Night Terrors

TomCo

Just wondering if anyone else has any experience with night terrors?

I used to get them years and years ago when I was growing up and I always found the actual scenarios which were the object of the terror to be pretty interesting (such as having to perfectly copy a bank note, repairing something which is broken irreparably, or enumerating infinity). I also found it odd that most people who have night terrors have very similar objects of terror.

I actually had one the other week for the first time in over ten years. It was one of those really hot nights, I hadn't slept well in few days and I was work had been stressful. Woke up after about an hour absolutely terrified that my eyes weren't capturing the illumination of the room perfectly (work related) and spent the next half hour trying to calm down enough to get back to bed. I think at one stage I thought my head was going to cave in.

Interesting experience, dont fancy another though!

Sinall

I can definitely identify with the enumerating infinity one! Also, as a child I used to dream about a giant ball of blu-tac that I had to break into tiny, tiny pieces, until each pieces was one tiny little individual section of blu-tac. If course, they don't come in individual units so you could be trying to separate it for ages! Trying to quantify the sky was another one. It was terrible, I used to scream and scream and wouldn't realise I was doing it. My parents used to have to wake me out of it and my heart would be racing for ages. Sometimes I would wake myself up with the screaming.

Now, I would have maybe one or two a year.

el dude

Had them as a child, but have little to no recollection of them.

snicket

I think I may have had similar experiences when I was younger,just from reading the descriptions, but what exactly is a night terror? it's a new phrase on me

tara666

yeah i use to get them as a child but now when im really stressed i get terrible nightmares,even when they wake me up and i fall back asleep ,i will get them again and worse ones too.if they are really bad i wont go back to sleep

ellen1

hi just signed up.dont know how to use it any tips

tara666

ellen1 wrote: »

hi just signed up.dont know how to use it any tips

just go in to each section (top of page ) and then if u want to add a reply just do gooood luck
ps im still learning too

Aom

Hi TomCo,

Bad luck on the nightterror experience.. hope you don't have any more. They are a terrible affliction. I experience nightterrors at least once a week, but usually more frequently than that. You should check your watch before you go to sleep and check it again once you've come round from a night terror. You'll find that eventhough it feels like you've been asleep for hours, they actually always occur in the first hour of sleep.

My nightterrors vary, but they all have one thing in common: I feel a very real and bloodcurdling fear of someone or something that I imagine is in the room. It can be the shape of a figure in the corner of the bedroom or the vivid image of spiders, rats, snakes or cockroaches in my bed or falling on top of me. I usually scream and shout and jump out of bed. I've "come round / woken up" in the bathroom, in the hall and in the kitchen (when I thought there was someone climbing in the kitchen window!). Every now and then I'll wake up sweating and with a racing heartbeat, but for no apparent reason. Some googling showed that this is a fairly common form of nigthterror, where the sufferer can't recall the reason for their distress.

I haven't been able to identify any trends or triggers, but would love to know if anyone has tips to prevent nightterrors. The only conclusion I have come to over the years is that they are aggravated by stress. If I am having a particularly difficult time in work, I will suffer from night terrors on a nearly nightly basis. It is pretty distressing going to sleep knowing you are going to wake-up to the sight of an "intruder in the room" or "spiders in the bed". The weird thing is that as soon as the terror is over I know exactly what it was and usually get back to sleep easily enough. While I am experiencing it however, I genuinely believe what I am seeing and I am not able to rationalise my way out of it. Very strange... Would love to hear other people's experiences.

Black Swan

Aom wrote: »

My nightterrors vary, but they all have one thing in common: I feel a very real and bloodcurdling fear of someone or something that I imagine is in the room.

I used to have those. I used to also have terrible headaches all too frequently when awake. When the headaches were cured, so were the night terrors. Don't have them any more thank the gods!

TechFreak

Great thread.

Im a bit of a newbie on here but as a kid , even up until my teens I had alot of night terrors.

Typically I was traveling at an imeasureable speed down an infinate road and my brian was trying to calculate when it would come to an end as I got faster and faster.It was bizzare.

I havent had a night terror in about 4 years thank god.And I dont miss them!

geuro

I have had just one real night terror, where i woke up screaming. Different ballpark from ordinary nightmares.

Interesting how many of the night terrors are related to quantifying and calculating, overloading of the mind. Mine wasn't like that though, more like a horror story.

A particularly disturbing dream, must be the most disturbing thing i have ever seen or imagined. ~My whole family riddled with a plague like illness, in desperate pain. Visions of my mother killing my sister by throwing her body down the stairs outside my room so that she, being in great pain, could kill herself too. not nice..

Took me at least an hour till the horrible feeling left me and i was able to properly regain my composure and close my eyes again. no re-occurences since, thankfully