Doctors Answers (2)
Night terrors (sleep terrors) consist of sudden arousals from slow wave sleep (Stage 3) accompanied by screams or crys or severe fear. The patient has amnesia for the event and are inconsolable. The event usually occurs in the first part of the night. They usually subside by adolescence and are rare in adults. Nightmares or dream anxiety attacks occur in the REM stage of sleep and are usually in the latter part of the night and associated with complex dreaming mentation.
Night terrors are episodes of arousal from Stage N3 deep sleep often accompanied by screaming. The person will usually show signs of fear and may even sleepwalk. There is usually no recall of the event. Nightmares are common and what most would call a bad dream. Nightmares occur during REM sleep, involves recurrent awakenings with recall of disturbing dreams and difficulty returning to sleep.
What are Night Terrors?
Night terrors are a sleep disorder which causes the affected patient to get up suddenly from sleep as a result of feeling severely afraid to terrified. Typically, a person experiencing a night terror will sit up abruptly in his or her bed, sometimes crying, moaning or screaming in a sweat. Because the patient is still sleeping, he or she will act very confused. Some patients can remember what images or sensations caused them to have the night terror, or portions of it, while others may fail to remember what happened at all.
As of now, sleep doctors do not have a definitive cure for night terrors, although they do know that it is not dangerous to wake up a person from his or her fearful state. The only thing family members, friends and bed partners can really do for a person experiencing night terrors is to comfort their beloved and keep him or her away from objects in the room that might be used harmfully while the patient is in a panicked but sleeping state.
What are Nightmares?
Night terrors occur most often in patients when they are very young, between the ages of 3 and 5 years old, although night terrors also affect adult patients. What causes night terrors is not very well understood, so the sleep disorder is often misdiagnosed as nightmares or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers have also made links between night terrors and some medications that treat neurological conditions, although having night terrors is definitely not proof that a patient is mentally ill in any way.
The most common misdiagnosis made for night terrors is confusing the sleep disorder for nightmares. But what are nightmares, really? Nightmares are bad dreams that usually force a sleeper to wake up partially or fully. Fear or terror is not the only emotional trigger, although it is very common for a person experiencing a nightmare to be roused due to a feeling of intense anxiety during their dream state. Emotions experienced during a nightmare can range from depression and sadness to guilt and anger. There have been countless studies conducted regarding the common themes found in people's nightmares, which include being chased by an animal or some human figure, suddenly losing one's teeth and going to work or school without wearing any clothes.
Night Terrors vs. Nightmares
Nightmares can hit a person anytime during their sleep state, although most often nightmares will wake a person up from a deep REM sleep. Deep REM sleep occurs typically after an hour and a half of sleeping. The nightmare can be long and drawn out with a story line that the sleeper may or may not remember upon waking.
Night terrors, on the other hand, occur usually within the first hour of sleep, before the patient has reached deep REM sleep and while the patient is in the early stage of sleep is called deep non-REM sleep. Typically, patients who consistently have night terrors will eventually be able to predict when the symptoms will occur - say, for example, every night, 30 minutes after falling asleep. Furthermore, while patients can usually realize that they're awake after a nightmare rouses them from sleep, patients experiencing a night terror will feel very confused because they are still sleeping for the duration of the night terror. The night terrors patient may not recall any events of the previous night in the morning, even if the patient had his or her eyes open during the night terror.
If you think you may have the sleep disorder night terrors, you can undergo an overnight sleep study at a sleep lab and confirm your suspicions and also find out when the night terrors normally affect you. This may help you manage your night terror symptoms better.