Wow. I experience all of this, but now I can force myself to wake up because I know it's happening or going to happen. My feelings are like something has covered my mouth and I can't breath and something evil is going to physically attack me.
I remember my first episode when again I was 17-18. I was completely freaked out, blown away and absolutely terrified. I called out fo rmy brother and when he came into my roon h ejust kind of shrugged it off and said I was listening to too much Black Sabbath and smoking too much hash. I remember it to this day. I've been having them ever since.
It's a dreadfully horrible feeling, but like I said, I now know when it's about to happen and I force myself out of sleep and stay awake for a several minutes. It's weird because when I've been in an episode, I can hear myself struggling to breath and come out of it and I've asked my wife if she heard me struggling and she always said she never heard a thing.