It happened last night... and now I have proof!

Post Reply New Topic

Is this a common thing for us on the spectrum?

I've long suspected that I've been dealing with night terrors since I was really little. But since they happen in deep sleep you tend not to remember them. I could always recall fragments of things here and there, but not anything solid that I can piece together. Dad worked nights and my room was on one side of the house and mom's was on the other and her door was shut so if I was up and about, she'd never hear it.

I know I slept walked. I can recall one night where I woke up in the middle of an episode after I spent several frustrating minutes reaching for a lamp that wasn't there.

One event that happened when I was 11 my dad caught me on the weekend where I woke up him after I threw and broke a lamp in my room. He came into my room and was able to get me back to bed with out much fuss, but I needed a new lamp for my night stand.

One thing I know for sure is that there have been plenty of times where I've woken up at a point in the night to use the bathroom and the sheets have been drenched with sweat, even during winter time when I keep my room at a cool 70 degrees.

Last night however I finally had an episode where I have a full memory of it. I go through roughly month long phases where I'll have two weeks of getting good sleep and two weeks of not getting good sleep, right now I'm in the later of the two phases and sometime during the early morning I suddenly went into some level of alertness where outside an intruder was trying to cut the screen to get into an open window. I was laying on my side in bed and became totally petrified and unable to move. What was this intruder planning? The level of fear I felt was unlike anything I've felt before. I managed to move my head towards the window and I attempted to shout at the intruder to go away, but I could make no sound my first attempt. On second effort I managed to muster all the strength I had and was able to get out a very scratchy sounding "HEY!" at my would-be intruder and upon doing so he abandoned his attempt to get in.

I quickly relaxed and was soon back under. When I woke up around noon my mind flashed back to that event. First thing I realized was that all my windows are shut and locked at night so what I remembered could not have transpired. Then I was like "hey! that was a night terror". Unlike a dream, this had a very detached feeling to it and was similar in feeling to all the memory fragments I have from my past, and sure enough, I could tell that my sheets had been drenched with sweat again.