Rottieluver45, I am so sorry to hear you are experiencing such dreams. I hope you find a way of overcoming them.

Rachel and Lizzie, I was surprised to see your posts, I have experienced the same thing. It started many years ago when I would wake up from naps (I stopped napping due to panic and the feeling I had stopped breathing and was truly going to die), but in the past few years it has started happening at night. I have found that it is when I am involved in more things that it does happen (the opposite of Lizzie), and assumed that it was just a panic attack. It is interesting to hear that others have experienced the same thing, and that we are not alone in this.