A few years after I married, my husband had one of those. I woke up to really weird sounds, very small and almost squeaky, like a tiny animal in distress. I thought my husband was having a bad dream but he looked strange, very still, so I shook his shoulder. He lurched up with a great gasp asking loudly why I hadn't helped him sooner, he'd been shouting and shouting for me. I told him what I'd heard and he grabbed me and thanked me over and over. He's not an emotional person so I knew he'd gone through a truly terrifying experience. It only happened once and I believe it was stress related. He was in his second year of medical school, trying to finish his D.Phil. dissertation at the same time and his father had recently died of lung cancer.

I have something like what Rachel experiences and I loathe it. It will go away for years and then come back for many months, sometimes years, and there is nothing I can do about it except try not to stress about it. I've found that the more I'm involved in many projects, the less likely I am to have them. Mine always start with a "dream" that I'm not breathing and I'm about to die, I have only seconds to wake up and start breathing again or I will be gone, I can actually feel myself leaving this world. I've tried to examine what is really going on and I think I actually overbreathe so when I wake up - or rather hurl myself up from the bed in a total panic, I exhale deeply and that seems to help. I'm still full of adrenaline, can barely stand, heart hammering fit to jump out of my chest, trembling all over. When they were very bad, years ago, I would find myself in the middle of the room because I'd leapt out of bed in such a panic.

Sleep is something we should be able to enjoy and embrace, the time of our day when we can refresh ourselves, so it's a torment when you actually dread falling asleep.