then I found my nightmares once again when I was having issues with low blood oxygen, high blood pressure, a pounding heartbeat and so on. That's gone too.

Now I have nightmares about breaking wind and blowing out the windows.. so we had triple glazed windows installed and heavy duty blinds. That's taken care of. Take care of your worries and baggage. Take care of your health. The Great Architect of the Universe will take care of the rest and there is not a thing you can do but go along for the ride so be happy and DO NOT WORRY.