Iwas 16 the first time I woke up feeling like I was dying. My chest was tight and burning, and I struggled to catch my breath. I looked around the room: Radiohead posters on the walls in the glow of a hot pink lava lamp, a window cracked to let in a soft breeze. Nothing had changed since I’d fallen asleep earlier that evening. I hadn’t even had a bad dream. Still, it took several minutes to feel like I was in control of my body and breath.

Over the next couple of decades, these terrifying episodes happened sporadically. They were intense, but they only lasted a few minutes. I assumed they were a fluke. I ignored them until my mid-30s, when I started waking up with intense chest pain several nights per week, and nearly every time I tried to take a nap. It felt like terror, but because ther

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