Yes, night terrors can be very traumatizing, especially for observers and adults, often signaling underlying issues like PTSD, causing intense fear, screaming, and thrashing, even though the person experiencing it usually doesn't remember the episode, unlike a nightmare. While often seen in kids as a developmental phase, for adults, they can be a symptom of serious trauma and mental health conditions, making them psychologically crippling events.
Nightmares and night terrors are often lumped together, but they're actually quite different. If you have PTSD or a history of trauma, nightmares can be a really common symptom. But I've recently learned that night terrors can also occasionally be a symptom of trauma too.
What are the consequences of night terrors? Night terrors are not a problem by themselves for the affected child or adult. Aside from the potential risk of accidental injury, night terrors are relatively benign. Most children will outgrow night terrors, as they get older.
Overview. Sleep terrors are times of screaming or crying, intense fear, and sometimes waving arms and legs when not fully awake. Also known as night terrors, sleep terrors may lead to sleepwalking. Like sleepwalking, sleep terrors are a type of parasomnia.
Night terrors occur in deep sleep or NREM stage three. During night terrors, the front part of your brain that controls executive functioning and memory is asleep while the back part that controls motor movement is awake. This is similar to sleepwalking.
It is also likely that some personality disorders may occur in individuals with night terrors, such as dependent, schizoid, and borderline personality disorders. There have been some symptoms of depression and anxiety that have increased in individuals that have frequent night terrors.
The rarest type of dream is often considered to be the lucid dream, where you are aware you're dreaming and can sometimes control the dream's narrative, with only a small percentage of people experiencing them regularly, though many have had one spontaneously. Even rarer are dreams with specific, unusual content, like dreaming of doing math, or experiencing rare neurological conditions like Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome, where people lose the ability to visualize dreams.
Can Nightmares Cause Trauma? Typically, it's trauma that causes nightmares, not the other way around. It is worth noting, though, that while nightmares may not lead to trauma, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not without consequence.
Arousal and reactivity symptoms
Hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations can be mistaken for, or misdiagnosed as, panic attacks, nightmares, or night terrors in children. More severe events can even be confused with psychotic disorders.
Night terrors stem from an arousal disorder, known as a parasomnia, which occur during deep sleep, says pediatric pulmonologist and sleep specialist Katharina Graw-Panzer, MD. They affect nearly 40% of children between 4 and 12–years-old, with 5-7 being the peak age range.
Developmental, environmental, organic, psychological, and genetic factors have been identified as a potential cause of sleep terrors. Sleep terrors tend to occur within the first three hours of the major sleep episode, during arousal from stage three or four non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.
Traumatic events can include experiences such as natural disasters (such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods), acts of violence (such as assault, abuse, terror attacks, and mass shootings), and car crashes or other accidents. It is natural to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation.
You should never ignore dreams that signal feeling overwhelmed (falling, drowning, being lost), a lack of control (car troubles), missed chances (missing transport), or recurring negative patterns (back to old schools/homes), as these often point to real-life anxiety, stagnation, or unresolved issues you need to address, with some spiritual interpretations also flagging attacks or spiritual pollution like eating food in dreams. Paying attention to vivid, recurring, or disturbing dreams can offer profound insights into your subconscious and guide you toward necessary changes for personal growth and clarity.
During a night terror you may talk and move about but are asleep. It's rare to remember having a night terror. Nightmares are bad dreams you wake up from and can remember. Night terrors are most common in children between the ages of 3 and 8, while nightmares can affect both children and adults.
When our brain then recognises similarities between our present situation and our past trauma (e.g. a colour, smell or noise), it can activate the fight, flight, freeze, flop or friend response, even if we're not currently in danger.
The likelihood of developing PTSD varies depending on the type of traumatic event experienced. For example, rates of PTSD are more than three times (15.3%) higher among people exposed to violent conflict or war (3). PTSD rates are especially high following sexual violence (1).
Emotional Trauma Symptoms
Psychological Concerns: Anxiety and panic attacks, fear, anger, irritability, obsessions and compulsions, shock and disbelief, emotional numbing and detachment, depression, shame and guilt (especially if the person dealing with the trauma survived while others didn't)
For people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the memory of past traumas can feel constant, even during sleep. Known as a night terror or sleep terror, these vivid and distressing dreams are a common symptom of PTSD.
Reduced cognitive control over emotional responses correlates with higher nightmare frequency and distress in the elderly. Diminished slow wave sleep in the elderly is linked to impaired prefrontal cortex functions, with less control over emotions.
THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS FOR TRAUMA
We'll explore 10 common dreams many people have and dissect their possible meanings.
According to Goll, warning dreams are still very much a thing. In fact, God may actually prefer to warn us in our sleep because we're less likely to get distracted. Dreams that are “sticky” get our attention and spur us into action. “They feel like flypaper,” he says.
Short-term memory areas are active during REM sleep, but those only hang on to memories for about 30 seconds. “You have to wake up from REM sleep, generally, to recall a dream,” Barrett says. If, instead, you pass into the next stage of sleep without rousing, that dream will never enter long-term memory.