Night Terrors in Adults

Night terrors are a sleep disorder in which a person suddenly awakens from sleep in a terrified state.

Night terrors occur during deep sleep, usually during the first phase of sleep. The cause is unknown but night terrors may be triggered by fever, lack of sleep, or emotional tension, or stress.

Nightmares are more common in the early morning. They may occur after someone watches frightening movie or has an emotional experience. A person may remember the details of a dream upon awakening, and will not be disoriented after the episode.

Night terrors may run in families. They can occur in adults, especially with emotional tension or with substance use. Sleep terror or Night terrors disorder is frequently found in children, but adults can also have sleep terror disorder. It’s usually got a very different cause and treatment from the childhood kind, but the symptoms are similar.

A person with sleep terror disorder has symptoms that are distressing to anyone seeing them. They will usually awake in the night, generally within a few hours of falling asleep, with a feeling of sheer terror. They wake abruptly from stage of the REM sleep cycle, and it would seem to be between sleep and wake. When they wake, they usually scream, or moan, and have a very hard time awaking.

Other symptoms are physical ones that are to be expected when the person is feeling terror sweating, with large pupils. The pulse is usually racing, and their breathing is very fast and there is a look of fear or panic on their face. They can also look very confused. When adults have sleep terror disorder, there are other causes. There are many reasons to check for and different methods to alleviate the symptoms; they are unlikely to get better within a few weeks.

Proper diet and enough sleep, and managing stressful events in life can relieve Night terrors in many cases. Sometimes adults with sleep terror disorder have additional triggering factors, like trauma-based situations (post traumatic stress and genetic or chronic factors. If this is the case, the adult with sleep terror disorder should be in therapy. Psychotherapy and antidepressant medicine can often help immensely.

The adult with sleep terror disorder should also be checked for other medical factors, adults with hypoglycemia can have night terrors, as well as other symptoms.

The prognosis for Night terrors is fairly good with the person finding improvement in time the advice of a psychiatrist and psychotherapy may be necessary to reduce the number of Night terrors until they abate.