So I had a strange issue this morning.

Around 4:30am I was dreaming of random, small things. In the dream I saw a rat that was drowning, and I slowly saw the bubbles stop above it's head. I then suddenly felt very quickly as if I were drowning. And quickly awoke with a pain in my chest. It was a pain that thumped with my heart quite significantly, with a slow but regular and hard heart rate. It was distressing enough to bother me, but slowly, as I woke, the pain became less significant over around 20-30 seconds, the heart sped up a little, then slowed down and settled in intensity of beats.

So I went to the bathroom, calmed down, and tried to get back to sleep, but the event distressed me enough not to.

Later in the morning, I also had a single palpitation, (I will normally have many palpitations throughout the day, but this was isolated, with none before or after in the span of 3 hours both ways). It was such a strong palpitation that I couldn't breathe properly for a short moment after. The moment it hit me, I leapt out of my chair and struggled as my heart rate increased rapidly. I then got better, as I walked around the room to calm myself down.

I have had a similar event to this single palpitation before, a couple of weeks ago. However the event with my heart I had in the early morning was rare. I used to have it more regularly 2 years ago, when my anxiety wasn't focused around my heart. I had no fear about my heart, I simply assumed it was normal that if one awakes from a very sudden shock in sleep, that the heart will beat regularly, hard, slowly and cause a throbbing pain with every beat, although now my focus has shifted, and so it is troublesome to me and I'm concerned.

I've had many ECGs in the past, where the palpitations prove to have always been PVCs related to stress and anxiety. I have also had blood test and thyroid checks in hospital during some unnerving events.

May I ask some advice here? My family seems a little concerned over the heart pain waking me.