Boy, I am in the midst of dealing with some odd central type apnea.  I cannot drift off to sleep because just as I do, I stop breathing for no apparent reason.  I have experienced a small amount of this before, but this is out of nowhere.  Could these be centrals?  I am almost certain they are not obstructive, but I suppose I could be wrong.  By the way, my heart rate right now is 50bpm and I am a shallow breather, so it seems I am already set up for some type of parasympathetic overload or something.

The one sleep study I had noted NO centrals, but then again I only slept for about 1.5 hours.

Geez, bedtime was 5 hours ago....  

They probably are centrals but in most cases they are nothing to worry about. It is common to have a prolonged period between breaths as you go from one stage of sleep to another...or in this case, from awake to asleep. Most people- even those without OSA- have a few central apneas every night- it is part of the normal fluctuation in breathing. It happens during the day too- if you take a deap breath right now how long before you feel like you need to take another? Was it longer then 10 seconds? Thats one way normal central apneas can happen- its not that there is a problem, just that your body has what it needs and you don't take the next breath until automatically until its needed. Even do a deep breathing exercise where you take several deep breaths very quickly & end up feeling light headed? Thats what happens when you over ride the automatic breathing center.

Here is a fairly good article on central apneas- http://www.britishsnoring.co.uk/pdf/j11.pdf

Thanks for reply.

See, what is not normal is that it kept me up for 6 hours!  I could not make it past the transition stage into sleepland.  I have a theory why this happened, let me know what you think.

I have lifted weights for years.  In the past 3 or so years I have toned the weight sessions down to very non-strenuous sessions, which still include heavy weights and lots of intensity, but not many sets.  The day before this problem, I tried something new..... I did many sets with lighter weight and ABSOLUTELY kicked the hell out of my muscles with extremely hard sets one after another for about 25 minutes.  Abs and back and biceps.  Could this have affected my nervous system in some way which could have caused this problem?

This even happened when I lied down to take a nap only an hour after the workout..... could not drift off to sleep, had muscle twitching, ect.