Panic in my sleep

[Sweetvelocity]

I have been having more panic attacks in my sleep recently. I have told my psycologist about this. We are having a very difficult time with my anxiety and panic because we cannot seem to find a trigger fro them and she says that normally people do not have panic attacks in their sleep. I just wake up with palipitations and extreme fear. My flight respons is on all cylinders and all I want is to get away. I often go outside to get freash air. I will lay on the back pourch and wait for my body to clam and my heart to slow down.

We thought about bad dreams, but I have lots of dreams, bad and good, but I have never been terrified of them. I think of my dreams as an adventure, always have. I just do not feel like dreams are causing me to have these episodes in my sleep.

I am not over weight and do not suffer from sleep apnea.

Is it possible that my anxiety and panic in my sleep is caused by something physiological not psycological?

[cmur06]

There are a lot of people on this forum who have discussed about having panic attacks in their sleep.  I think it is because our body gets so used to the anxiety that we start to do it subconsciously.

As for me, when I started getting my panic attacks again I would fall asleep for a little and then wake up in total panic and I would jump out of bed and fall over because my body was so numb from my hyperventilating in my sleep and i would be incredibly dizzy with my heart racing.  Sometimes when I took naps I would feel completely fine and as I woke up from my naps I would immediately start feeling anxious and get a panic attack.