SCARY! PLEASE HELP!

I suffer from ANXIETY.

The past 2 nights in a row I have had these terrible dreams I would hope to say they are...

Last night was the worst one. I fell asleep on my own with out my sleeping medication around 2am,
I remember "it had to be a dream" but I was in my room laying down, the room looked the exact same way it was when I woke up... I was dreaming I was hearing voices outside my house and sirens and cars going by, and I couldn't wake up... I COULD LITERALLY feel my eyes trying to PRY open! But I couldn't! It's like I was subconsciously awake, but my body was paralyzed and in this strange state!

I finally woke myself up and it was 4:30am... my stomach was in KNOTS! Paranoid feeling, felt like I was going CRAZY!

All I could think was "was this a dream? was I having a seizure? was I really hearing voices in my head, or was this all in the dream?"

Now I will tell you, I do not hear voices in my head or anything like that when I'm awake during the day, so thats what kind of eased my mind, and really convinced me it was a dream.

I finally took 2 sleeping pills and fell back asleep... but I'm kinda worried that its going to happen again tonight!

Is this normal?

[amish1979]

Google "hypnopompic paralysis"

[cnote]

So is this common? What if it keeps happening?

[amish1979]

I'm not saying that this is what you experienced, but there are a few similarities.  You could, in fact, have been awake and were really hearing sirens (or they could have been imagined), or it all could have been a dream.

I experienced this a couple times when I was younger and it scared me.

It is totally normal and most likely has nothing to do with your anxiety, other than it may be due to lack of sleep.

Again, this might not be what is going on in your case but I want you to have the information there to look at and realize that it is normal.