Report on self-observed night terrors

Burning Beard said:
I've ad adult night terrors on and off for years, and they were particularly frequent in my early 20s. That "exploding head" feeling was almost always a feature of my terrors. A high-pitched ringing nose, like tinitus, but much, much louder. It's usually accompanied by a feeling of pressure around my head, along with a feeling that my body is out of proportion.

Then came the demons and goblins, the figure of fire, and out of body experiences.

At least I know what they are and I haven't had one for several months now. When I didn't know what they were it was terrifying beyond words.
Click to expand...

Mine have been mostly terrifying. I could live quite happily without ever having another one, but unfortunately for me I still get them every 6 weeks or so.

Halfcentaur said:
I wonder why the malevolent presence is such a universal aspect of this experience.
Click to expand...

I wonder this too.

And on learning that the hallucinations/voices of most schizophrenics are also malevolent, it made me even more curious. Why should that be the case?

Not that there is any sort of link between hypnagogia and schizophrenia (as far as I can tell there is no connection whatsoever). But both are neurological experiences that involve hallucinations and in both cases the hallucinations tend to be malevolent. I have read quite a bit on both subjects hoping for some insight into this but have yet to find an answer.
 
hearing God's voice, historically, isn't going to be good news. You may have to build an ark, wander in the desert, kill your son, be the son that must get killed, and so on.

Bad dreams are God's way of punishing you.
 
I have suffered night terrors throughout much of my 40s - perhaps 4-6 times per year. I have not had an episode in over 6 years. While frequently commingled with other sleep disorders they are very distinct.

There is no imagery.

There is extreme terror, but no object of terror.

They are not psychological.

The trigger is unknown (may be diet related), but what IS know is that they always occur roughly 20 minutes after falling asleep and the brain transitions from stage IV sleep to wakefulness without following the normal progress to Stage 3,2,1 - awake.

The feeling is indescribable and always feels like dying (even though I have no idea what dying feels like). The terror is extreme. It is like being split in two or stuck in two places at once.

My worst ever experience occured after making love to my then girlfriend. Everything was right with the world as we fell asleep snuggling. She knew nothing of my condition. I woke up, bolted straight out of bed in a single movement and starting screaming as loud as possible and could not stop. I knew I was awake. I knew where I was. She was talking to me asking me what was wrong with a panicked look on her face. I heard every word.

Then she made a classic mistake. Never touch a person in this state. Never! A compassionate observer can only wait for the episode to subside. As she put her hands gently on me, (I have no temper and am not violent) I slammed her full force into the opposite wall. I was not angry nor did I fell threatened per se, it was an involuntary reflex. I never moved from the spot where I had leapt to. Nor do I ever move, but always stand up quickly and then freeze.

Normally these terrors last from 5 to 20 seconds. This one went on for 3 full minutes! The only way I can rationally explain the screaming is it is like I am trying to scream myself back into my body. This is not an appeal to any sort of astral body, it is just the best way I can describe the feeling.

What is also interesting is that unlike a nightmare, there is little 'residue' and I usually have no problem going back to sleep.
 
ive had this happen maybe 2 or 3 times in my life (im 29 now)

ive always had a knack for being able to know when im dreaming, i often find myself in circumstances which i know cant be real, and decide i must be dreaming. in these cases im usually able to force myself to wake up by forcing myself to open my eyes (i dont know if this is the physical act of me opening my eyes or just a manifestation of whatever effort im making to wake up, i just know it usually works)

generally my first instinct upon waking up is to grab my phone (which always charging on my nightstand overnight) and check the time, but the 2 or 3 times i mentioned above i simply find myself unable to move my hands and arms, or any part of my body. its a very unnerving experience and im glad it doesnt happen to me very often

its especially frightening for me because since i was a child my one "phobia" has actually be alien abduction (hey, when you watch the x-files on tv at age 8 and read about the stuff throughout middle school it has an effect you) so i cant imagine how it would be to have this happen multiple times per year, rather than every 5 or so years
 
I am a little relieved to see I'm not the only one who has this. I didn't even bother telling my psychiatrist because how could I prove it? They just started happening for first time in my life about a month ago. Before that never had it (55 years old). Three times so far I started feeling a howling, strong, cold wind and swore the window was open. A strong feeling of a demonic presence accompanied it. Then a body at the foot of my bed grabbed my leg and twisted it giving me a bad leg cramp that woke me up. I also has tussles with this body where it was poking me and I was trying to fight it off me. This scared me so much a I didn't sleep on my bed but on the couch for a couple weeks. I wasn't getting good sleep though and so decided I had to go back to the bed.

It happened again and I was aware of it happening and made a decision to just lay there perfectly still and tell it I had no intention of fighting it. Well it didn't hurt me but just tried to scare me with the cold wind and feeling. What was weird is I could feel it get into the bed as if the bed had a weight put on it and the blankets move. Then I saw a kitten and reached out to pet it. It felt exactly like a kitten's fur. I remembered I don't have a pet and that woke me up.

So I'm no longer afraid of it as it doesn't seem to have any intention to hurt me, just spook me. And these reports make me think I'm not the only one with this. It might be connected with getting sleep apnea in that I noticed I stopped breathing as I fell asleep which is called an apnea. You exhale but you don't inhale. This lack of oxygen might be what is triggering it in me.
 
Last edited:
I'm 70 this year, and started experiencing strange episodes about 18 months ago, I get them when I'm awake. I get a feeling that something unpleasant is about to happen, and then I get a feeling of fear, and become dissociated from my surroundings. I've collapsed a couple of times, my legs just gave way. I don't actually lose consciousness. I mentioned it to a doctor, and had an attack while I was speaking to him. I thought it had had lasted two or three minutes, but he said it was only about 30 seconds. He said he didn't know what it was, and might not even have believed me. I can go for many weeks without it happening, then it might happen several times in one day, as it has today.
 
Last edited:
I was wrong actually when I said I had not experienced an episode in the last 6 years.
Something new and different happened this year which reminded me of sleep paralysis.

This summer, while exhausted from driving across the country, we had parked at a campsite around dawn to rest a little bit.

After I slept about an hour in the front seat I sort of was awake and listening to the sound of people around the various camp sites.

Suddenly it seemed like the sound of the birds and the campers and insects took on a strange effect, stretched and warped and getting louder and louder in my mind. It was like a loud electrical buzzing or frequency.

I began to absolutely panic at that point, and found I could not breath or move! Even in my hypnagogic nightmares I could breath. I began to scream in my mind as loud as I could, not able to move or speak.

After an agonizing and terrifying eternity, I came to in the car yelling loudly and gasping for air.

Later in the summer in my room it seemed to almost happen a few times, and it seemed connected to sounds, almost droning sounds, like the AC unit or the fan.
 
Last edited:
Halfcentaur said:
I was wrong actually when I said I had not experienced an episode in the last 6 years.
Something new and different happened this year which reminded me of sleep paralysis.

This summer, while exhausted from driving across the country, we had parked at a campsite around dawn to rest a little bit.

After I slept about an hour in the front seat I sort of was awake and listening to the sound of people around the various camp sites.

Suddenly it seemed like the sound of the birds and the campers and insects took on a strange effect, stretched and warped and getting louder and louder in my mind. It was like a loud electrical buzzing or frequency.

I began to absolutely panic at that point, and found I could not breath or move! Even in my hypnagogic nightmares I could breath. I began to scream in my mind as loud as I could, not able to move or speak.

After an agonizing and terrifying eternity, I came to in the car yelling loudly and gasping for air.

Later in the summer in my room it seemed to almost happen a few times, and it seemed connected to sounds, almost droning sounds, like the AC unit or the fan.
Click to expand...


Something like this used to happen to me when I was a kid.

I remember getting sick at school and having to lay down on the cot in the nurse's office. I could hear the grownups talking in the next room. Their voices started to slow down, like a record when you turn the power off to the turntable without picking up the needle. The voices got louder and louder as they slowed until they just became a wordless growl. I looked up at the ceiling and it seemed like it was getting farther away. After a time, the room felt as big as a barn and all I could hear was this deafening growl from outside the room.

It sucked pretty bad. It happened a few times after that, then just quit happening. Until I read your post, Halfcentaur, I had pretty much forgotten all about it.
 
leon_heller said:
I'm 70 this year, and started experiencing strange episodes about 18 months ago, I get them when I'm awake. I get a feeling that something unpleasant is about to happen, and then I get a feeling of fear, and become dissociated from my surroundings. I've collapsed a couple of times, my legs just gave way. I don't actually lose consciousness. I mentioned it to a doctor, and had an attack while I was speaking to him. I thought it had had lasted two or three minutes, but he said it was only about 30 seconds. He said he didn't know what it was, and might not even have believed me. I can go for many weeks without it happening, then it might happen several times in one day, as it has today.
Click to expand...

Simple or partial complex seizures can occur without loss of consciousness, and the feeling of something unpleasant about to happen is not uncommon with seizures; migraine (lots of bizarre symptoms surrounding these); narcolepsy (the collapsing reminding me of cataplexy)... it might be worth following up with a neurologist if it continues or gets very debilitating.
 
Halfcentaur said:
The tremendous noise building in my head led me to find out about Exploding Head Syndrome.

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome
Click to expand...

I linked to the same thing a few posts ago.

I have all sorts of nighttime weirdness - sleep paralysis, terrifying hallucinations, lucid dreams. They started in 2005 and happened several times a week until 2008 when I started back on seizure meds. Now they happen much less frequently but they still happen.

But I've only had the exploding head thing once and it was just in the past few months. Totally bizarre. It sounded like someone had just blown a trumpet right up next to my left ear. I bolted awake and it took me a few counts to realize it was a trumpet, a noise not usually associated with bombs or break-ins. There was a feeling like something had exploded inside my head accompanying the noise, which scared me enough to Google it the next day, which is how I found out about exploding head syndrome. I was just relieved it wasn't an aneurysm.
 
My 7 year old boy has them quite a lot. His eyes are open and he reacts to us coming in and talking to him. His eyes look overlarge and very dark - like out of a horror picture, maybe just massive pupils.

He's never been able to explain what is happening but whatever it is it's clearly on the terrifying end of malevolent. His repeated screams and terrified face are really quite chilling and distressing.
 
NeilC said:
My 7 year old boy has them quite a lot. His eyes are open and he reacts to us coming in and talking to him. His eyes look overlarge and very dark - like out of a horror picture, maybe just massive pupils.

He's never been able to explain what is happening but whatever it is it's clearly on the terrifying end of malevolent. His repeated screams and terrified face are really quite chilling and distressing.
Click to expand...

That would happen to my elder son when he was around four years old.
My wife and I would be woken by blood-curdling screams, and when we went to his room he appeared to be fully awake. Eyes open, talking, even going to the bathroom. However, he insisted that there was a human skeleton in the corner of his room.
Of course, there wasn't, but the only way we could calm him down was for me to pretend to remove it and throw it in the trash. He would then say 'OK' and fall back to sleep.
He never remembered doing that the next morning. This went on for a couple of times a month, then just stopped after around six months.

He is now pushing thirty, and has no memory of ever having done that.

V.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom