Nightmare

I had a strange, unsettling nightmare last night.  I dreamt that we lived in some futuristic apartment building that was controled by an A.I. system.  The system had a female identity, with a voice and face that followed you pretty much everywhere.

For some strange reason, I dreamt that this A.I. system became obsessed with me.  At one point it tried to either frighten or kill me when I entered an elevator by making it rush down and up the length of the building.  I was very startled by this moment in the dream and remember waking up out of a dead sleep with a heavy, pounding heart.  After a few moments, I laid my head down and continued the dream, not to wake up again that I can recall.

The pounding, racing heart now worries me.  Was I choking in the night, perhaps?  Can nightmares alone cause this physical symptom, or was the nightmare a reaction to me being in some physical distress while I was asleep?  I've had this dreadful fear of sleep apnea for a long time now, and any time anyone says they hear me snoring I quickly ask how bad it was, etc etc.  What if I stopped breathing in the night, which caused the tachycardia?  I'm afraid to go to sleep, afraid that I'll go into cadiac arrest and die without even the chance to fight.

My allergies have also been bothering me lately, which claritin being very choosey about when it is helping and not.  Thing that really sucks is that it's not quite hot enough to warrant turning on the AC, so we have to leave all the windows open even when the grass is being cut, which just makes things ten times worst.