Did you have night terrors as a child?

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Night terror definition:
a sudden awakening in dazed terror that occurs in children during slow-wave sleep, is often preceded by a sudden shrill cry uttered in sleep, and is not remembered when the child awakes .

So your brain is dreaming, but you appear to be awake.


I had these all the time as a child. I was wondering maybe if it is a AS thing.

Give your stories if you have had night terrors... I am interested in how your parents dealt with it and reacted.

Last edited by zweisamkeit on 14 Dec 2010, 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was definitely afraid of the dark and of the possibility of monsters under the bed when I was young, but my "night terrors" (sans monsters) you have described were mostly during my 20s.

my mom said that i would have my eyes wide open and would scream bloody murder..... It would appear that I would be awake but i wouldnt say anything coherent and i wouldnt respond.... if someone touched me, then I would push/kick them away.

nowadays i have a hard transition from sleeping to awake. If i get woken suddenly my heart races and i feel like crying.

I'm not quite au fait enough with sleep disorders to know what's the difference between nightmares and night terrors ... but if night terrors are dreams in which you wake up terrified and bolt upright, remembering nothing except for one striking image that implants itself on your brain the second before waking, then I had them.

I can also remember having another one when I was about 27, which shook me up a bit at the time as it was the first one I'd had since childhood.

Last edited by Locustman on 14 Dec 2010, 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the difference is with night terrors, you're 1/2 awake 1/2 asleep. You appear awake but your mind is still dreaming. You see images from the dream and you react to them...by screaming, crying... whatever the reaction may be

I had most of my night terrors, when I was in my 20s. I'd be peacefully sleeping, and than a heavy weight would lay on my chest. I'd wake up to see this giant cat beast on me, with bright green eyes, trying to have sex with me. The Incubus Nightmare.

Ah I see. In that case I haven't had them - as opposed to nightmares - but I did once have an episode of what I subsequently found out was sleep paralysis (in which your body is asleep and therefore can't move, but your brain is still awake) and that was really freaking strange. Almost a mirror image of the night terrors that you describe.

With night terrors, how much of the experience do you remember afterwards?

Last edited by Locustman on 16 Dec 2010, 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I had very disturbed sleep when I was younger. I had night terrors and sleep paralysis that sometimes lasted for a long time. I remember a few specific occasions of lying in bed 'after' a nightmare, watching my bedroom slowly move around me and morph into things, scary figures approaching me, but not being able to move or make a sound. It makes me scared thinking about it now and it's been almost 10 years since I had a bad episode.

I had frequent nightmares about things being changed or altered but aside from those, I enjoyed nightmares.

I had some terrific nightmares when I was very small, toddler and preschool age. After that I can probably count all of the nightmares I have had on two hands. I don't think I ever had any night terrors, but I don't have anyone I can ask about my childhood anymore to be sure. - LJS

yeah some were very very disturbing. Not disturbing in THAT sense, just that i ended up scared of going to bed, scared of the dark, and could never ever ever sleep without the thickest blanket covering me up to my nose , even in summer. no toe out of the bed either. I used to try not to make noise breathing , sometimes i was so terrified after waking up in the middle of the night that i couldn't move or make any noise for fear of attracting the monsters.
I remember one very vivid occurence when i was maybe 6 y old ( cause my sister was still a baby) , i woke up, the room was pitch black, and i was opening my eyes as far as i could to try and see some light or wake up if i was still sleeping because i wasn't sure. Some faces were coming directly at my face, from the wall . Faces just shooting out and vanishing right before colliding with mine. THAT time i did scream bloody murder. My mother came and turned on the light ( relieffff) and i never slept in the dark again. to this day i can't close my eyes if there is no light at all.

I remember having nightmares that were so bad too that I was afraid to fall alseep.

I've experienced night terrors before, mostly as a child, but it was never a regular occurence.

According to my mom, I had night terrors at age five. Apparently I would scream and try to climb the walls in my sleep. I don't know what she would do, though. I don't really think there's anything parents *can* do, except wait for them to pass. I think they are rare outside of early childhood.

I had night terrors for a couple of months around the age of 6 or 7. My parents have told me that I also would walk in my sleep, sometimes crying or screaming, during my night terrors. They just directed me back to my bed without waking me.

I had nightmares, like everybody, but rarely. Generally I fall asleep and then I sleep like a dead.