I was slowly strangling. I was underwater. A place that can be heaven for me, so long as I can get back to air when I want to. But I couldn’t get back to air. There was a puzzle in front of me. I had to solve that puzzle to get back to the surface and breath. How did I get here? Why couldn’t I breathe?
Oh, something was holding my mouth closed, and my sinuses were blocked. How odd. Why not open your mouth to breath? Underwater? A voice in the back of my head says “you are not underwater, moron. Breathe!” So I open my mouth and breathe, and then I wake up.
The stupid CPAP machine is off again. I don’t know if I forgot to turn it on, or if I turned it off in my sleep, or if the machine is simply failing. What I do know is that this is the second time in a few weeks that I’ve had my sleep disturbed by it being off while I have the mask and chin strap on, and the dream that prompts me to wake up is that underwater puzzle dream. I can almost picture it and the game it is part of, but the image escapes me now. It was so vivid in the dream.
Almost a nightmare. I can’t go back to sleep even though I’ve only been in bed for a few hours. So I get up and pad around. Eat a little cereal, take an antihistamine and an expectorant, try to relax. After a few hours I padded back to bed and again tried to sleep. This time I woke convinced the power was off. I feel back asleep with my hand over the exhaust port on the CPAP mask, reassured that the machine was working by the air washing over my fingers.
…even more reassuring is the knowledge that I will be going in for a recheck of my sleep issues in the coming weeks. Then at least I’ll know whether it is mechanical failure, deteriorating health, or active imagination that is causing the CPAP to stop working sometimes. Fingers crossed in the meantime.
