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Causes of Night Terrors

Scary monsters or your mother in law. don't let nightmares and night terrors ruin your sleep.

You're desperately trying to run, but your legs have got lead weights attached to them. You're being chased by your old history teacher who's wearing a black mask and carrying a gun - you've got to get away. Suddenly you cry out 'No!' and find yourself sitting up in bed, your heart thumping, unable to get back to sleep.

Most of us have experienced nightmares at one time or another. They're very common in children - particularly between the ages of three and four and seven and eight - and still about 5-10% of adults get them once a month. You'll normally have your nightmare during the second half of the night when you're in REM (dream) sleep. Suddenly you'll be woken up by a particularly harrowing episode - just before you're shot or pushed over the cliff, for instance. You'll be scared, anxious, very alert and will probably be able to recall your nightmare in great detail. Then you'll have trouble getting back to sleep.

They're different from night terrors, which suddenly appear out of deep non-dreaming sleep and normally happen in the first half of the night. In a night terror, you'll sit up suddenly and scream - but you probably won't wake up even though, rather scarily for your bed partner, your eyes might be wide open. You might sweat and your heart rate could shoot up three times its normal rate - much higher than with nightmares. Amazingly, you'll probably have no memory of it in the morning, just a vague sense of frightening images. Even if you are woken up when you're having a night terror, you won't be able to recall what happened - although studies have shown non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery - obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.

ACTION PLAN

After you've had a nightmare, write down any factors that may have contributed to the bad dream. What did you eat yesterday? Did you have any alcohol? Are you stressed? Did you go to bed at a different time from usual? Did you watch a scary film? Are you ill or are you taking medication? All these factors can influence what you dream about.

Fatty and spicy food as well as cheese are thought to increase the chance of nightmares. Stress is also a common trigger - whether it's work, financial difficulties, moving house, relationship problems, bereavement or even pregnancy. Drinking and medication increase the risk, too. The same factors influence night terrors - particularly stress and being overtired.

If you find what's causing the nightmares or night terrors, deal with the trigger. That said, it's not always as easy as giving up cheese before bedtime and avoiding late night horror films. Sometimes you won't know the cause. With nightmares, talking through them - even drawing images from them - can help. With night terrors, talking often doesn't help because you can't remember the content. If they're really severe and happen often, talk to your doctor about medication such as the tranquilliser diazepam.


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