Night Terrors and Night Hags
We always knew Hunter moved around in his sleep moving from one spot in the house to the next in a sleepy stupor. At first we thought he was waking up and looking for a more comfortable spot (he likes heater vents) but we soon began to realize he was not awake after a few incidents where he wakes up and does not remember. Stan can even attest to Hunter's nightly wanderings after an incident that occurred when they were staying here with us.
A month or so ago we moved Heather out of Hunter's room so she could have her own space and he his. That very night Hunter came out of his room in a panic and very upset claiming "something" held him down in his bed. He claimed that he could not scream for help or move and that "it" was sitting on top of him. He was so panicked I knew what ever happened it scared the heck out of him. What do you tell your child when they come to you with this? The old "you had a nightmare" just doesn't cut it but what else can you say? To him it was the most frightening thing ever and he was scared to sleep.
We decided he could sleep on Heather's floor till he was more comfortable sleeping in his room alone and maybe he just needed to get used to the arrangement.
I once again went to my trusted search engine and Googled Hunter's experience totally expecting to find information on poltergeists and demons and such only to find sleeping disorders as the number one cause of scenarios like the one Hunter had.
Turns out it is a common occurrence for people who sleep walk and they even have a term for it, Night hags or Night terrors.
I guess as a sleep walker they have the ability to wake up their mind before their body wakes up and therefor there mind is working but their bodies are not so a feeling of being held down and not being able to talk lead to panic and a feeling of something evil holding them down. A lot of people can mistake these episodes as demonic or evil manifestations but it is only the subconscious conjuring up an image to match the panic the person is feeling.
I am not sure what we have to do for this but what I found stress is the key and not being overly tired. I will be looking into more information and trying to figure out how to help him sleep better. We have moved him into his room and bought him a lamp that he keeps on at all times and when he roams around we always find him in the the light cast off by the lamps in the house sleeping soundly. We have not had another episode although I still find him wandering around the house in the middle of the night.
We always knew Hunter moved around in his sleep moving from one spot in the house to the next in a sleepy stupor. At first we thought he was waking up and looking for a more comfortable spot (he likes heater vents) but we soon began to realize he was not awake after a few incidents where he wakes up and does not remember. Stan can even attest to Hunter's nightly wanderings after an incident that occurred when they were staying here with us.
A month or so ago we moved Heather out of Hunter's room so she could have her own space and he his. That very night Hunter came out of his room in a panic and very upset claiming "something" held him down in his bed. He claimed that he could not scream for help or move and that "it" was sitting on top of him. He was so panicked I knew what ever happened it scared the heck out of him. What do you tell your child when they come to you with this? The old "you had a nightmare" just doesn't cut it but what else can you say? To him it was the most frightening thing ever and he was scared to sleep.
We decided he could sleep on Heather's floor till he was more comfortable sleeping in his room alone and maybe he just needed to get used to the arrangement.
I once again went to my trusted search engine and Googled Hunter's experience totally expecting to find information on poltergeists and demons and such only to find sleeping disorders as the number one cause of scenarios like the one Hunter had.
Turns out it is a common occurrence for people who sleep walk and they even have a term for it, Night hags or Night terrors.
I guess as a sleep walker they have the ability to wake up their mind before their body wakes up and therefor there mind is working but their bodies are not so a feeling of being held down and not being able to talk lead to panic and a feeling of something evil holding them down. A lot of people can mistake these episodes as demonic or evil manifestations but it is only the subconscious conjuring up an image to match the panic the person is feeling.
I am not sure what we have to do for this but what I found stress is the key and not being overly tired. I will be looking into more information and trying to figure out how to help him sleep better. We have moved him into his room and bought him a lamp that he keeps on at all times and when he roams around we always find him in the the light cast off by the lamps in the house sleeping soundly. We have not had another episode although I still find him wandering around the house in the middle of the night.
4 comments:
That is interesting and I can attest to his "waundering". Even when staying at our house, we will find him in front of the heater, sound asleep. Lately, I have been doing that myself! When Heath was younger, you would wake him up and he would talk with you and hold a conversation, yet never remember it. He also did a little waundering, but not as much as Hunter.
creepy experience for him. kinda like temporarily zombified? i wandered a lot when i was a kid. knew my way around the yard, i'm told.
I still wander around a lot, someone saw me walking across the Anchor River bridge the other morning in my house robe at 6:30 am. They picked me up and brought me home.
Um Stan I think that is senility...:)
At least you were not flashing people! I never was a wanderer but I do have conversations and even argue in my sleep. Heath does not ask my pillows in the middle of the night anymore. Funniest time was when he told me I sat up in bed going "what the hell!" Then proceeded to chew him out for looking at another girl's photos...yeah don't remember a thing. My mom used to do it to and we knew as kids if we got her while she was sleeping we could get what ever we wanted ans when she woke up we could say "you said we could!"
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