Strange sleep walking and night terrors
Posted , 4 users are following.
My girlfriend and I have been living together for a little over a year now and night time has become very interesting/stressful. I'll start with saying about 6 years ago when she was in middle school she had a traumatic event that involved almost being raped. After this event she started having nightmares that have not gone away. They started with being mostly rape related nightmares and have evolved into all kinds of different if nightmares. She rarely goes a night without a nightmare and often times has several during the night. Often waking up catching her breathe and shaken up. The nightmares are most common within the first 20 minutes of falling asleep but can happen pretty much at anytime during the night. Now the most alarming part is what happen sometimes when she wakes up from a nightmare. And this happens on average about once a week. She will wake up, or more commonly be woken up by me, and have varying degree of memory loss. Sometimes she has just forgotten the past year or the past 7 years and anywhere in between. She sometimes doesn't know who I am or where she is. And she seems to be fully awake. She can hold a conversation, I can reason with her, she has control of her body although sometimes she looses her balance when walking. And her memory only comes back after she falls back asleep and wakes up again. This memory loss state usually lasts between an hour to 3 hours. And when she wakes up she has no memory of what happened. The majority of the time I can show her pictures and her Facebook and show her that I am her boyfriend and she does live here and get her comfortable enough that she is able to go back to sleep. Sometimes it's not that easy and I basically have to block her in our room so until she gets so tired that she falls back asleep. She has been given 2 different medications so try helping her sleep better, both of which worked really well for about 6 weeks and then stopped working. Has anyone heard of anything like this or have any helpful suggestions on what to do? I have searched the web and was unable to find anyone describing anything similar to this.
0 likes, 4 replies
Guest Hckflyers
Posted
Yes, this is a very unusual case. I think a regressive conscious hypnosis can help reveal stuff from her subconscious and help u understand.
Cheers
lily65668 Hckflyers
Posted
This sounds like an extreme form of night terrors. This condition, which is linked to sleepwalking, arises from non-dreaming sleep. The scenarios acted out during episodes are not actually nightmares. Sufferers appear to be fully awake during episodes, often fail to recognise those around them, and usually have no memory of it when they awake fully.
However, it's unusual for episodes to last so long. I'm guessing your girlfriend is still suffering from PTSD due to the sexual assault.
Night terrors are quite difficult to treat. You say she's been given medications, but you don't say who prescribed them. Has she seen a sleep specialist and been to a sleep lab? Also, is she having any kind of counselling?
I'm wondering too whether she's been under any additional stress lately. I suffered from quite severe night terrors myself for a few years - though nothing like your girlfriend's - and I was very conscious of the fact that they were more frequent when I was anxious or stressed. My episodes normally only lasted a few minutes, but I was capable of extreme feats of strength when in the grip of night terrors. I also put myself at risk - one night I came to my senses when I was on the point of jumping out of a second-floor window.
I managed to get my episodes under control by realising that my own anxiety - not least my fear of having another attack - was triggering them. I still have minor episodes now, but they usually only involve jumping out of bed then immediately coming to myself.
However, it's clear that your girlfriend needs specialist treatment. This will usually include medication - mostly drugs of the benzo group - but in this case the condition also needs to be approached through psychotherapy of some kind.
I hope you can find a solution for this distressing problem.
Hckflyers lily65668
Posted
She suffers from anxiety, depression and panic attacks, which only started happening after the sexual assault. She first spoke with her regular doctor you prescribed Paxil to help with her anxiety and depression. The Paxil didn't do much for the anxiety or depression but did stop her from having nightmares and the night episodes. But it only worked for about 6 weeks. After that we started seeing a therapist and at that office they prescribed her prazosin to help her sleep at night and venlaflaxine to help with the anxiety and depression. Again, the nightmares went away for about 6 weeks and there was no change with the anxiety and depression.
We have not been to a sleep lab, although I have wondered if this was the next step we should take.
Another thing is that in her nightmares she dreamed of getting pregnant and having a child from the sexual assault. And that this child has aged in her dreams over these past years. So now in her dreams she has a 5 year old girl that has a name and she can describe in detail. Unsure if this is useful info or not. But definitely interesting.
lily65668 Hckflyers
Posted
I definitely think the sleep clinic is the next step. However, don't forget that a lot of people who suffer from night terrors don't have them while in the sleep lab. This doesn't mean a sleep specialist won't believe she's having them. It's a common phenomenon, probably due to a feeling of security while sleeping in the lab.
I wouldn't worry too much about the dreams. I think these are the result of her anxiety. You may find a few posters on forums insisting that vivid dreams are a serious sign. As a lifelong vivid dreamer myself - sometimes quite disturbing and with good recall - I'd dispute that. The problem arises because most people have very poor dream recall, or may even insist they don't dream at all (proven to be untrue in a sleep lab). They therefore assume that vivid dreaming with good recall is a sign of some kind of pathology, whereas it's just a normal variation.