Several times in my life I’ve woken up screaming at the top of my lungs (night terrors).
Several other times in my life I’ve woken up gasping for breath (not sleep apnea: read on). I’ll be startled awake from something in my dream-- an evil hag jumping out from behind a closed door, for instance. These images in my dream startle me so much that they literally take my breath away, and I wake up gasping for air.
What happened two nights ago takes the cake, though (and precipitated this thread). In my dream I was a passenger in a car driven recklessly on icy roads, with a sharp drop into the ocean on the side of the road. In my dream I was so afraid that I was breathing heavily and clenching my fists. Then I woke up… breathing heavily (like, the deep, laboring breaths you take after running 200 yards at full tilt when you’re not in shape) and clenching my fists so hard that I’d lost circulation to my fingers. But here’s the kicker: my heart was pounding so hard and so fast that my ribs hurt.
I have this fear that one of these days a nightmare is going to send me into cardiac arrest and I’m going to die in my sleep.
In a word, is this possible? Does the medical literature support such a thing happening (paging Doctor Qadgop)? What, if anything, can be done to prevent these nightmares?
FTR, I’m a 33-year-old white male. Still significantly overweight, though I’ve lost about 75 pounds in the last year. I’m not in shape by any means, but I spend 45 minutes on the treadmill three days a week. I don’t have any childhood trauma, and I don’t obsessively read horror books or watch horror movies, though I love a good scary movie from time to time.
Wow man, thats harsh. Sounds like a typical lifestyle there, and with no trama I can’t say why you get that experience. I’ve only had one or two scares in my dreams that I can recall in my entire life.
I don’t know about the dreams, but they might actually be a symptom of Cheyne-Stokes respiration. IANAD, but I know about this since I’ve had it since a child - during sleep, I breathe more and more shallowly until I stop altogether, then after about 10 seconds I start gasping for air and taking huge breaths; this usually wakes me. Very occasionally I’ve actually fainted. Though this normally occurs with people who are very sick, “The condition may also, however, be present as a normal finding in children, and in healthy adults following fast ascending to great altitudes, or in sleep.”
My friend used to have horrible nightmares. She says that taking lexapro (an ssri) has made them go away. However it sounds like you having “night terrors” which are not rem dreams at all and occur in the deepest stage of sleep, so I do not know if taking an antidepressant would help.
Could it be that regarding the “gasping for breath” thing, you actually are experiencing some kind of sleep apnea, which your brain then incorporates into the dream? That is, maybe you’ve reversed cause and effect. Just like the way you will hear the alarm clock ring int he morning, and your brain will incorporate it as a fire truck or some other kind of bell within the dream.