Anyone else have severe night terrors?

Hello everybody

I am a 23 year old guy and I suffer from night terrors. Just this morning my mother told me that she could hear me screaming for my life last night, it must have been bad because I am in the basement and they are on the second floor. I do not have any recollection of a bad dream. I have been having them for years (since I was 19) and they seemed to go away for a bit. But they are back, the only difference this time around is I can't remember having them where before I remembered everything. I would wake up drenched in sweat, screaming and run out the room, I felt as if my heart pounding was moving my whole body and panting to calm myself down. I would eventually come to my senses and think how stupid I was thinking it was real but moments before I literally thought I was dieing. The thing is I could never remember the details of the dream, just that my life was in danger and I had to get out of my room.

I have done some research and have found it difficult to find advice for adults who experience this as it is more common in children. Apparently only 1 in 20 adults experience this. So my question is should I be seeking help for this? This can't be good on my heart if it happens on a nightly basis. Has anyone else gone through this? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

a reply to: Shepard64

Respect & thanks for making the post.

I have had vivid dreams ranging what seems to be the entire emotional spectrum. I too (still do occasionally) have woken up drenched in sweat, experienced nightmares, as well as had numerous dreams of immense pleasure &/or unimaginably evolutionary experiences. The dream or yin can be immeasurably profound in its ways. Humanity needs to sleep some things off
My only advice to you would be: to settle up with your fears. Take the time, maybe go to a retreat/sacred place so that you can look deep within yourself & remove things embedded in "you" that no longer serve whatever goals you make.
"it all can't happen overnight" as someone surely has said so I'll say: "Take the small steps to create a practice to research & understand YOU." cause obviously some part of "you" currently resides in fear.
what are emotions if not your own choosing?

Be well

a reply to: Shepard64

Need more input.

Heres one angle. If you can't remember what is frightening you in your dreams, it might be a repressed trauma of some sort. Some abuse or sudden traumatic accident, maybe when you were very young?

You have no idea or "seen" anything during dreams? Or just don't want to relate it? Understandable. Yes, you need to seek some professional help. Not medication, that just buries the buried memories deeper, the problem will still be there if and when you stop.

Letting others chime in.

a reply to: survival

You seem like a very spiritual person and I respect that but I'm sorry, I am not. I thank you for you'r advice regardless.

a reply to: intrptr

Nothing comes to mind as far as repressed memories goes. Mom yelled at me a lot but I'm over that crapola and love her dearly. There WAS one I remember quite vividly though, I was at work and I found myself inside the trash compactor when someone started it, no matter how loud I screamed no one could hear me and I was a wreck when I came to my senses. I don't see myself as nervous, stessed out person, quite the opposite actually. I do tend to worry about the future a lot and that is about it.

a reply to: Shepard64

Nothing comes to mind as far as repressed memories goes.

Thats because we repress them. I'm not criticizing, just wondering, that may not be it.

I was at work and I found myself inside the trash compactor when someone started it, no matter how loud I screamed no one could hear me and I was a wreck when I came to my senses.

I'd call that a big possibility.

What about in your dreams… your ordinary dreams, do you have one that keeps repeating…

a dream that leads you to a … then blanks out?

a reply to: intrptr

I find it hard to believe something traumatic happened to me and I can't remember but I guess it could happen.Actually my dreams are quite random and not related to each other. I do not have recurring dreams, Accept for the one that I am in public with my underwear on lol My ordinary dreams do seem to end abruptly then a new dream starts, I swear I have way more different dreams a night than I should.

Go get a sleep study done on yourself.

Its the best way to find out what's going on with you.

a reply to: Shepard64

Everyone has about 5-6 different dreams every night, but most simply don't remember 'em.


I never had any night terrors, and on the rare occurrence where i have a nightmare, i enjoy them oddly enough.

Hope I'm not breaking the T&C here, but it is funny that you mention you had to get out of the room.

I have one experience, cause by a psychoactive substance, which gave me a NDE in which i was sure i was about to die.
As soon as it wore off.. I had the most intense urge to get out of the room, and so I did, I ran upstairs and as soon as I neared the front door I realized I didn't even know what I was running away from.

Maybe you can try lucid dreaming, if you can control your dreams you would probably be able to avoid these terrors.
Lucid dreaming isn't easy tho, u need to be quite dedicated.

And Survival's advice doesn't have to be spiritual, any psychologist could say the same.

a reply to: Shepard64

From time to time I get some. Ive woken up swinging at my wife (thank goodness I didnt hit her!), crying, heart rapid, and some just awful dreams or "night-terrors" as its called.

What Ive found is that we are subject to what we see and read, watch and do during our waking hours. We also get influenced during the day by words, places and actions.

The sub-concious...which remembers internally everything... even if we've externally forgotten about it...at night mixes all these up into stories, dreams, nightmares.

Even those can be further "tossed in the blender" due to blood flow to the brain, illness and/or medical conditions.

Given all those inputs and conditions...its easy to understand how these things can form. So to a certain degree, some are normal to happen.

If they become nightly, constant, terrifying...it could be a sign of an undagnosed medical condition and I would recommend seeing a medical doctor to rule out illness.

Good luck!

MS EMT/ERT

a reply to: Skaffa

Ya that is the feeling exactly, I will bolt out of the room panting and wonder "what the hell am I even doing". I have tried to start the process of lucid dreaming but I just end up forgetting to do the steps for it. It does seem hard to achieve.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Maybe I should stay away from live leak lol but it is not like I am scared to fall asleep, I honestly just forget that I was screaming bloody murder the night before and nod off to dream land or nightmare land in my case.

a reply to: Shepard64

You'll get used to then. They started off as terrifying for me, then developed into a truely bizarre experience that is impossible to put into words. Now I kinda enjoy them, it's become a game to see how long I can endure them (they've morphed from uneasy impending dread to a thrilling roller coaster ride). As a somewhat unexpected side effect, they've made the nightmares I've been plagued with since a child far more tolerable. They hit me when I'm exhausted, I can almost predict when they will occur.

Just roll with them, after a while you'll become used to riding them out. After that the fear becomes quashed (blazé, if you will) and they become something akin to a theme park ride, at least in my experience.

a reply to: Shepard64

Yeah I have the same problem, I've always been interested in lucid dreaming but I keep forgetting to ''train'' it.

The easiest way to start which is also the first thing any lucid dreamer must do, is keeping a dream journal.
As soon as you wake up, try not to even open your eyes, do as little as possible and try to remember as much as you can and write it all down.
If anything just try to remember, the more you do this the more dreams you remember each day and they'll start to become more vivid too.

But you probably know this already.

There are some tricks to make it easier tho:

I recommend this technique, it seems to be the easiest and it also improves your waking life.
It basically tells you to try and be more aware of all your senses, and soon you will automatically notice when you are dreaming, because the whole dream will become a dream sign.
All day awareness

This could also help.
How to lucid dream if your lazy

a reply to: Shepard64

I have had nightmares since I can remember and am not sure if they would be called night terrors. I used to sleep walk all over the house but that calmed down and as I got older I mainly seemed to stick to the limits of my bedroom/bathroom.

Mine usually involved someone or something in the bedroom. It seemed real. I would either wake up screaming, wake up to find myself standing with something in my hands or I wouldn't wake at all and just scare the hell out of people.

Sometimes I could remember - a person, spider or robot type thing in my room. I was convinced something or someone was there. Other times I just had a vague recollection of being told to go back to sleep or no memory at all. Usually I felt tired like I hadnt slept so I generally knew if I had had a rough night.

It used to be about 3/4 times a week which I seemed to cope with. However a couple of years ago I started to be up numerous times per night. I was exhausted and this is when I went to my Doctor. I ended up on medication which has pretty much knocked them on the head ensuring I get a decent night's sleep. I don't think that's the answer but that's what I'm going with at the moment.

omg i too have these night terrors. I'm 37 and have had them most of my adult life. sometimes i remember the dreams and sometimes i don't, but i'll scream and thrash until woken. In my night terrors though, i know i am screaming out loud in an attempt for someone to hear me and get me out of the dream cause i cant get out myself. On the nights i don't have night terrors i will talk all night long and i usually remember all those dreams. There have been times I also kick, punch and scratch in my sleep. Poor hubby already got clocked in the head once, and said sometimes the talking keeps him up all night. He said anymore on those nights when i'm chattering all night he's going to sleep on the couch! I've researched online and cant come up with much either, so i just deal with it.

a reply to: Shepard64

You may as well have pulled a page from my own diary.
I started having nightmares every single night, all night long from when I was 17 until around 24 yrs old. No exaggeration... every single night for 7 years. I would wake up screaming - if I woke up on my own, otherwise someone else had to wake me up to get me out of it. Never the same nightmare, but always the same theme. Someone trying to kill me or the people I loved. And I knew in my heart, I would be dead by 26.
I tried absolutely everything I could to make them go away. Changes in diet, exercise, jobs... I even worked a graveyard shift just to not sleep at night and only sleep during the day. I lost 80 lbs in 7 months, hoping it was my weight. Nothing helped and nothing worked. I changed absolutely everything... and then I divorced my husband. And they disappeared. I had been dating my ex from when I was 15 until we got married at 21, and divorced at 24. He's a good man, not abusive or anything like that... and truth be told, I do actually regret divorcing him, but that is a different topic. The point is, he wasn't doing anything to cause the nightmares, and yet my subconscious knew something I didn't, and terrorized me until I left him.
They come back now, whenever I have relationship issues... even ones that I'm not consciously aware of. For example, I started randomly having nightmares again when I was 28, and because of their ties to my previous marriage, I started looking at my relationship closer... and found out my boyfriend was cheating on me.

With all that said - I'm not saying your nightmares are relationship related... however... they might be tied to something in your life you need to change. I thought I had changed everything, until I changed the one thing I didn't think had anything to do with them.

Best of luck. They take a massive toll on you physically and psychologically. And in my case specifically, they messed with my relationship. I did find that listening to sleep CDs that help push you through the cycles of sleep helped keep them toned down to just bad dreams vs night terrors.

I thank you all for sharing your experiences. I find the whole topic of dreams fascinating and i really hope i can actually achieve lucid dreaming to help control these night terrors. As a previous poster said, its probably something to do with my life subconsciously but thaat means it will be hard to figure out. I know i discredited spirituality above but i think it makes sense to dig deep and become more in tune with yourself to help you understand on a subconcious level.

it might be you were visited in your dream by past associates
maybe someone important in your distant past
or you were just remembering something threatening

a reply to: Shepard64

I've had many; from burning alive to Death himself decending from a storm. They are always vivid, like I'm actually there. It usually takes several days to get over it.

My NT's are connected to Hypothyroidism. When my levels are off the NT's start. When my levels are good, I sleep fine.

Symptoms of all kinds can point to different causes in different people. Try various approaches to uncover the cause. It could be a repressed memory, it could be your subconscious trying to get your attention. Your best bet is to investigate.