Weekly Night Terrors *may trigger*

I dont know if turning to a website for advice or help is a good place to go but it is a good start. I am 23 years old, recent graduate from college and working full time/managing my own business in the City - and for the past four years I have been having night terrors twice a week or more. As a child I didnt have the terrors (or cant remember) and they now have developed to something even more serious. I dont know the onset other than being tired or lack of sleep but the emotional state they put me in at night is starting to become bothersome.
Every terror my fight response kicks in and either I get up ready to fight or are so nervous about what I "see" that I am on edge and have to calm myself down. The terrors range from seeing bug/creepy crawlies - people in my room - or physically thinking I am being torn from my bed, dragged through a wall, down steps and am paralyzed from the neck down. It has gotten to the point where I can sometimes talk myself down and convince myself that nothing is actually - every terror I am completely awake and aware of my actions, save for the times I cannot move my body but can see what is going on around me. It worries me that I have had so many terrors that I can now start to control them - myself and fight the urge to be able to move and remember what happened and what things looked like for weeks at a time.
They have been pretty tame until recently and nothing out of the ordinary happened to trigger it - from what I can tell. But, the terror seemed so real and put me in such a state of shock even though I was awake and lucid the whole time that it kept me up the entire night. I dont know what to do moving forward, I havent had any traumatic life events happen to me that would maybe cause an onset of this. I do find it strange that I will be totally content sleeping in the middle of the forest by myself, in a hammock for a week or two at a time getting sound sleep but when I am at home in my bed they dont seem to stop coming.
But I would like to find someone to talk to or learn more about people who could help.

Hi curtisstroer,

Your story is really interesting to me. I'm afraid I don't have direct answers for you but I felt compelled to respond. I have nightmares and/or bad dreams every night. But you're saying that you were awake for all of this? Forgive me if I'm ignorant, but I thought "night terrors" was just another way of saying "nightmares." What you're describing sounds like hallucinations and delusions. Can you be more specific as to how they develop? For example, do you eat dinner, watch some TV, turn it off, head straight to bed, and are overwhelmed with so much fear that you have some sort of waking dream when you get there? Maybe the answers you seek lie within your routine, stress level, or things (or images) you are confronted with throughout the day.

You also mentioned being able to control them. How much control do you have, exactly? I take it that you cannot control them enough to make them less intense?

I realize that you posted this a while ago and have had no responses. I hope you have not given up and that you see mine. I'm new but I'll be around. Message me any time if you need to talk more.

-Breeze

Hi again,

I did a little bit of research on the Night Terror Disorder and saw this on the Mayo Clinic website:

"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. Adults may recall a dream fragment they had during the sleep terrors.

Sleep terrors generally occur in the first third to first half of the night, and rarely during naps. A sleep terror may lead to sleepwalking.

During a sleep terror episode, a person may:
-Begin with a frightening scream or shout
-Sit up in bed and appear frightened
-Stare wide-eyed
-Sweat, breathe heavily, and have a racing pulse, flushed face and dilated pupils
-Kick and thrash
-Be hard to awaken, and be confused if awakened
-Be inconsolable
-Have no or little memory of the event the next morning
-Possibly, get out of bed and run around the house or have aggressive behavior if blocked or restrained"

So I see the difference now, but this is still not really what you're describing. If you're awake the whole time and can remember what happened afterward, then Night Terror Disorder doesn't really fit, but neither do nightmares, obviously... This still seems like hallucinations, delusions or disassociations.

I disassociate. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before, but maybe it's relevant. When I was going to college, (I'm only a couple years older than you) it was really bad and I would miss entire lectures because some trigger word or thought would make me have this sort of daydream (day terror?). I was awake, but I would miss chunks of time and a sort of veil would block out every other sound, except I would catch snippets here and there. I would see terrible things. I would imagine myself jumping out a nearby window, or a shooter coming into the room and firing at everyone. I would see it vividly, as if it was really happening. Then I would suddenly snap out of it and realize that none of it happened and I missed everything the professor said. It really messed up my schoolwork and was part of a vicious cycle of mental issues that just got worse and worse.

I know I wasn't asleep because I had friends catch it a couple times, not to mention I just completely felt that I was awake and aware (other than the lecture). It's sort of hard to explain I guess, but I still have them sometimes... Maybe this is similar to what you're going through?

-Breeze