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can night terrors be driven by anxiety?
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 243777" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>I used to have night terrors and really bad nightmares. It went on for years, even after I married although husband's presence has been very helpful there. He made it clear right at the beginning, that if I had a nightmare I had to wake him up for comfort.</p><p></p><p>With our kids - they all had nightmares when very young, the difficult children had them for a lot longer. difficult child 1 would sleepwalk a lot and talk in his sleep a lot. Same with easy child 2/difficult child 2. difficult child 1 even sleeps with his eyes partly open - he's been at camp and had someone think he was awake and they were talking to him, then realised there was no response. "Freaky," they told him next morning.</p><p></p><p>I tink it's connected to a number of things - a very active mind (such as high IQ, or vivid imagination, or an incredibly stimulated day, or a combination of these), a very high level of mental activity or concentration (I would get very vivid, exhausting dreams after an important exam), or a great deal of unresolved stress.</p><p>In your daughter's case, school sounds like a stress factor (for a number of possible reasons, including the need for something to be assessed so she can be helped). </p><p></p><p>One technique I share with you, from something I personally worked out for myself and then successfully shared with my children - when my kids had nightmares and came into my room, I tried to get them to tell me about the dream in detail. Sometimes in the retelling, it's not so scary especially as you begin to wake up more and get back in touch with reality. This also buys you time, andalso makes the child face what they were afraid of. I would talk to them about the dream and what it perhaps really meant ("Honey, you dreamt that a big burning dog was chasing you down the street and that if it got you it would turn you into a zombie - I think that dog represents the things you're afraid of, maybe the new subjects at school that you're not sure you know how to do yet, and you're scared that if you can't get the hang of it that people will think you're a dummy. But now we know about this, we can beat this problem in the daytime, I'll have a look at the work with you and see if I can find a way to help you understand it better.")</p><p>And the real trick - when the child was gonig back to bed eventually, I would tell them to make sure they lay back down on the other side to the one they woke up on, so the bad dream could trickle out their ear and not bother them again that night.</p><p>This works. And the reason it works - our brain is extremely sensitive to te slightest change in our environment, even when we're asleep. It incorporates our environment into the dream. For example, you dream the phone is ringing, and in the dream you answer the phone. But it might in reality be your alarm clock. Or outside your house while you sleep a car drives past. In your dream, you're in a car, or watching one go down the street, maybe waving goodbye to friends. Your brain has used it. But if you change sleeping position, your dream changes too. But your brain has already given you a vivid nightmare (your brain doesn't distinguish between nightmare or dream) and in so doing, has given you "food for thought" which your subconscious can now continue to work on. The job is done. You're unlikely to have another such experience in the same night. By changing sleeping position, you're making it even clearer to your brain, "that is done, time to work on something different."</p><p></p><p>THAT nightmare won't be back, not that night.</p><p></p><p>I hope this can help.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 243777, member: 1991"] I used to have night terrors and really bad nightmares. It went on for years, even after I married although husband's presence has been very helpful there. He made it clear right at the beginning, that if I had a nightmare I had to wake him up for comfort. With our kids - they all had nightmares when very young, the difficult children had them for a lot longer. difficult child 1 would sleepwalk a lot and talk in his sleep a lot. Same with easy child 2/difficult child 2. difficult child 1 even sleeps with his eyes partly open - he's been at camp and had someone think he was awake and they were talking to him, then realised there was no response. "Freaky," they told him next morning. I tink it's connected to a number of things - a very active mind (such as high IQ, or vivid imagination, or an incredibly stimulated day, or a combination of these), a very high level of mental activity or concentration (I would get very vivid, exhausting dreams after an important exam), or a great deal of unresolved stress. In your daughter's case, school sounds like a stress factor (for a number of possible reasons, including the need for something to be assessed so she can be helped). One technique I share with you, from something I personally worked out for myself and then successfully shared with my children - when my kids had nightmares and came into my room, I tried to get them to tell me about the dream in detail. Sometimes in the retelling, it's not so scary especially as you begin to wake up more and get back in touch with reality. This also buys you time, andalso makes the child face what they were afraid of. I would talk to them about the dream and what it perhaps really meant ("Honey, you dreamt that a big burning dog was chasing you down the street and that if it got you it would turn you into a zombie - I think that dog represents the things you're afraid of, maybe the new subjects at school that you're not sure you know how to do yet, and you're scared that if you can't get the hang of it that people will think you're a dummy. But now we know about this, we can beat this problem in the daytime, I'll have a look at the work with you and see if I can find a way to help you understand it better.") And the real trick - when the child was gonig back to bed eventually, I would tell them to make sure they lay back down on the other side to the one they woke up on, so the bad dream could trickle out their ear and not bother them again that night. This works. And the reason it works - our brain is extremely sensitive to te slightest change in our environment, even when we're asleep. It incorporates our environment into the dream. For example, you dream the phone is ringing, and in the dream you answer the phone. But it might in reality be your alarm clock. Or outside your house while you sleep a car drives past. In your dream, you're in a car, or watching one go down the street, maybe waving goodbye to friends. Your brain has used it. But if you change sleeping position, your dream changes too. But your brain has already given you a vivid nightmare (your brain doesn't distinguish between nightmare or dream) and in so doing, has given you "food for thought" which your subconscious can now continue to work on. The job is done. You're unlikely to have another such experience in the same night. By changing sleeping position, you're making it even clearer to your brain, "that is done, time to work on something different." THAT nightmare won't be back, not that night. I hope this can help. Marg [/QUOTE]
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