Offering something comforting might help change the mood. To help them get back to sleep, offer a favorite stuffed animal to hold, a blanket, pillow, nightlight, or dreamcatcher, or play soft music. You also might talk about some pleasant dreams your child would like to have.
Speak calmly but avoid waking them.
Trying to wake them up can be dangerous but also futile. Many people in night terrors never wake up during the episode. What you can do is speak to them in a calm and soothing voice to offer comfort. If they get up but are not too agitated, gently guide them back to bed.
It's awful to watch your loved one experience a night terror. Your instinct is to wake them up and save them from whatever it is they're seeing. However, it's important not to wake them up and allow them to work through the episode. They're more likely to forget the dream if they can sleep through it.
"If you wake from a nightmare and have difficulty falling back asleep, get out of bed, do something soothing like a few yoga poses or find a place to sit, close your eyes, and try a breathing technique or relaxation exercise."
The average dream length of a nightmare can be 10-20 minutes while bouts of night terrors can be up to 45 minutes in length.
Nightmares may also represent a breakdown in the body's ability to process trauma. Fortunately, for most people trauma-related nightmares subside after a few weeks or months.
Usually waking up screaming is associated with having a night terror. But if you are waking up screaming for some other reason—or you or a loved one are waking up screaming, but you don't know why—you should speak to your healthcare provider.
Night terrors and nightmares are different and happen at different stages of sleep. 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.
A nightmare usually involves replaying the traumatic event, feeling like they are right back there again. For veterans, this might mean re-witnessing horrific events or even deaths of people they witnessed while on combat missions.
The nightmare can cause the sufferer to awaken in a heightened state of distress, resulting in perspiration and an elevated heart rate. Often it takes time to recover from the negative emotions invoked by the nightmare and the person may have difficulty returning to sleep.
In contrast, when a person wakes up from a nightmare, they tend to be alert and aware of what was happening in their dream. The following day, a person with nightmares usually has a clear memory of the dream. People with sleep terrors very rarely have any awareness of the episode.
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.
Nightmares can be triggered by many factors, including: Stress or anxiety. Sometimes the ordinary stresses of daily life, such as a problem at home or school, trigger nightmares. A major change, such as a move or the death of a loved one, can have the same effect.
Common causes include stress, negative life events, the experience of trauma as in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, other psychiatric disorders, and medication side effects.
Unlike bad dreams, night terrors have physical manifestations such as thrashing, flailing, screaming, and even sleepwalking. Night terrors should be addressed early on because they can put you in serious danger. Sleeping beside someone who suffers from PTSD-induced night terrors can also cause emotional distress.
The cause is unknown but night terrors are often triggered by fever, lack of sleep or periods of emotional tension, stress or conflict. Night terrors are like nightmares, except that nightmares usually occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and are most common in the early morning.
Night terrors are a disruptive sleep disorder (parasomnia). A person experiencing a night terror has symptoms like those of a nocturnal panic attack. One key difference is awareness. People experiencing night terrors are often unaware they're having them.
Typical signs and symptoms include:
Waking feeling anxious. Waking with an increased respiration rate. Crying after a dream. Waking from sleep screaming or shouting.
Some complications that may result from experiencing sleep terrors include: Excessive daytime sleepiness, which can lead to difficulties at school or work, or problems with everyday tasks. Disturbed sleep. Embarrassment about the sleep terrors or problems with relationships.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
Waking up Crying From a Dream
The sensations you feel while sleeping and the emotions you experience before bed may cause you to wake up crying. If you wake up crying from a bad dream, that is your body's response to the weight of the suppressed emotion.
Nightmares are primarily a REM sleep phenomenon, but they may also occur during NREM sleep in patients with PTSD (12). These dysphoric dreams often depict themes, images, and emotions that can be related to traumatic events. Nightmares may trigger short or prolonged awakenings from sleep.
Nightmare distress, rather than frequency, is a best account for the association between nightmares and daytime impairment: correlation between nightmare distress and delusional severity, depression, anxiety, and stress.