is anyone familiar with night terrors?

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bibliographer
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20 Jan 2008, 8:59 pm

does anyone in this forum experience night terrors? these are dreams without content that seem to occur within the first or second hour after one falls asleep. yet for their lack of content the dreams are terrifying, sending the dreamer into tachycardia and wild tantrums.



Aspiegirl89
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20 Jan 2008, 9:10 pm

can't say I've ever experienced V-Tach, but if you do, you should see a Dr....they can give you medication to help you out.

Night Terrors aren't fun...I used to have dreams where this huuuuge black dog was chasing me. It scared me s**tless.

But really, no V-tach, that's not good at all.


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kitschinator
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20 Jan 2008, 9:30 pm

I had these constantly as a kid. They didn't bother me, because one of the strange things about night terrors is the dreams are forgotten as soon as you wake up. But I would wake up screaming and crying and my parents would get really upset about it and ask me what was wrong. I would always say "I don't know", because I really didn't remember what my dream was about. I don't have them anymore, and I have no idea what caused them then.



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20 Jan 2008, 9:51 pm

I used to have those sometimes around middle-school age and would wake up screaming, or so I was told- as I had no recollection of their occurrance in the morning. I was a very anxious kid and they occurred in higher-stress situations, like vacation.



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20 Jan 2008, 9:58 pm

uh...sort of.

Mine always involved sleep paralysis, were ongoing from ages 8/9-27 or 30 or so.

Never tantrums. I don't know that other word. Sometimes falling. Never sleepwalking. I just couldn't move to open my eyes. They mostly involved my getting killed or cut or skewered. Felt like a battle against being possessed by darkness hungry for innocence, really.

Really, really, really, scary stuff.


Now, and only on rare occassion I get something I can only explain as "sharing" in anothers trauma experience/with ONE trippy 'being john malcovich' type. I'm no Ann Rule, but never the less I have experienced the unexplainable.

*sensory sensitive*


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whitedragon
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21 Jan 2008, 10:01 am

I'm so sure I've seen another thread which talks about night terrors but I can't find it. It was in this General Autism Discussion forum and was posted some time this month (I think).



queerpuppy
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21 Jan 2008, 10:09 am

Yes.

(I go to sleep at about 11pm every night, and this happens usually after very close to 1 or 2 hours of sleep, rather than 1 1./2 hours or 45 minutes, if that makes sense)

Anyway.

I have night terrors of a form where I awake between 12 and 2am into a panic attack I am not aware of having been dreaming, all I am aware of is that I am terrified for no apparent reason. I feel sick, shaky, pounding heart, sometimes with cold sweats. I have emetophobia, and the fear that I am going to be sick sometimes turns it into a full blown panic attack, but I am better at dealing with this now (my ex partner taught me to calm down)

I then can take an hour to get back to sleep, and then wake into panic again an hour or two later, and so on.

I notice this happens much more commonly if I've had repeated sensory overload in the day, and in turn, a bad night's sleep reduces my capability to deal with sensory stimulation the next day, so it can become a vicious cycle.

I do not think automatically medicating for this type of thing is a great idea. It is better to be able to work out how to reduce the incidence of night terrors (for example I worked out that they happen when I am over tired and / or over stimulated and / or have gone into overload that day. On these occasions I take a low dose of a sedating anti-histamine before bed, which doesn't change how I get to sleep, but it seems to keep me asleep through the point at which I would normally get the night terrors.

Best wishes

Robin



hiunikel
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21 Jan 2008, 12:44 pm

yes i gess i have seen thaousand of nightmare durind the last 5 years



MikeH106
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21 Jan 2008, 2:09 pm

Like the one where my high school crush beat me up and then I looked in a mirror and said, "I'm Gosunkugi," and woke up in severe heart pain unable to go to school that day because I felt so nauseated?


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21 Jan 2008, 3:51 pm

I have been told I have PTSD and I have night terrors or nightmares. Last night I had one which I assume was related to my near drowning experience. And I remember them after I wake up. I dreamt about being almost over my head in water and water going up my nose. I could feel it happened then I woke, sat straight up in bed dripping sweat and scream which scared the dickens out of my cat. Usually though I have nightmares about flashes of light probably from the lightning strike. I always wake up terrified like someone is trying to get me and I always drip sweat. I have ruined so many pillows from the almost nightly sweats. Sometimes its so bad I have to change into another set of pajamas in the middle of the night. It seems like it does happen within 2 hours of going to bed.



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21 Jan 2008, 4:00 pm

I had them constantly when I was a child...Now, I don't...but I do grind my teeth at night...

My son had one just last night...I felt horrible for him...seems they are just starting with him...



MikeH106
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21 Jan 2008, 5:05 pm

Come to think of it, a great deal of mine have seemed to involve scary faces.

And then there were the ones where I had to fight or run away fast, but I could barely move.


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Douglas_MacNeill
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21 Jan 2008, 5:40 pm

I remember having a night terror.

It was in the form of a "thing" crushing the
breath out of my chest during the deep
and dreamless part of my sleep (unlike
a nightmare, which is a scary version of
a normal dream and occurs during dream
sleep, REM sleep, paradoxical sleep, whatever
term you like for it).



Vince
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21 Jan 2008, 6:45 pm

No night terrors, but I had "old hag"-type nightmares and sleep paralysis frequently when I was little. Scary s**t.


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hartzofspace
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21 Jan 2008, 7:20 pm

I used to have Night Terrors so severe, that I would sleep walk and injure myself. Sometimes I would wake, to find that I had gotten so frightened that I must have tried to run from whatever it was, tripped over my blankets, fallen, and bruised myself severely. I would often scream in my sleep, but have no memory of it in the morning. Much later, I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. I still grind my teeth, and unless I medicate before bed, I might wake in terror, hallucinating. I usually don't fall asleep until dawn, anyway.


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Azharia
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22 Jan 2008, 11:50 am

Don't know if it counts. My bro used to have waking dreams. He'd wake from sleep, but unable to move a muscle. He says now (he is 23) that it were absolutely terrifying.
Parents always sayd he'd scare them by sleeping with his eyes open as a baby, so I have to wonder how long this all went on for.