Nocturnal panic attacks are something quite different from regular panic attacks. They are also more difficult to recognize than simple panic attacks. People often have no idea they are having nocturnal attacks till someone who knows the symptoms of such attacks tells them.
The major hurdle in recognition of such attacks is that they are often taken as simple bad dreams. Many people are suffering from these attacks and they are completely oblivious of it. This is simply due to lack of information and knowledge about nocturnal attacks.
One thing to remember is that, these attacks never happens in daytime. They are typical of nighttime. That is why it is such difficult to recognize them. Nocturnal panic attacks happen suddenly while sleeping.
A person wakes up due to some trigger with heavy sweating, frightened feeling, and difficulty breathing. That is what the most fundamental evidence of nocturnal panic attack is. Now one thing to keep in mind here is that the symptoms include sweating, hard breathing and fear. These are the same symptoms as seen in simple panic attacks – sweating, fear, palpitation and shortness of breath.
These attacks not only resemble their daytime counterparts in their symptoms, but also in their frequency. There is just no reason to explain nocturnal panic attacks. They can happen to anyone and there is nothing you can do about them, mostly because they occur at the time when the victim is fast asleep and just unable to recognize them.
Remember, never get nocturnal attacks confused with regular dreams, they both just can’t go together. It is not possible that a person that has undergone a nocturnal panic attack will be able to remember anything he or she was dreaming about. This is due to the treble condition which one goes through while sleeping, that wipes out all of the memory from our minds.
One prime cause of nocturnal panic attacks is the sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder that is caused either due to disorder in brain or due to breathing problem. Person suffering from sleep apnea is most very likely to experience a nocturnal panic attack, as the main causes and symptoms of both diseases are almost quite same.