Archive for 'Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid'
SLEEP DISORDERS: NIGHT TERROR
This condition is rare and is related to sleep-walking. Sleeping young children may suddenly scream hysterically at the top of their voices as if they have seen something horrible. Their parents rush to their bedside and try to comfort them. These children have their eyes wide open but are not aware of the presence of their parents. They may push them aside and continue to act as if extremely frightened. After ten minutes or so they fall back into deep sleep again as if nothing had happened. In the morning they cannot remember any bad dreams or anything horrible.
Night terror is not to be confused with nightmares. Nightmares are bad dreams. Night terror is not a dream and occurs in stages 3 and 4 of NREM sleep. Just as in sleep-walking, dissociation between the primitive part and the intellectual part of the brain occurs and the child experiences some primitive emotion such as fear and goes into primitive screaming. Since they are in NREM sleep, they are not dreaming and will have no recollection of the experience.
Night terror is very alarming to parents, but in fact children who scream are not experiencing any horrible dreams. Do not try to wake them up during an attack of night terror because they will be quite confused and disorientated, making the experience worse. Just stay with them until they fall back into sleep spontaneously. If there are frequent attacks of night terror, the child must be seen by a doctor to make sure there is no source of pain or illness that may cause these terrible screams.
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