I was reporting to the doctor that im experiencing weird symptoms as im falling asleep.. basically as soon as i drift off I feel like i can't breathe/my heart beats and skips randomly. Thus i would jerk awake desperate to breathe. As soon as I was awake, I would be fine.

I always thought this was a form of anxiety attack in my sleep.

the doc i saw brought up an interesting concept - because I am overweight, i may have sleep apnea which is causing this to occur. Which basically means when im falling asleep, im stopping breathing for a period of time, which results in the heart racing and skipping and the feeling like i can't breathe(because im half awake).

So anyone who experiences that jerking awake or anything like this, if you are overweight or even if you are not, you might want to explore this option.