Night Terrors or Hallucinations?

Image by Wanda Martin

I've fallen in love twitter. Admittedly I'm a little late to the party, but hey better late than never. Suddenly realised that I have a way of talking to other sufferers. Something I've not done much of in the past. When I was first diagnosed some 10 years ago, I immediately scouted every website and forum for information, but soon grew tired of reading the same thing over and over. At the risk of sounding old, blimey things have changed!  One particular tweet caught my attention a few days ago, "Do any of you narcoleptics have night terrors?".  I have a varying spectrum of weird 'dream whilst awake' incidences, sometimes its difficult to know how to describe them. Are they bad dreams, nightmares, night terrors or hallucinations? Where does one end and another begin?

For me, night terrors (or sleep terrors as they're sometimes known as) are characterised by abrupt waking directly from dream stage sleep, accompanied by an intense feeling of fear. I've been known to abruptly sit up in bed or fly across the room away from the demons that have caused my distress; and by distress I mean crying and screaming. Observers say that I'm in a trance-like state and that for the duration (only a minute or so), they're unable to comfort me until I've snapped out of it. Once fully awake, I'm able to recall the feeling of fear, but the specific details of what had actually caused me to feel so frightened in the first place are hazy. I've also been told that there are times that I don't fully wake up; instead instantly calming down and settling straight back to sleep. Generally I'll have no memory of these incidences in the morning, just a vague sense that I've had a bad dream.

Hypnagogic hallucinations differ in that I'm more alert and conscious of the incident as its happening. The feeling of intense fear is the same, however I can rationalise it to some degree with some conscious thought after and sometimes during. Reassure myself that the disturbances are not real and that I am safe (more info here). Strangely both generally occur within the first few hours of night time sleep and can affect the quality of sleep for the remainder of the night. Frequently the sense of fear is difficult to shake and I'm sure there have been times when a night terror has led to a hallucination hours later. Of course, I could never prove this.

How my narcolepsy affects my children is a constant worry; limited amount of energy, grumpiness from feeling tired and the fact that I have to factor in a nap on days out are just some. It never occurred to me that I needed to add night time sleep to the list until a few day ago; after my eleven year old witnessed one of my night terrors for the first time. I guess it was inevitable that one of my girls would see one at some point. I felt so sad that narcolepsy had exposed my child to something that she should never have seen...her mum looking terrified and screaming. I was filled with guilt and worry and carefully broached the subject over bowls of cereal the next morning. My concern was met with "Its alright mum, we've heard you crying in your sleep loads of times!". Hmmm perhaps these terrors occur more often than I'm aware. Thank god kids are more resilient that we give them credit for. They just accept all my sleepy quirks without question and I love them so much for it.