Right now I'm wondering how realistic my previous panic attacks have been, with the exception of maybe one.
I was just violently awaken after having been in bed for no more than 1 hour (gauged by the current time and the time I sent the last message to a friend on AIM). The feeling I had the instant I was awaken was mostly confusion, but I certainly couldn't get myself back to sleep. I sat up in my bed and that's when the feelings started: fear, confusion, trembling, difficulty breathing, sweating...
I'm not so certain at this point that these are panic attacks. I fell asleep on my couch Saturday evening when I was watching TV. About an hour after falling asleep I woke up because I was gagging for no valid reason. I'm sitting here right now and I can't stop convulsing and my hands are sweaty. I'm also having trouble making much sense of what I just typed, even though I'm fully awake.
For lack of a better term, I'm going to call this a panic attack. However, I'm not fully convinced that this is what they are.
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You know my advice. :P
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I've had this happen to me a few times after extreme sleep deprivation. The worst was a time I had an extremely bad ear infection from swimming that was so painful I was unable to sleep for two / two and a half days-ish. When I finally slept I woke up after just around 30 minutes, probably still in REM sleep, completely irrational. I remember walking into the living room at my grandparents warning that the marbles were going to kill us all... and as crazy as it sounds now it made perfect sense at the time.
I've had this happen a few other times and had the same feelings without the marble silliness... sometimes just a really saddening, evil-presence-near-me sort of feeling, usually when I'm awoken after having little sleep for awhile.
Sounds like you're getting it a lot though, are you a pretty light sleeper?
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FueyLulu: I've already discussed it with the doctor and she just kinda shrugged it off.
Dustin: I'm not really a light sleeper. I'm wondering now if it's sleep apnea.
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Maybe that's it, especially with the gagging feeling you were having. By the way... http://is.gd/lMeT
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Forget shrugging. Make another appointment specifically to talk about the panic attacks.
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You're fired.
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I'll fire you.
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Tim. Reading this blog post, my first thought was sleep apnea, and I see here in the comments you suspect that too. My dad has it, and what you describe sounds so close to what he does. I'd get that checked into specifically as FueyLulu said, if you haven't alraedy.