I have often heard about people experiencing night terrors and
assumed that they were just referring to having a really bad dream or nightmare.
However, after reading the section on night terrors and watching the above video it
explains physiologically and emotionally how night terrors are very different
than nightmares. One of the first differences is when they occur. Nightmares
occur during REM and night terrors occur in deep sleep. When a person is
experiencing a true night terror they will not have any relocation of it the
next day compared to those who have nightmares will often have very strong memories
and can feel rattled days later. When someone is having a bad dream
you can easily awaken them from it and help interrupt the unpleasant dream. For
a person experiencing a night terror they cannot be woken up and will often
times lash out at the person that is trying to wake them. Since most of those
that are affected by night terrors are children it can be very scary for the
parents but the children do not seem to experience any negative effects from the
episode. The video also explains that a parent might be able to rid their child of
the terrors by providing additional sleep time or by altering their sleep
cycle. Because the terrors tend to happen at the same time every night a person that is suffering
from terrors can be woken up about 15 minutes before the on-set of the terror.
This appears to change the sleep cycle and can rid the brain of what is
producing the terror. That seems very
interesting that it isn’t tied to the child having true fears but is tied to
the waves of the brain.
i had the same problem. i thought that night terrors were the same as nightmares. but thanks to your explanation and the video i now know that there are totally different and that the night terror are indeed more extreme.
ReplyDeleteOne of my brothers used to have night terrors. It was so hard to watch him, because for what I heard him saying it was like someone was doing somthing really bad to him, he would go to the corner of the room and stayed there screaming, it was really bad. The next morning I would ask him if he remembered anything from the night before and he would say no. Nobody explained to him what he was doing becasue he was really young, and for what the video said, I guess it was a good thing. My question would be if the night terrors occur during deep sleep, does that mean that this would be experienced late at night? or it doesn't matter?.
ReplyDeletethis was a very good subject to talk about. I always thought that night terrors and bad dreams were pretty much the same thing, but after reading this and watching the video, i am glad that i know that they are not the same thing. The video was especially helpful because it went into detail on how to deal with night terrors. I know that as a kid, I would see my friends experience night terrors. At the time i thought that they were just having a bad dream, but later on found out it was night terrors.
ReplyDeleteThat is super interesting, do you know if there are other ways to stop night terrors other than waking the child up 15 minutes before the occurrence? And I think it is very crazy how you won’t remember what happened, so if no one tells you that you were having a night terror then you will never know you are having them. Another very interesting topic is sleep paralysis.
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