[joangel]

Hi,
Can we start a thread about night terrors?
I wake up screaming 3-4 nights a week. After discussing it with my best friend, I did some searching on the internet and found "type b night terrors." Although children with night terrors usually grow out of them (type A), in Type B, the child suffered some event(s) in their early childhood that is causing the night terrors to stay.
I am getting a book on it, so I don't know much more, but I was wondering how many others of us suffered from this?
We are always paying the price!!!

[boatguy]

I don't, don't hardly ever remember a dream to be honest, but go for it.

[littleb]

I have a hard time remembering my dreams but i know i have them, i can tell by the way i wake up (generally panicked) i'd like to start a thread too tho, cuz i sleep walk, and talk, and the dreams i do remember are NOT good and i dont understand them...got to have some meaning but i dont know what. Having a place to discuss would be very helpful. DianaJoy, can you do this for us when you get a chance?

[Emms]

I don't remember many dreams. To be honest, I like sleep, it makes time go faster, if you know what I mean. Wish I could do more of it, esp in winter with the dark mornings we get here.

[littleb]

my grandma talked about those morning, talked about how long it made the winter seem and how much she hated it. I've always wanted to see it for myself tho, want to make the trip n maybe meet some of my distant realitives i used to hear so much about. I don't think my grandma went back after her father died, she has step-sisters and cousins there but she says she doesn't know any of them "that well" and you can "never go home". Says she'd rather remember it the way it was the last time she saw it (scottland that is).

I have a lot of trouble sleeping, getting to sleep, staying asleep, waking when i need to, but the walking talking n sleeping at the same time is prolly the one that bothers me the most, i just wonder what i might say while sleeping that someone could take wrong ya kno? Or what if i have a nightmare and do or say something horrible to my babes, OR what if i get in my truck n drive away??? Everyone says i look n sound awake...so no one would really know but me and at that point isn't it too late?

I like sleep when its good sleep....but i dont get much of it, generally wake up more tired n frustrated than when i went to bed. Do better on a weekend sometimes, but rarely.

[DianaJoy]

We can, indeed, have a new topic on Night Terrors :) Sorry it took me a bit - I didn't get a chance to get online sooner.

From what I understand, night terrors are different from nightmares. The person might seem to be awake, but isn't really. In some cases the person having the night terror reacts to the people around her, but as if they're some part of a horrible nightmare. Often, the sufferers are unconsolable, because they don't recognize the person trying to console them. Sometimes sufferers don't remember it happening when they actually wake up, sometimes they do. It's scary stuff to experience or to witness.

And that's about all I know on the topic - to my knowledge, I've never had them. I have some icky nightmares from time to time, but not often.

[littleb]

Thanks Dianajoy!! :-D

My mom had night terrors, i think, but she wouldn't move out of the bed, she didn't sleep walk, she just flailed around a lot n talked/screamed/cried...if you talked to her she'd talk back, n like you said she was unconsolable. It was actually a bit dangerous to be around her cuz she'd swing at you not knowing it was you. she said she generally remembers them afterwards.

My youngest brother and I both sleep walk. I dont know if its a medical issue or a trauma issue, either way its VERY disturbing because ppl don't know...like my man. He'll ask me to get something (cuz it looks like im awake) or he'll ask me about something, n i'll get up like im going to go do it, but then (cuz im sleeping) i just wander around. But he'll continue to ask me or come up to me n (touch me i guess) n eventually it will wake me up. But then i wake up confused n scared as hell...cuz the last thing i remember was watching tv on the couch, n the next thing i know i wake up standing in the kitchen. And everytime my man wakes me up while im sleep walking, i feel like he's going to attack me, or that he's really mad, and it makes me really scared. I always get a severe headache afterwards too.

Lol I scared him real bad too one night, i guess i went upstairs n fell asleep with my eyes open (or opened my eyes after i fell asleep i dont know) n he came upstairs after a while, saw me, n thot i had died. He started shaking me, yelling for me, n i woke up like "what the hell r u doing!!!!" Lol!!! He still trips out on that one.

it messes with me a good deal tho, cuz my brain gets used to doing or hearing certain things and it just "does it". Like my alarm clock I have to change anywhere from daily to once a week because my brain gets used to hearing it and i shut it off without waking up. Problem is, there's so many tones on an alarm clock, once my brain gets used to all of them i have to get a new one. I can change them back n forth a couple of times, change the times by a min or so too, but eventually i have to get a new one. If ppl wake me up, say my man stays up a couple of nights n a row n wakes me up, i get used to hearing him too, and again i wont wake up, but he can't tell because i respond to him. i can go as far as getting up n getting cloths out for work while im still sleeping. i either go back to bed, cloths in hand, or wake up in the closet or bathroom confused as hell.

[joangel]

thanks for sharing.
I am so frustrated that we are always paying for what they did. I have never been angry before, more hurt than anything. But, now I'm just mad. We were innocent kids and because of what they did, we have to live with the aftermath.

2 of mine are dead, but my mom is still with us and she is in denial. I hate that, you can't even talk about it and she will never admit what she did.

[boatguy]

I was on a 30 foot long sailboat with a guy that had night terrors, and he also snored like a hog. Boat seemed very small, I know more now, would be a bit more knowledible now than then, but I did feel for the guy, not for the snoring though. And littleb, dark mornings are not what they are cracked up to be, take it from someone who has lived most of his life in the upper midwest(way upper)and Alaska. Dark is dark, and can be very depressing.

[Emms]

Boatguy, we used to have a neighbor who snored so loudly that in the summer, when we had our bedroom windows open, we could hear him. Not good.

I can't say much about night terrors cos I havn't had them, but I get a thing where I'm scared to go to sleep. It's usually when my epilepsy is giving me problems and my brain isn't working properly, it goes into a post ictal state after a bad seizure. Doesn't happen often but I can't take that transistion from waking to sleeping, you can't normally remember it but when I'm in that state I can and it's horrible. Now that's scary and panics me into waking, but I don't shake and cry out or anything like that. It's hell and can last for days (well, nights).

As for dark mornings, they're awful. Hate them and we get them all winter. It's dark and cold til 7.30/8.00 am from October to March, getting darker as the months go on. It gets dark around 5.00pm in mid winter here too. Don't like it.

[jamerson_37@msn.com]

I always have nightmares of my family especially when things are not steady and like anxiety ridden. Im not working like a lot of people, but Im trying to use this opportunity to work or create a nonprofit with helping animals and the environment and using art and providing green jobs for most discriminated LGBT of color, like myself. I did scream help this guy is a maniac when my dad was chasing me down in my dreams and he went away, like maybe that was good and calling him on his abusive rages

[littleb]

see thats the thing, i dont have normal dreams. I had 2 diff reoccuring dreams about my dad, both dreams he ended up or was dead and in one of them he came back to life n started beating my ass. the rest of my dreams, from what i can remember, are weird. Dead ppl n children attacking me, n BIG animals, have had a couple of nightmares about the church, n every where i am in my dreams is like this big cluster F**** of all the places ive ever been. Its weird, its like my brains so jumbled up it doesnt dream normal dreams....ive never had a dream where im just at school or at work or at home. Its weird but its like im everywhere all at the same time.

I've never had a dream where im being attacked that i could respond. Generally any of my dreams where im being attacked i cant move or speak at all, almost like i can't breathe even.

But i *generally* dont remember my dreams, thank god. The part that really bothers me the most is the sleep walking. I don't like the fact that i do it, n have no idea how to stop it. Its scary waking up sleep walking, scary waking up after sleep walking (even if im not up walking around) cuz im in a diff spot than i was when i fell asleep.

When i sleep walk, its like a piece of me is turned off. It generally starts with me watchin tv, or talkin to someone, and i fall asleep but its not normal sleep.

Hard to explain, but its not like nodding off, you know if ur watchin tv, n ur eyes start to get heavy, u start breathing slow, u fall asleep and you might not be aware of actually when you fell asleep but you know you fell asleep right? But when i sleep walk its literally like someone came up be behind me n just turned me "off". Like im consiously aware im watching tv, or having a conversation and can even be interested in what im watching, doing, saying, n the next thing i know im awake somewhere else...there is no nodding off, no actual memory of my body preparing for sleep or falling asleep. i'm awake watching tv, or talking to someone, and its like i go unconcious. I wake back up to find i either slept walked or i wake up standing up...both are very uncomfortable positions to be in, cuz either way, that last thing i remember was i was doing something. Now its hours later n i dont remember anything. And no one can tell, no one knows when im awake or when im sleep walking, i sound the same, look the same......its like my councious just shuts off n the rest of mem keeps going. Subcouncious takes over.

And that is a bit what it feels like too, like something "borrowed" my body for a quick min lol... i dont remember doing or saying the things "i said or did", lol ahhh i have body snatchers!!!!

My brother sleep walks, and i can tell when he sleep walks, he puts the bathroom soap in the fridge, his eyes are only half open, that sorta thing...ppl say its not like that with me. They say i look fully awake, like i normally do, sound normal, do normal things, i just dont remember any of it. Weird huh? it bothers the hell out of me tho...what if someone asks me to go to the store like that n i go n wake up god knows where? Would i just go to the store or would i end up somewhere out of gas the next morn....i dunno it creeps me out

[jamerson_37@msn.com]

I dont know much about sleep waking just my brother did it one time when he was younger he got up and went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the bathroom sink and left it running and went back to bed. He got in big trouble for doing that and me and my sister picked on him about it and he never did it again. But I dont know about sleep walking really. You can check the internet for further research in the subject and your night mares too. I sometimes go to the dream dictionary when I remember something prominent in my dreams and see what it means. But maybe also check for that on the internet.

Sounds like your abusive family situation still haunts you today, with your dad not being there and being abusive. The craziness of your family abusive dynamic trying to deal with in your sleeping space. That was the first time I stood up to my dad in my dream ever and he left in my dream. So maybe you can try to see if you can try it and see if it works.

So that is scary that you are acting so regular when sleep walking maybe people around you in the evening time should know not to go places late at night just in case that scary you might just take off and who knows what that is scarry. Maybe you do that cause your childhood was so painful sometimes you just go unconcious and just check out like an out of body experience, so you dont have to be in your body and feel pain JJ

[Emms]

I don't know much about sleep walking either, not done it, that I know of. I didn't have a good dream last night but it wasn't a classic nightmare. I dreamed I was spinning round and around, like the drum that carried the pictures around in one of those old fashioned gaming machines that you get in the arcades. I'd stop for a while, then think it was over, but then it would start again, it was horrible. Finally I woke up and was so relieved it was a dream but had difficulty getting back to sleep cos as soon as I tried my heart would beat so fast cos I was scared it would happen again. Finally it calmed down and I did sleep, but it was awful, never dreamed like that before.

[jamerson_37@msn.com]

I had a bad dream last night too I was covered with bumps like pimples all over my face and I looked like I had a weird disease, thank god that was just a dream. I looked it up on the dream dictionary and it said I had a lot of emotions going thru me.

Anyway I always have dreams of my controlling parents and sister controlling me or trying to, because they dont understand why being of mixed race that children choose what race they can relate to or identify to that they felt loved. Saw that on a Public Television documentary it made sense now.

That would be African American, since that happen to be the only race of people I felt loved that were nice to me, growing up. Even though I didnt grow up around Native Americans I could also more Identify with Real Native Americans since they are connected to the earth and live in harmony with nature and only take what little they need from the planet resources. So i can relate to that my whole life.

I also have dreams of my girlfriend alot being abandoned from her all the time. I always try to call her in my dream and the phone dont work right or I could never find her. I just had a dream she had all these people she knew for her birthday that she was gonna see and I kept asking when am I gonna see you for your birthday and she had a attitude like she had to see if she could pencil me in. I was like forget it, Im not gonna be able to see you on your birthday cause a list of others were more inportant than me. I always have those dreams like Im not that important since growing up I absolutely had no one who was there for me so i allways feel abandonned in my relationship, but not to say she does do things that trigger that. JJ