Sleep paralysis?
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I sleepwalk, sleeptalk etc. The sleepwalking has actually seemed to stop - I don't think I've done it for over a year now (my mum usually tells me when she hears me get up in the night). I'm also pretty sure I get sleep paralysis, although I'm not 100% sure that the thing I'm about to describe is exactly that.
Last night, for example, I was half asleep, still dreaming, and I remember hearing my brother coming up the stairs and I went out of my room and started doing what I thought was shouting at him for being too loud, although he stopped me to tell me that I was making no sense, and then I woke up fully and couldn't remember anything I'd just said.
This happened about 2 hours later; my dad came into my room, waking me up completely, to tell me that I'd been shouting something. I had a vague memory of doing so and I remembered feeling upset and angry while shouting but after a few seconds I couldn't remember what I'd been saying.
Does anyone have any advice on what to do? Shall I see a doctor?
0 likes, 3 replies
lily65668 tiger.stripe
Posted
Hi Tiger,
No, it doesn't sound to me as if you need to see a doctor. I'm guessing you're still very young, and you're almost certainly still experiencing sleepwalking and possibly the related condition known as "night terrors". However, if you're doing things in your sleep that put you or others at risk (going outside etc.) then it might be better to get yourself referred to a sleep clinic.
I'm trying to unpick your description of the incident with your brother. Did you really leave your room and shout at him - i.e. did he see you come out or were you still in bed when he told you to stop shouting? I'm assuming the answer to this question is no - in which case it's not sleep paralysis. However, I'll describe sleep paralysis, just in case it rings any bells with you. Some people get both night terrors as well as sleep paralysis. I've had sleep paralysis for 50 years, but still have occasional episodes of night terrors, when I jump up and do odd things, and I sleepwalked regularly until my mid-teens.
The reason for asking is that sleepwalking/night terrors and sleep paralysis are two entirely different things, arising from different phases of sleep. Every night we go through several sleep cycles. We spend part of each in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when we dream - and we all dream, whether we remember it or not - and part in non-REM, or non-dreaming sleep. Our brain secretes a hormone that paralyses our voluntary muscles (but not our breathing etc.) during REM sleep, to stop us jumping up and acting out our dreams. Sleep paralysis happens when the brain gets temporarily out of sync, and either carries on secreting the paralysing hormone for a minute or so after we wake up, or starts pumping it out before we're fully asleep.
During this phenomenon, we can have a form of lucid dream called "false awakening", where we think we've got up and done all sorts of things, then wake to find ourselves still in bed, not having moved at all. However, it's unusual for other people to hear us shouting when this is going on, as the muscles of our larynx are paralysed, so we can only make little croaky sounds.
It does sound to me as if what you're describing fits more with night terrors and sleepwalking. I'm wondering whether you're under any particular stress at school/college at the moment, or if there's anything else upsetting going on in your life. This can make sleepwalking worse. Whichever disorder you have, there's absolutely nothing to worry about, providing you're not at serious risk of harming yourself during these episodes. Most young people find that it stops as they move into adult life.
tiger.stripe lily65668
Posted
Thanks for the reply!
The incident with my brother - I did definitely leave my room to shout at him as I have a vague memory of doing so and he also asked me the next morning if I was okay, reminding me what I did. Could it be a mixture of sleepwalking and sleep paralysis, or just sleep paralysis? I know it's not just sleepwalking because I never have any memory of that the morning after
I think it is affected by my stress levels because it got really bad when I was doing my GCSEs last year.
Thanks again!
lily65668 tiger.stripe
Posted
Tiger, if you actually got out of bed to go shout at your brother it couldn't possibly have been sleep paralysis. All your voluntary muscles are paralysed during sleep paralysis. You carry on breathing etc. but you can't move so much as your little finger, and you can't shout.
You're just having "night terrors", which are related to sleepwalking. You'll largely grow out of this during the next few years, though it will probably come back occasionally in times of stress. Unless you're doing really crazy things like leaving the house - which is extremely rare in sleep disorders - you have nothing to worry about. You could ask to be referred to a sleep lab, but the problem with that is that sleep disorders of your kind rarely manifest during nights spent in a sleep lab, so no one would be any the wiser. It's thought that this is probably due to the sense of security engendered by spending the night in the lab.
In any case, the only treatment for this kind of sleep disorder is to go on drugs of the benzodiazepine group (similar to valium) which are highly addictive and very hard to stop. In the very rare cases where the sufferer presents a danger to themselves or others, drugs may be necessary, in spite of the risks. However, they're not needed in the vast majority of cases.
It's quite common for adults to come out of a night terror episode with a full memory of what they did during the attack. This was certainly true in my case. I used to rush around the house in the grip of all kinds of crazy scenarios, which I'd remember when I finally came to my senses. My night terrors have declined with age. I still get them even now, in my 70s, but it's been years since I actually got out of bed during an episode. These days I just sit up suddenly, then realise it's nothing and go back to sleep.
The best thing you can do is simply accept that this happens to you (and millions of others!) from time to time, and stop worrying about it. The more anxious you become about this kind of condition, the worse it will become.