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

[WWu777]

I found when I started cpap the nightmares and other weird dreams went away. They were replaced by some that were more vivid and every so often an odd one, but not in the bad way. My doctor explained it this way - under CPAP when in the various stages of REM the brain finally gets to relax as some of the restrictions to dealing with the non-REM are removed. The brain can finally get a chance to play so to speak.

That's interesting. It seems that most here do have bad dreams or nightmares when they have untreated sleep apnea. So the correlation does seem to be there, and understandably so since you're basically choking and gasping for breath during sleep apnea. 

I will let you know if my CPAP makes a difference or not. But keep in mind that psychology also says that bad dreams are also caused by the dark side of our subconsious mind too. I'm not sure if everyone has a dark side though, some people seem very positive all the time, perhaps due to have different brain chemistries? I heard that neurology claims that we each have a certain disposition toward optimism and pessimism, regardless of our circumstances. A positive optimistic person that is hardwired to be that way, will always see the bright side of things, even when things are going down. And a negative person will eventually be grumpy and grouchy again even if he or she were to win the lottery. Etc.

Btw speaking of vivid dreams, I find that if you take some of the top green superfoods, such as chlorella, spirulina, moringa, wheatgrass, etc your dreams become a lot more vivid. Especially with chlorella. So if any of you wanna try those, they will make your dreams more vivid too. You can get them at the health food store or on online health food stores too.