hello, new around here and have some questions :)

Good day,

My name is daniel and i am a complete beginner to all this and had a few quick questions. First, i have whats called central sleep apnea (my brain sometimes just forgets to send signals to my body to breath at night so i dont breath for upwords of 2 min). my sleep studys i had to do to get diagnosed said this happens around 23 times per hour all night long O.O . anyway i have to use this machine that is basically a much more advanced version of the CPAP machine that when i dont take at least 14 breaths per min it ramps the pressure up to force me to take a breath. its called an ASV (AutoServo Ventilator) well anyway in the sleep study without a cpap i never actually reached rem sleep. with a normal cpap i reached rem for about 3% of my overall sleep time, and i am not sure how much rem i actually get on this machine but i would say i do actually get into rem now.
my main question is this, i cant remember any dreams except maybe one or two a month so whats the best way to start actually remembering them? is it possible that i am not even having any dreams? like could this machine i am on actually be waking me up some when i am in rem sleep knocking me back down to the lower stages of sleep? i dont know much and thats why i was coming to ask.
i have been experimenting for the past week with the Wild version of this and what i am noticing is that i just lay there for quite a while and eventually its like its hard to breath because it does feel like there is a weight on my chest like what i keep reading about but i dont seem to be in SP because i can still move (after about 15-20 min of feeling this i just test by moving an arm and it moves just fine so i actually check the clock beside my bed and normally about 1.5-2 hours has gone by since i laid down and so i give up and go to normal sleep). i do notice that sometimes i do have little mini flashes of dreams like i will be laying there not really thinking and i will have a flash of a boat going by on a river or something like that then it disappears after about 1-2 seconds and i am back to just looking at little flashs of light. the little flashes of light normally start up about 5-10 min after closing my eyes. i have tried waking my self up in the middle of the night and just getting up, going to the bath room and then back to bed and trying the wild again to the same results.
anything different i should be doing? i did start a dream log this morning but since i cant remember any of my dreams, i just put what i experienced while trying to do a wild last night.

well thanks in advance for any thoughts yall might have :)

Daniel (Foxtrot3000)

Hi Daniel,

Welcome to the DV community!

I haven't heard of CSA before so I'm not sure if this would completely prevent you from going into REM sleep. The best way to remember your dreams is to have a dream journal, which you said you have started so that's great. Don't be disheartened with this and if you can't remember anything be sure to just put "nothing recalled" down so that you do get into the habit of journaling.

With what you have mentioned - about being woken up possibly in REM - It sounds to me that you may be focusing on the wrong technique. WILD is a very useful and really fun technique when you are successful (although I would say there are no un-successful WILD attempts) but it is hard to get right and can royally screw with your sleep pattern if you find it difficult to actually get to sleep (I recall you saying it took 1.5 - 2 hours before you gave up).

That got me thinking, If you are waking up during the night, then maybe you should try the DEILD (Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream) technique as this seems to be more personalised to how you sleep. There are plenty of guides on how to do this on the forum. The idea is that you are dreaming and wake up for whatever reason, but remain completely still, and visualise being back in a dream while holding onto your awareness. I assume it would work or feel similar to a WILD and you could learn to slip back into a dream and hopefully be Lucid.

I hope this helps a little - If you do have any more questions, ask away! :D

Nito.

My husband has sleep apnea too! He has not done sleep studies yet, though I think he's finally convinced to start. Took his mom, the nurse, telling him he's not breathing to get him to finally look into it. I've been telling him for years that he stops breathing, though I don't think he does it as often as you described.
Anyway, he is lucky to recall 5 dreams a year, I think it's because of how often he wakes due to lack of air - not that he recalls sitting up multiple times a night. If you have never had luck recalling dreams I wouldn't think your machine would be the cause. Kind of sounds like you're currently trying too hard.
I have found I'm more likely to remember dreams and have lucid dreams when sleeping while sitting, or when I don't really feel tired. I've heard that Einstein induced lucid dreams by napping in a chair with a coin on his forehead and a tin bucket next to him. When he was good and well asleep his head would move, dropping the coin into the bucket to make a loud sound (how you make sure the coin lands in the bucket is beyond me) The sound wakes your mind just enough to start conscious dreaming is the idea.
There is also the idea of sleeping with one forearm raised. Again once you are asleep the arm falls snapping the mind back. Both ideas are so that you may fall asleep normally, without over thinking it (keeping your mind focused on a task is an active mind) Like the old saying goes, a watched pot never boils.

alright, thank you both for the quick replys. i did notice that once i started to actually pay attention to them i do seem to catch some small glimpses of dreams now. for instance last night i remember one where i was in a store of some kind looking at led light bulbs. lol. that is all i remember from it so no clue what that was all about but i am guessing that with time i will actually start to remember more.