Rapid Hearth Rate while sleeping

As a teen - I would get rapid heart rate occurrences - the older I got, it subsided - early 30's. I am 58 years old - During the night when I am in a deep sleep, I will be awoken by rapid heart beat - sometimes I will be dreaming and something in my dream triggers the rapid beating. I am thinking though that maybe the rapid beating has already started and I start to dream - casing me to create a dream that would have a bad situation in it, which would cause me to be scared or upset and frighten me enough. I am not sure, all I do know that, when I awaken and my heart is beating so terribly fast and hard - it is very scary. I do have stress in my life - maybe this could be causing me to have this problem. About 6 months ago I had a few drinks in the evening, went to bed - and then woke up with a terrible episode of this fast heart rate. Once since then, I drank 3-4 drinks and it happened again.  So, I have stopped drinking alcohol of any amount over two drinks. This past week I have had three episodes while sleeping - 3 nights in a row. After reading so many stories of people with the same situations, I wonder - should I see a doctor????

[mammo]

Yes, I would see a doctor.  I'm your age and I wouldn't wait on this, since we are at the age when things like heart problems start.  It may just be anxiety, panic attacks, sleep apnea, but you need to know.  Best of luck to you.

[ed34]

Did you know that your heart responds to your actual dreams. If you are not having a
particularly nice dream, your heart will speed up as if it was actually happening. This
is one of the reasons we can wake up after several hours of sleep and yet feel exhausted. A GP should be able to prescribe medication to keep you relaxed through
the night. I'm the opposite, when I sleep I usually have nice relaxing dreams. In hospital
recently my pulse was 60-80 during normal rest but when asleep it was dropping to
38-45 setting off all the alarms. This caused them to reduce my beta blockers to just
1.25mg a day which has helped to balance things out.

[sukumar794]

Cardiological consultation would be the ideal choice.You really have to ascertain whether the condition pertains to tachycardia or not.Take care.

[LoveRhyme]

I just wanted to share what I've been feeling and hopefully, someone can tell me what it might be; sometimes, not all the time, I go to sleep and I wake up frighten because I feel like I'm loosing my breath, I get these hot flashes; my body trembles a little and when I think I want to go back to sleep, I'm afraid to fall asleep because I think it's going to happen again; I don't know if I'm the one causing it; stress could possibly play a good part in it; I've learned to stretch while in bed and some times it helps me fall right back to sleep; but, I'm confused by it all, do I need medication, I thought it was my  cholesterol and maybe that had something to do with it, but I've learn to control that too; so, I wonder if I'm the one that makes it happen because I think of it a lot; any input would help!  Thanks!