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.
“Night terrors are considered more serious than nightmares among adults and are classified as a parasomnia,” says Light. “With children, both nightmares and night terrors are fairly common.
Night terrors are like nightmares, except that nightmares usually occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and are most common in the early morning. Night terrors usually happen in the first half of the night.
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.
They occur in 2% of children and usually are not caused by psychological stress. Being overtired can trigger night terrors. Sometimes, recurring night terrors are a symptom of other sleep disorders like obstructive sleep apnea.
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.
Night terrors tend to happen during periods of arousal from delta sleep, or slow-wave sleep. Delta sleep occurs most often during the first half of a sleep cycle, which indicates that people with more delta-sleep activity are more prone to night terrors.
What causes nightmares and night terrors? If you have chronic nightmares, they could be due to stress, anxiety, a traumatic event or lack of sleep. Night terrors have a strong genetic link, so you are more likely to experience them if someone else in your family has them.
Night terrors occur in deep sleep or NREM stage three. During night terrors, the front part of your brain that controls executive functioning and memory is asleep while the back part that controls motor movement is awake. This is similar to sleepwalking.
During a night terror you may talk and move about but are asleep. It's rare to remember having a night terror. Nightmares are bad dreams you wake up from and can remember. Night terrors are most common in children between the ages of 3 and 8, while nightmares can affect both children and adults.
Night terrors are not harmful, but they can look like other conditions or lead to problems for the child. Talk with your child's healthcare provider if you notice any of the following: The child has drooling, jerking, or stiffening. Terrors are interrupting sleep on a regular basis.
Bottom line. Night terrors are episodes that can cause you to shout, flail or do other things in your sleep. Even though they're more common in children, adults get them, too. No one knows for sure what causes night terrors, but underlying stress, anxiety, or other mental health conditions could play a role.
Speak calmly but avoid waking them.
Trying to wake them up can be dangerous but also futile. Many people in night terrors never wake up during the episode. What you can do is speak to them in a calm and soothing voice to offer comfort. If they get up but are not too agitated, gently guide them back to bed.
Terrors last longer than 30 minutes. Your child does something dangerous during an episode. Other symptoms happen with the night terrors. Your child has daytime fears.
Nightmares and Night Terrors: Nightmares and night terrors plague a majority of people with PTSD, leading to nighttime awakenings and making it difficult to get back to sleep. The content of these vivid dreams is sometimes related to past trauma, with many PTSD sufferers reporting repetitive nightmares.
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).
Night terrors are episodes of intense screaming, crying, thrashing, or fear during sleep that happen again and again, usually in children ages 3 to 12. New cases peak at age 3 1/2. There are two main types of sleep: rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (non-REM).
Similarly, experiencing night terrors doubled the risk of such problems, including hallucinations, interrupted thoughts or delusions. Younger children, between two and nine years old, who had persistent nightmares reported by parents had up to 1.5 times increased risk of developing psychotic experiences.
Kids with symptoms like these don't necessarily have (or develop) a mental illness or disorder, and many times those experiences means nothing, Thompson says. But symptoms like these, especially on the more severe end of the spectrum, may be forerunners of psychotic illness like schizophrenia.
Nightmares occur more frequently in patients with schizophrenia than they do in the general population. Nightmares are profoundly distressing and may exacerbate daytime psychotic symptoms and undermine day-to-day function.
Night terrors may become worse with illness and fevers, or if your child becomes very worried about something. Night terrors are different to nightmares. Nightmares are scary dreams that usually happen in the second half of the night, during dream sleep.
Stress can begin the cycle of sleep terrors or it can exacerbate it by causing fatigue or sleep deprivation. Sometimes, but not always, abuse, molestation, or other trauma can cause sleep terrors.
People with bipolar disorder also commonly face Night terrors. Disparate nightmares, night terrors do not occur during REM sleep. A night terror isn't a dream, but rather sudden awakening along with the physical symptoms such as intense fear feeling, screaming or thrashing, and increased heart rate and blood pressure.