For a few months my son Jacob went through a patch of night terrors.
He would cry in his sleep and if I was there quick enough then the touch of my hand was enough to send him quietly to the land of Nod. However in most situations I’d hear his cries too late and then there was no reassuring him. Everything you offered from comfort to a drink was met with the same wail. Trying to hold his twisting screaming form was heartbreaking but eventually I figured out how to break him from his nightmare and that was to give him a real scare. Otherwise he’d be trapped in this nightmare and no-one wanted that. So a loud bang or turning out the lights suddenly and he’d be surprised enough to calm down and minutes later he was asleep again.
I guess Night Terrors must be a particularly lucid dream so that the dreamer finds it hard to tell the dream world from the real one – even though the dream world may be ridiculous – because in dreams nothing is too far fetched and anything can happen.
Tonight I have night terrors. A nightmare is visiting me tonight and I’m hoping someone will wake me up.
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Blogged direct from iPhone.