Fuck. I shouldn’t have trusted that dream, things were going too well. Then bam! It had me and wouldn’t let go.
Night terrors are intense episodes of fear or terror during sleep, often accompanied by screaming or flailing. Experts recommend against waking someone up who is experiencing a night terror.
The screaming and flailing is actually to wake up. Either to wake yourself up or have someone hear you and wake you up. The “sleep foundation” doesn’t know shit. “Parasomnia”, they gave it a scientific-sounding name so I guess they’re the experts.
Sure it can be PTSD, or anxiety, but what if there are actually dream entities that feed on our fear? I wanted to write “evil dream entities” the first few times, but now I’m thinking why would they be evil? It’s not their fault or choice they feed on fear, the lion isn’t evil for being a carnivore and feeding on the gazelle (yeah, there was no metaphor I could think of in which the supposed dream entities aren’t the predator lol). But lion might be the wrong one, spider is a better one cause I didn’t feel hunted, I felt ensnared.
I had to write this post cause I couldn’t risk going back to sleep so soon after, that’s how they get you again. After some time the entities move on. But it’s probably PTSD and anxiety.
Not to keen on taking pharmaceuticals if I don’t need to. Haven’t had a night terrors episode in years, so they’re not that frequent. I’ve just been super anxious lately and I’ve had a few extreme panic/PTSD attacks, so that’s probably the reason for night terrors. My nightmares are usually of the form that someone or something is after me, and I think that’s classic anxiety.
Of course, that’s up to you to decide. Especially when it is in the context of PTSD, nightmares of this kind are common. If it occurs much more frequently, which I sometimes had every day, certain medications can help. It’s always good to know that there’s a solution in case :)
Yeah, I’d like to try other solutions before going for drastic measures. But as you say, always nice to know it’s available. Thanks.