Have you even woken up in the middle of the night to find that you can’t move and have difficulty breathing, or seen strange and disturbing visions, but not been able to do anything? Or perhaps you’ve woken up to find some strange creature sitting on your chest, suffocating or strangling you? Or maybe you’ve woken up to find that someone is standing beside you and talking to you, but you can’t move or answer? If you answered yes to any of these, then you know what it’s like to experience either a night terror or sleep paralysis.
What is it?
Night terrors and its cousin, sleep paralysis, are part of a collection of human problems known collectively as “sleep disorders“. This category of disorders include such infamous problems as narcolepsy, sleep walking (somnambulism), sleep apnea, and insomnia. To fully understand any of the sleep disorders, you first need to understand the stages of sleep.
Sleep patterns are generally split into two broad categories: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non REM) sleep.
REM sleep is characterized by the eponymous rapid movement of the eyeballs, low muscle tone, and memorable dreaming. The brain ‘locks’ the body down during REM sleep, theoretically to stop the person from acting out their dreams.
NREM sleep generally comprises about 70% to 80% of our sleep time, but this varies between individuals. Very little actual dreaming takes place in NREM sleep, but hallucinations can occur (technically, hallucination refers to falsely perceived stimulation on any of the five senses, not just visual). NREM sleep is further split into four stages: stages 1 and 2, which are termed ‘light sleep’, and ‘deep sleep’ stages 3 and 4.
Sleep occurs of cycles of between 90 to 120 minutes, and follows a pattern that alternates between the four stages before finally falling into REM sleep. Many sleep disorders take place between NREM stages 3 and 4, but generally before the REM sleep stage of that particular cycle.
Night terrors generally occur in children between the ages of two and six inclusive, and occur wtihin one to four hours of falling asleep. Night terrors and nightmares are different from each other in that while you may remember a nightmare (which occurs in REM sleep), you seldom remember night terrors (because it’s taking place in the ‘deep sleep’ stages). The sufferers almost never know that they are having night terrors. This doesn’t mean that nobody recalls having them; this happens frequently enough too.
Night terrors last anything between 10 and 30 minutes, and are more terrifying for the people around the sufferer than they are for the person having the night terror, generally because the sufferer ‘wakes up’ screaming. Night terror sufferers who recall the event feel the emotion of fear without the usual visual, audio, or tactile stimulus that brings fear on. Because there is no stimulus, a person awakening from a night terror might feel disoriented, or in some cases, forgetful of details such as their names or where they are. Night terrors in children usually spontaneously disappears over time.
Night terrors occurs rarely in adults and children over the age of six. Adult night terrors are generally caused by some kind of trauma, occur almost nightly, and respond to psychiatric treatment.
Sleep paralysis occurs at any age, and happens shortly after waking up from REM sleep, but while the body is still locked down by the brain. Sleep paralysis is often accompanied by vivid hallucinations and a feeling of fear or dread brought on by the immobility and the hallucinations. It tends to last anything from several seconds to several minutes; the minutes can sometimes feel undending, according to some reports.
The key symptom of sleep paralysis is immobility, either after waking up, or less commonly, before falling asleep. The paralysis means that the sufferer can’t move, speak, or control their body in any way.
The difference, as you undoubtedly would have noticed, between night terrors and sleep paralysis is the stage of sleep in which they occur: night terrors happen in NREM sleep while sleep paralysis occurs in REM sleep, and this generally determines whether you’ll remember the event, or experience the hallucinations.
The hallucinations that occur during sleep paralysis include, among other things: a beast resting on your chest, voices, the feeling of being touched by insects or “creepy crawly feelings”, strange smells, visions or strange and terrifying places, and strange tastes.
Studies have shown that the majority of people will experience a sleep paralysis event at least once or twice in their lives, so look forward to it!
A related state is hypnogogia, or sleep wakefulness, and frequently occurs in the transition state between being awake and being asleep. Hypnogogia is characterized by vivid hallucinations (on all five senses), and a sense of dreaming while being fully or partially awake. Hypnogogia is normal to most people, and people who experience hypnogogia often know that they’re hallucinating. You’ll know you’ve experience hypnogogia if you’ve ever experienced an annoying jerk (called the hypnic jerk or myoclonic twitch) just before falling asleep and requiring time to become drowsy and fall asleep again.
Hypnogogia has been attributed to the feeling of being abducted by aliens (due to the intense, believable hallucinations), visions of apparitions, and visions of shadow people. Knowing this doesn’t make the experience any less terrifying, however!
What causes it?
Both night terrors and sleep paralysis are poorly understood by scientists, and studies continue in this field, but narcolepsy seems to have a role in both disorders. Sleep paralysis can be caused by irregular sleep, sleep deprivation, and an increase in stress. Research has shown a strong genetic link to sufferers of night terrors, so if you have it, you might want to ask your parents if one of them had it too.
Dealing with it
- Recognize that you have a sleep disorder and that nothing supernatural is happening. Understand that it affects each person uniquely. Also, getting in touch with other sufferers may help mitigate the feeling of loneliness and dread, and get you to understand that other people also experience these sleep disorders.
- Keep a log or journal of your experiences, especially if the events recur. This will help you understand what you’re experiences, and maybe see patterns that you wouldn’t otherwise see. IN the log, keep track of what position you fell asleep in, details of any hallucinations, times, and dates.
- Try to figure out what causes your sleep disorder. If it’s irregular or lack of sleep, try to get more sleep or set definite sleeping and waking times. If it’s stress, try to figure out how to reduce the effect it has on your sleep patterns. Try exercise and healthy eating, and try to avoid coffee (which has been known to cause nightmares at the least).
- Tell someone; just the act of talking about the experience can help you deal with it. If you sleep with a partner, get them to understand the symptoms of night terrors or sleep paralysis, and that they can help you break free of it.
If you’re at a loss otherwise, you could always post a comment here and let us here at Utter Insanity know about it!