Distract your mind.
You may want to get out of bed for a bit or do another activity, which could help relax you enough to eventually become drowsy enough to fall back asleep. Go someplace where you relax. Try reading or listening to soft music, both of which can distract your mind and relax you.
Grounding Exercises
Focus on your breathing. Breathe slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth. Become aware of what is under your feet and your hands, e.g., the carpet under your feet, the wood of the chair arms under your hands. Make physical contact with an object associated with the present time.
Upon waking up from a nightmare, it's normal to be acutely aware of what happened in the dream, and many people find themselves feeling upset or anxious. Physical symptoms like heart rate changes or sweating may be detected after waking up as well.
Nightmares can arise for a number of reasons—stress, anxiety, irregular sleep, medications, mental health disorders—but perhaps the most studied cause is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Sleep terrors differ from nightmares. The dreamer of a nightmare wakes up from the dream and may remember details, but a person who has a sleep terror episode remains asleep. Children usually don't remember anything about their sleep terrors in the morning.
Can Nightmares Cause Trauma? Typically, it's trauma that causes nightmares, not the other way around. It is worth noting, though, that while nightmares may not lead to trauma, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not without consequence.
While people talk about “night terrors,” this is not, in fact, a diagnosable condition, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual fifth edition (DSM-V). It contains elements of conditions known as nightmare disorder, REM sleep behavior disorder, and Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Sleep Arousal Disorder.
Sleep paralysis can feel incredibly frightening
If the condition occurs immediately after you wake from a scary dream, then it's only natural to make the association between sleep paralysis and fear. The lines become blurred between reality and fantasy and you may genuinely believe that your dream is real.
Sometimes the dreams we have seem so real. Most of the emotions, sensations, and images we feel and visualize are those that we can say we have seen or experienced in real life. This is because the same parts of the brain that are active when we are awake are also active when we are in certain stages of our sleep.
Stress and traumatic events can lead to vivid dreams. Researchers believe that this is due to the role that dreaming plays in memory and processing emotions. People who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely to have bad vivid dreams than people who do not.
Sleep paralysis usually occurs at one of two times. If it occurs while you are falling asleep, it's called hypnagogic or predormital sleep paralysis. If it happens as you are waking up, it's called hypnopompic or postdormital sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis may include hallucinations, such as an intruding presence or dark figure in the room, suffocating or the individual feeling a sense of terror, accompanied by a feeling of pressure on one's chest and difficulty breathing.
Lilitu: Some of the earliest writing related to sleep paralysis comes from Mesopotamia. View Source around 2400 BC. These accounts refer to Lilitu, a female demon. Researchers believe that it is from this early folklore that the concepts of incubus, succubus, and the night-mare descended.
Nighttime panic attacks, also known as 'nocturnal panic attacks' or 'night terrors', happen while you're asleep and wake you up, often with the same symptoms as daytime panic attacks.
These nightmares might be triggered by stress, anxiety or trauma, but they might also be a sign of future psychosis, the findings suggest.
Sleep deprivation psychosis refers to experiencing an altered perception of reality caused by a prolonged lack of sleep. Psychosis, in general, refers to an episode in which your brain perceives reality differently than other people in the same situation.
When someone experiences nightmares from PTSD, they can seem very real to them. They might feel like they are back in a situation that is not safe, the traumatic experience that caused the disruption in the first place. Symptoms can keep them awake or unable to fall asleep for long periods of time.
During a night terror, the sympathetic nervous system, which controls your "fight-or-flight" response, is unusually active. A person often does not remember that they had a night terror, but they will go into fight-or-flight mode in their sleep, experiencing an increased heart rate and blood pressure.
The characteristics of these dreams vary based on the trauma experienced. However, they typically create feelings of dysphoria, anxiety, sudden awakening, and an increase in heart rate. PTSD dreams most often occur toward the end of the night, but they can happen in all sleep stages.
Nightmare disorder is treatable with various psychotherapies and medications. It commonly affects people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
It's best not to try to wake kids during a night terror. This usually doesn't work, and kids who do wake are likely to be disoriented and confused, and may take longer to settle down and go back to sleep. There's no treatment for night terrors, but you can help prevent them.
Since adult night terrors are so closely associated with life trauma and psychological disorders, many of those who endure this bedtime battle will often also exhibit signs of aggression, anxiety, memory loss, and inward pain that are often expressed in the form of self-mutilation.
During an episode of sleep paralysis you may: find it difficult to take deep breaths, as if your chest is being crushed or restricted. be able to move your eyes – some people can also open their eyes but others find they can't.
Sleep paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes; episodes of longer duration are typically disconcerting and may even provoke a panic response.