Nocturnal fear?!

[steveo]

Hi guys!
This is a very new and odd one for me!

I've never ever had anything like this in my life except for maybe when I was a very young child.

Recently I've suffered from a real panic or fear if woken in the middle of the night.
For example....
Last night I stayed in a posh hotel with my girlfriend. All was well. I experienced no panic what so ever as I rarely do have too many problems nowaday.
At 4:30am the hotel fire alarm went off! My gf got out of bed no problem to see what the problem was and I was absolutely freaking out! I was screaming to her 'What the hell is that!!?'. This absolute fear lasted for roughly 20 seconds before what I assume to be my logical part of my brain woke up.
It happened a week before also when I was woken by banging from an unknown source and being half asleep, I was just overwhelmed with fear thinking someone was trying to kick in the door!
I'm 28, not a small guy at all and there's very little that gets me scared like that but for some reason recently when I've been woken up in the middle of the night, I have suddenly got really scared! It was very embarrassing for me last night as I should of been the one to get out of bed and investigate the noise but instead I cowered under the covers freaking out.

This is very unusual for me. I can only guess not all of my brain has properly woken up as I was unable to assess the situations correctly.
Any one else ever had this weird problem?

Steven

[Mark13]

Sounds like me you're waking from a deep sleep (stage 4/5) which can makes you confused and disorientated.

Only happened to me once, strangely enough in a hotel. I had flu coming on slept 1 hour, woke up not knowing where I was or who I was with (a new partner). Took me a few minutes to stop panicking.

[PanchoGoz]

I have been woken up terrified before. I've got a friend who I was calling a few weeks ago and his fire alarm went off and he screamed like a big girl! Not that he can help it, just a natural reaction to a scary sound. We also feel disorientated when coming out of sleep as the above poster mentioned. This is the time when you might see strange hallucinations or thinking someone is ringing you. The body puts you in high alert, after all it could have been something very dangerous making a loud noise in the night thousands of years back.

[steveo]

Thankyou for your replies.

Hotels seem to be a recurring theme here because when me and my gf first got together we went away for a weekend at stayed at a hotel. I was at the start of coming down with a flu like virus and on the first night woke up rather hot not knowing where I was or who this was next to me! I even asked her who she was!
Very strange on reflection but at the time it's confusing! The confusing stuff I can deal with but the fear I felt was horrible!

[PanchoGoz]

It may be because you were in an unfamiliar location. You may want to look up hypnagogic state, which is the scientific term for the place between wake and sleep.

[steveo]

The weirdest thing ever just happened. She just rang me to say goodnight (she lives 2 hours away from me for work but we spent this weekend together) and half way through the conversation I heard her fire alarm go off! And my heart starting pounding again! I felt that fear I felt last night for some reason! What on earth is happening to me? She doesn't know why her alarm went off either... just like the hotel last night didn't know why the fire alarm went off! Strange!

[Anxious_gal]

You've associate the scary sound with fear.
So now your body/mind automatically reacts to it with fear.
It's quite normal :) just breathe deep and slow and your body will calm down.
I do think a fire alarm, high pitched noise would make anyone's heart race, we've all grown up to know that an alarm means something's wrong or something bad is happening.

It seems you're just hypersenstive to sound now after having the bad experience.
Also I know at times sound can make me jump, your body reacts before you even know what's happening :)