Panicked! By own spit

Twice in my life, I woke at the depth of night, panicked! I am choking on my own spit. What causes it, I cannot say. I just remember the feeling, I would imagine it's close to the disbelief when you are walking in a dark alley at night, and someone jumps out in the middle of the street, pointing a gun at you. You might survive, you might not.

I don't think I'm exaggerating, if you have ever choked on your own spit, all of a sudden, during the day when you are fully consicious, and don't know what the hell hit you. Imagine what it's like when one minute you are deep in your sleep feeling comfortable and snug, the next minute you choke and fight for a breath, just one breath, so your lungs don't drown. Your eyes about to pop out of your head because you opened them so violently, and you feel like you sprained the blood vessels ankering your eyeballs to your brain. You woke up so suddenly that you haven't gained control of your limbs yet. You feel nothing but this imminent panick, stress and anxiety. The only thing in your brain is "AH!", nothing else. You can't even have a longer AHHH in your head because you are so shocked, and that's all you could muster.

After all that struggling, twice, I remember having the same thought after the spells of choking subsided and I can breath and think again. That would be a bad bad way to go. I could see the headline in the newspaper, "Woman chokes and drowns to death, in her own spit!"

Eventually, when my blood pressure and heart rate return to normal, I start seeing the humor in all of this. How F'ing ridiculous I must have looked?! Waking up like a vampire disturbed out of her coffin under the sunlight clawing at air particles, choking, muscle contorting. I bet if I saw it in replay, I'd laugh my own ass off and choke on my spit again.