Oh god, yes. After a brief period of being on call production support, whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night I can grab it on the first ring (with heart rate at 180).
Of course, having also received the Death Call in the middle of the night just makes it worse.
Other than that: The airline that lost my luggage thought it would make it all better, once it arrived, if they delivered it at 2:00 AM – and rang the freakin’ doorbell to announce it.
My worst was a couple of years ago when a SWAT team using flash bangs next door made our walls shake. I couldn’t believe how fast I was on the floor beside the bed, apparently having arrived there in my sleep. For a second I thought it was a bomb (munitions officer during the Viet Nam war), but figured it out quickly.
I suppose the other notable wake-up was when my sons decided to paint my lips with tabasco sauce while I was watching (asleep) a football game as I lay in our lounger. It tickled and I rubbed my lips, and then as I awoke, rubbed my eyes. Talk about an eye opener! My sons were abjectly sorry, and we all had a good laugh…me through my tears.
I was taking a well-deserved nap on the sofa one Sunday afternoon after some lengthy outdoor activity or other and my (then 8YO) son decided it wasn’t so well-deserved and woke me by inserting a long feather right up my nose.
Ah, leg cramps. I was awakened by one last night. Ow.
After falling asleep on the beach in San Diego, being woke up the next morning by the sound of the incoming tide about a foot and a half from my head. I had no idea that I’d crashed so close to the tideline and to wake up and see what appeared to be the whole entire Pacific Ocean practically on top of me was a scary experience.
Worse though was the time a year later and several hundred miles north, when I was hitch hiking and got caught by nightfall in Dunsmuir, California. I gave up on trying to catch a ride and went down underneath the big bridge that goes through town to catch some Zs. I made myself comfy in the dark…all unbeknownst to me, 15 or 20 feet from the railroad. Sometime after I fell asleep, I was jolted awake by the lights and clanging and WRAAAA WRAAAA of a fast freight train seemingly coming right at me and bearing down on my person like some kind of Cyclops monster thing from Hell. I was halfway up that incline in five seconds, and screaming my fool head off all the way.* Damned *good thing I’d taken a big piss before I bedded down.
Worst of all, though, was right here in our cozy apartment about a year ago, when I somehow – do not bother asking me how, because I do not know – managed to catch my right big toenail on the fabric of the mattress, or something, in my sleep and ripped it (the toenail, and yes, I mean the whole toenail) right off my toe. This was me: “OW OW FUUUUCK OW FUCK FUCK FUCK OOOWWW!” There ain’t anything quite like having some kind of invisible goblin demon sneak up on you in the middle of the night, and start tearing pieces of you off, to put a damper on your nice cozy slumber.
From an artillery attack: “INCOMING”
Scary to have to dive for cover while finding boots and pistol. (Yeah, I know: A pistol won’t do jack against an artillery attack, but it was my sidearm.)
Ditto on the leg cramp and puking child. Also the Northridge quake.
Also, there was the Sheriff’s deputy about a month ago, knocking on the door at 6 a.m. with a subpoena for my ex to appear in court to testify against one of the teenagers who mugged him earlier this year. My ex hasn’t lived with me since July of last year. :mad: At least the deputy was nice enough once I opened the door.
Yeah, but did you tell him why? No good if you don’t tell him why.
Two worst ways to wake up in my life:
Drill Sergeant Perkins smacking his swagger stick against the foot rail of my bunk. My feet were pressed hard against the rail at the time. Every morning for the rest of Basic, I woke up when his gleaming jump boots hit the bottom step of our floor.
My wife choking on a cough drop, which she’d put in her mouth so she could go to sleep without coughing. Oh, yeah, that’ll keep ya’ up for hours, just listening to her breathe!
The smoke-detector’s dead-battery beep.
The neighbor across the street banging on the door to tell us he thought his dad was dead. (He was.) Don’t now why he didn’t call 911. And the dad was like a second father to my husband.
A sonic boom as the space shuttle landed, not far from the hotel we were staying in. I thought someone had driven through our room, it was so loud.
The dogs chasing and killing something in our back yard (several different times.)
Sorry, lived in Toronto all my life. Plus, I would’ve been about two at the time. 
That sounds terrifying, though–I’m glad you’re okay!
my husband woke me up to tell me there was a mouse on the ceiling light shade above our bed
Had a band cold, a piece of mucus must have got stuck in my throat. I awoke being unable to take a breath. Was the longest 15 seconds of my life, I thought I was going to die. Finally I was able to force enough air up to dislodge whatever it was.
Another time I awoke to flames on my bedroom wall. It was shadows from the house burning down across the street. A young man ended up dying in that fire. Very sad.
Last night I came down with the stomach flu, so every time I would just start falling asleep the incredible urge to vomit would come over me and I would have to run to the bathroom. That feeling of imminent spewage is probably one of the worst ways to wake up IMHO.
Israeli warplanes bombing Beirut… when I was in Beirut.
At times like that, I put a bucket next to the bed. Rolling over is a lot easier than leaping to your feet and running for the bathroom.
Once I woke up to find that my pillow was covered in fresh blood. Seems my nose had started bleeding shortly before I woke up. It was a very unpleasant way to start the day.
This may be the longest thread I’ve ever had the honor of being the OP of!
I woke up the other morning with an ecstatically tripping cat clamped to my head and trying to gnaw through my skull. Apparently either the vanilla or the floral in my vanilla floral conditioner is like kitty crack to her. For one panicked moment I thought the zombies had arrived.
I have a bucket next to the bed but I would much rather throw up in the bathroom. Tile and porcelain are much easier to clean than mattress and carpet, so if there were to be any spillage (which there was…you don’t know from horrible unless you have ever vomited so hard that the pressure forced you to leak from all possible orifices) it would be much easier to clean the bathroom afterwards.
Plus if you vomit in the bathroom, the vomit smell stays in the bathroom. I wouldn’t be able to stand the smell of it by the bed. 
I was once woken by a stray cat I had taken in a couple of days earlier having five kittens in my hair. And so as not to violate the Board rule on cats and pics, here they are a when they were a little older: http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeperlaw/kittensinbox.jpg http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeperlaw/kittensinhelmet.jpg http://my.tbaytel.net/culpeperlaw/mommeow.jpg
