I have vivid dreams and occasionally night terrors, I also used to sleepwalk.
As a child I had a recurring dream about being in a spaceship, lost in space. I once woke up running down the stairs from a giant spider. As an adult I still dream every night, a few years ago I had what I would consider a nightmare when I dreamt about Martin Clunes naked.
Once a month I leap up, scrabble across my sleeping husband and turn on the bedroom light and then race back to bed to remove all the spiders. The husband invariably wakes up as I commando roll across him and is blinded by the light. I wake up knelt in bright light shooing the spiders and wondering what on earth I am doing. It is most confusing.
It seems to be hereditary …
The 3 year old has been ill over the weekend. A high temperature and stomach ache have made him sleepy and hot. When the medicine kicks in he’s fine, but the rest of the time he is just not himself. Usually a heavy sleeper, complete with old man snoring, he has been waking in the night, hallucinating about witches in his bedroom, bees on his pillow and dogs running through his bed. I had to tell the witch to go away, shoo the bees from his pillow and tell the dog to go back to bed.
The 5 year old has frequent night terrors. Not wanting to feel left out was screaming out on Sunday night … ’Stop it!’, ‘Leave me alone!’, ‘Go away!’ to the night visitors in her dreams. I went in to her and she sat up with glazed eyes staring right through me, still asleep and told me she wanted me to stay. Then she wanted me to go. Then when I got into bed she wanted me again. She was still asleep.
I never wake her, just reassure her, try to settle her back down. On Monday I talked to her about spending the following day with Daddy and going on the train at which point she sat up again, eyes so dark and shouted ‘I KNOW THAT, I KNOW I AM GOING ON A TRAIN’ and pushed me away.
I don’t like the glazed look, the possessed, nothing there look. The following morning she remembers nothing.
‘The dream catcher is not working’ she said to me this morning.
She’s right.
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Laura WOB on August 25, 2009
OMG Matrin Clunes naked – that’s enough to send cold shivers down anyones spine!
admin on August 25, 2009
I can’t even bear to go into detail of what happened next …
TheMadHouse on August 25, 2009
I too have recurring dreams and have been suffering terribly scarey nightmares for the past fortnight. They are just a tad left of normal and then go all tim burton like.
I hope my children dont follow in my footsteps on the nightmares, but MiniMad does sing in his sleep, Kasabian has been the order of the week!
admin on August 25, 2009
Tim Burtonesque … that’s exactly what it is.
I’d love it if they sang, that would be great. The 5 yr old does sing herself to sleep, though no Kasabian.
Stefanie on August 25, 2009
I empathise – I have always sleep-talked/walked etc and imagined intruders in my room and the like. When I was younger my mum once caught me sleep walking as I was about to open the pedal bin in the kitchen. She asked me what I was doing. ‘Going to the toilet of course!’ was my response. Happily she guided me back to bed in time..
It’s worse the more stressed I am – for the past few years I have been abusing my husband in my sleep in German (I’m German, it’s not some strange fetish!), telling him off for god knows what. The poor guy doesn’t have a clue what I’m on about. And neither do I. I often wake myself up doing it but have no recollection what I have been wittering on about.
I just hope my son doesn’t inherit my habits!
admin on August 25, 2009
I love that you shout at him in German. I have been known to grab my husband round the head and witter to him … in English though.
Insomniac Mummy on August 25, 2009
I once dreamt Justin from Cbeebies was stalking me. I’m still traumatised.
On a serious note, my Big E occasionally suffers too. He was especially bad after we gave him Sudafed Junior. He was hallucinating and I was bloody petrified. Poor little man.
I have nightmares, when I do manage to grab a few Z’s and I also wake up but can’t wake up or move, if you know what I mean. It happened this morning, I was dreaming I had a swarm of flies in my hair, knew I wanted to wake to stop the dream but couldn’t move.
I hope they grow out of it quickly for you.
x
admin on August 25, 2009
Justin? Oh god no. Although in my eyes, slightly better than Martin Clunes!
I had to stop giving the 5 yr old any sort of cough medicine becuase of her hallucinations.
Bare Naked Mummy on August 25, 2009
My eldest daughter Bel (5)used to suffer badly with night terrors and we now have the occasional one.
I sympathise with you as I used to go in and try and calm her and she would punch, scream, kick and bite at me (all in her sleep). It used to happen on a nightly occurrance but suddenly she grew out of them.
I hope the terrorizing stops for you soon.
admin on August 25, 2009
I hope she grows out of it.
I’m relatively unharmed by it, but as a child it wasn’t great!
Mwa on August 25, 2009
When I have a small baby, I always wake up thinking my pillow is the baby, tangled in a blanket, and I’m always taking the pillow out of its pillowcase. Very scary. That’s one of the reasons co-sleeping is not for me.
admin on August 25, 2009
I don’t think I’ve ever had any baby related nightmares, which is fortunate.
whistlejacket on August 25, 2009
The same here, I’ve always suffered from nightmares. The other night I was actually relieved to be woken by one of the children during a very bad one. My children are also the same. It’s not unusual for them to wake up screaming about something and you can’t get through to them for ages that everything’s okay and it wasn’t real. My 1 year old was so bad the other week he was hyperventilating and I had to walk around the house with him for some time to calm him down. Why does it happen? Husband hardly ever remembers dreams and if he does they’re usually funny ones – lucky him!
admin on August 25, 2009
I don’t remember when the 5 yr odl started with her night terrors, although they are usually connected to too much fun, illness or sugar. Poor 1 yr old. Too young to be having nightmares!
womanatwork on August 25, 2009
Nevermind about dreaming of Martin Clunes naked, although that is admittedly quite terrifying. What about that time you walked into your step brothers bedroom naked after having a few too many vodkas?
admin on August 25, 2009
I tried to gloss over that one, especially seeing as we have had to have years of therapy to get over it. We still discuss it at family social events … which is nice.
Jo on August 25, 2009
Oooohhh, I don’t like that glazed over, stare right through me look either. Eery!
Josie @Sleep is for the Weak on August 25, 2009
Oh can empathise with your poor babbas, I’ve also always had a rather over-active imagination which fails to ‘turn off’ at night. It was fine once I was older and could understand the difference between dreams and reality (well, most of the time, I still get a bit confused) but when I was little it was terrifying. That not quite asleep not quite awake bit just before deep sleep was always the worst for me – when all the monsters would come out to play.
I hope it passes for them soon – if it’s any help my mum used to do a kind of wind-down relaxation with me before I went to sleep. She’s get me to ‘talk out’ all the stuff in my head however weird and wonderful and then run through a relaxation where I would say ‘night night’ to, and relax every part of my body. It would really help.
Interestingly (and rather famously) my son is an APPALLING sleeper and often wakes up seemingly crying in fear, or other times screams blue murder but is still fast asleep. During the day you can see his little brain working ten million miles an hour and I have a feeling he has developed my inabilty to switch off – I’m guessing that as soon as he can verbalise how he’s feeling we may find out he gets disturbed by dreams and night terrors too.
Jen @ buried with children on August 25, 2009
I don’t dream often, well I don’t rememer my dreams very often but when I do they are always so vivid that I usually wake up out of breath.
Pippa on August 25, 2009
Daddy suffers from Sleep paralysis and I often wonder if Top Ender and Baby Boy will suffer from it.
I know that they both already take after me in sleeping position and talking in their sleep so hopefully not. Scares me and I don’t even have it!
Selina Kingston on August 26, 2009
The whole sleepwalking thing completely freaks me out although it doesn’t happen so much anymore now my son is a teenager. It last happened a year or so ago, when I woke up suddenly to find him by my bed, with that horrid glazed look, holding out a pen to me. God knows how long he had been standing there. “Are you OK?” I asked and he replied “I just want to give you this”. So I took the pen and and he duly turned on his heel, robotic style, and went back to bed with me close on his heels checking he got there in one piece! He had no memory of it in the morning. Hate it – really HATE it!!!
Tamsin on August 26, 2009
This night terror stuff is freaking me about a little bit. I think this may have happened to Amy a few times.
She seems to be awake, but not quite! Once when she woke crying I went to check and she just sat and screamed at me that she wanted Mammy, I tried to tell her that I was there but she looked straing at me and screamed at me again that she didn’t want me she wanted Mammy! I don’t know who she thought I was, but it was very upsetting, she went back off to sleep and didn’t seem to remember anything in the morning.
Andrea on September 15, 2009
Wow, sorry your little one has night terrors, but glad mine isn’t the only one. He’ll have them several nights in a row, each time screaming that he’ doesn’t like it’, but can’t tell me what! It’s very strange and disturbing, but I used to have them too and still do on occasion so maybe it is hereditary. I have read that it’s very common and nothing to worry about, just a phase!