looking for answers wrote:

I just found a post about dreams on the mask forum.  Thanks rested gal for all the resources.  I should have searched the earlier posts!!!  There are many interesting personal experiences on this topic.  I only read about half because I must leave soon, but will return to them later.

So, the answer, at least part, to my question comes from a quote by Sleepy dave to Frank on Sept 14, 2005.  It states that an apnea arousal bumps you back one sleep stage.  (Not sure what source was being quoted by Sleepy dave)  So, it seems to be a good sign if you are able to dream...  a sign that you have passed through the deeper stages of sleep?  A sign that you are not having an apnea for at least one period during the night???  (my dreams are remembered only on waking naturally in the morning, so I am not being jolted from dream sleep periodically during the night)

I have yet to sleep a whole night with my mask.  How can it be possible to get a rebound effect after I take my mask off each night?  How is it possible to get residual benefits from cpap?  Am I understanding this correctly?  Am I having less apneas even with my mask off?!!!!

I'm no expert, but my wife has suffered with my apnea and snoring and between what she tells me and what I experience, it seems that I snore when I'm dreaming.  I will often awaken from a dream and my wife will tell me that I was either snoring or that she noticed I had stopped breathing a few times.

I don't know anything about sleep stages, but I do know that I tend to snore during the times I'm dreaming.  I suspect my apnea happens both during my dreaming and also during my deeper sleep.   I haven't gotten my CPAP machine yet. I've just completed my titration studies and they're ordering a machine for me.  I do know that for a very long time, I wake up with clogged nostrils and am usually unable to breathe through one side of my nose or the other. Often one or both are plug up when I lay my head down. I've awoken in the middle of the night before not being able to breathe through my nose at all.  If I get up, they usually clear up.  I've resorted to decongestant sprays but that tends to just make things worse after it wears off.

looking for answers wrote:

PS  I still want to know more about sleep stages in relation to apnea.  Personal experiences are helpful, but with files full of sleep studies, it seems some figures on these relationships could be obtained.

Hi "looking for answers",

REM (Rapid Eye Movement - dream sleep) is where apneas tend to occure most.  The reason is that the body shifts from a state of "ready to move" to a state of "sleep paralysis".  Sleep paralysis keeps us from sleep talking or sleep walking which are seen as incomplete sleep paralysis anomalies.

Many believe that sleep apnea is often at least partially caused by sleep paralysis that has gone a bit too far along with nerve insensitivity in the airway passage.  Physioloigy certianly plays a part (structure of the airway passage and surrounding structures) along with genetics (the physical sturcture of your father's airway passage muscles driven by your mothers airway passage brain sturcture perhaps?).

On my sleep study all of my apneas and reduced breathing occured during REM sleep.

From the "Sleep Study Terms" stickey here I read:

Normal Sleep
Normal sleep% are:
Stage 1 - 5%
Stage 2 - 55%
Stage 3/4 - 20%
REM - 20%
Stage 1 is only a transition state from wake to stage 2 and has no real rest value.  A lot of it means inability to initiate and/or maintain sleep.
Stage 3/4 (SWS) decreases as a function of age, or if you're subject to constant arousals, as in OSA.  There are strict criteria to score SWS, so one may still be having some SWS-like activity, but can't be scored as such because it fails to meet scoring criteria, such as waveform height (amplitude).  (Sleepydave)

Also from the above source:

Spontaneous Arousals
“Spontaneous Arousal Index:  The number of spontaneous arousals (e.g. arousals not related to respiratory events, limb movements, snoring, etc) multiplied by the number of hours of sleep.  (Glossary)
 â€œAn arousal is a wake or "alpha" pattern for 3 to 15 seconds.  You are usually not aware of arousals.  As you suggest, there are 3 types of arousals reported out on the sleep studies- those attributed to respiratory events, periodic limb movements and those that are spontaneous.  Spontaneous arousals have no directly attributable cause, or cannot be linked to the first 2 reasons for arousals.
That said, there may be respiratory events during sleep that generate "spontaneous" arousals. like snores or flow limitations.  Indeed, the whole Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome is based on the presence of a large number of spontaneous arousals without the presence of scorable respiratory events such as hypopneas or apneas.  Technically, they should be identified using an esophageal ballon to measure negative inspiratory pressure (which just about nobody does) or a nasal or oro-nasal pressure transducer, and look for flow limitations.  These are RERAs (Respiratory Effort-Related Arousals).
If you take this number, RERA, and add it to the AHI, you have the Respiratory Disturbance Index (RDI).
There are a bunch of things that could create the scenario for the appearance of a large number of truly spontaneous arousals, such as medications that deter sleep (pseudoephedrine, caffeine, some antidepressants, too much thyroid medication, etc.), depression and narcolepsy.â€�  (Sleepydave)

You seem to be one sensitive to your surroundings.  You might try:

Melitonen

Background music or sounds (rain, waterfall, waves on a seashore) as you go to sleep and/or as you sleep.  I have listened to scripture (Alexander Scourby) to fall asleep since I was 14.  I had been give a little green pill to help  me sleep but I simply hated the idea of having to take so many pills so found an alternative.

Wear the mask (machine on of course) as you watch TV or listen to the radio.  "Getting used to it" time.

May you find good sleep!

Todzo