The thing that really got me thinking about sleep as a precious resource was being diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea. I was getting to the point where I was sleeping for 14 hours and waking up exhausted.
I often wonder about sleep apnea, I need a lot of sleep and have limited energy, nothing drastic but still noticeable compared to others. But I tend to think I don't have it, since in the morning I usually remember having long dreams - and sleep apnea is supposed to interrupt your sleep frequently. Were you able to observe new patterns in your sleep once you started using a CPAP machine?
Firstly, if you have any suspicion of having sleep apnea, I highly recommend getting a sleep study[0] done. I was diagnosed with a moderate case of obstructive sleep apnea after suffering from it for several years. I feel fortunate to have discovered and treated it at a fairly young age since it results general misery and is believed to cause heart attacks and strokes if left untreated.
I found no noticeable difference in my ability to recall dreams from the night before, or the length of dreams I experienced between using CPAP or not.
With regard to sleep patterns, the results from CPAP were immediately noticeable. I found that CPAP allowed me to go from a zombie that needed 12 or more hours of sleep per night to one that only needed about 4. This was not better. Despite really enjoying the extra 8 hours of "waking" time I had each day I was still tired all the time and thus made little use of the extra hours. I now sleep between 7 and 8 hours per night, I feel great and I am way more productive.
I'm not an expert, but I understand reduced dream recall is correlated with sleep apnea, but being able to recall dreams is definitely not a strong enough sign to rule out sleep apnea: see this study (http://www.sleepfoundation.org/alert/sleep-apnea-and-dream-r...)
One of the best ways to determine if you might have apnea is to ask your sleeping partner. If they complain about you moving around a lot, or making lots of "grunting" noises or noises that sound like you are choking, then you are a good candidate.
If you don't have a sleeping partner, use a video camera and record yourself sleeping one night.
For a lot of people, myself included, OSA causes almost continuous dreaming.
If you've ever had vivid dreams for 10 minutes after mashing a snooze button in the morning, you'll know this is possible. The phenomenon in OSA is similar (very brief awakening).
I'd dream almost night. It was exhausting. Worse, I apparently run out of things to dream about and my dreams become boring.
I often wonder about sleep apnea, I need a lot of sleep and have limited energy, nothing drastic but still noticeable compared to others. But I tend to think I don't have it, since in the morning I usually remember having long dreams - and sleep apnea is supposed to interrupt your sleep frequently. Were you able to observe new patterns in your sleep once you started using a CPAP machine?