Stress-related dreams with nocturnal anxiety/panic attacks!

Hi everyone!

I have been under a great deal of stress for over a year with several of those stressors being major ones. I've been diagnosed with GAD, OCD, Panic Disorder, Bi-Polar Disorder, Tourettes (to name just a few). Tons of specialists, tests and different meds over the years. One issue that I probably find the most frightening are the GAD symptoms which include excessive worrying, the constant "what ifs", blowing everything out of proportion so that even the slightest things become huge worries to be constant obssessed over, over-analyzing, thinking the worst about everything, a constant sense of fear/dread, severe stress-intolerance, etc.

One issue that seems to come and go which I find particulary disturbing are the very intense dreams I have which seem to come in waves and always seem to revolve around hiding, escaping, sorting, complex and unsolvable tasks, impossible problem solving, repetitive searching/seeking, catch-22 events, losing things, etc. Then, I wake up the next morning completely exhausted and usually feel really run-down, anxious, lousy and dazed (out of it) for the rest of the day.

I have always slept through these strange (and very stressful) dreams so I have never known what was actually happening during them but last night (I'm guessing at about 5:00AM) I had just started to have one of these terrible dreams and had barely gotten into it when my pet bird began screeching loudly and woke me up. After I got him calmed down, I noticed that I was in the midst of a full-blown panic/anxiety attack. So perhaps the dreams are being caused by a combination of stress and nocturnal panic attacks?. I know the bird's screeching didn't have anything to do with it because that has happened many times and it's not a big deal for me at all.

So I started reading and discovered that wheat is a really bad thing to eat before bed if you suffer from nocturnal anxiety/panic attacks and guess what?. I ate a HUGE bowl of cooked farina right before going to bed last night. I also stumbled onto some very disturbing things in the news (and elsewhere) before I went to bed and found myself dwelling on them as I lay their trying to get to sleep. I guess they "triggered" me and made things worse or something.

The strange thing is that a whole bunch of stressors in my life have recently been resolved (of course new ones always seem to pop up and replace them) and I was very happy and relieved about that so shouldn't I be having LESS anxiety/panic attacks?. Does anyone else here deal with all of the GAD-related symptoms I mentioned in the first paragraph or the stress-induced dreams or nocturnal anxiety/panic attacks?. Could you tell me a little about what you experience yourself please?. This is driving me nuts.

Thanks SO MUCH for your replies!.