Combating Night Terrors/ Fear of Sleeping

I'll try to keep this short and sweet but will gladly elaborate if asked to do so.

I have chronic, reoccurring, extremely vivid night terrors. They will be so disruptive that my wife will wake me up (by request) if she is awake and notices or if she is awakened by my thrashing, yelling/ crying, groaning, etc. She will then make sure I fully wake up because most of the time I will just continue the nightmare right where it left off.

This is usually enough to end it. But sometimes she doesn't notice. Sometimes I am just stuck in this awful scenario and forced to finish it out until I wake up on my own.

Not sure if it's relevant but this has been a consistent occurrence regardless of medicine changes. Also, they seem to occur more freely if I eat within a few hours of falling asleep. Last thing... My dreams are never happy ones. Even if they aren't full blown night terrors, they are still very negative, dark, abrasive, etc.

I have looked all over but I am still seeking any advice on combating these night terrors. I will bring it up with my therapist as soon as my next appointment but I am curious if anyone here has any insight?

Probably relates to childhood abuse.

Probably not far off...

I'm so sorry, BonsaiGuy What do your dreams usually talk about? Are there any recurring elements? I'm glad you're going to see your therapist soon. Maybe that could help. Feel free to PM me anytime. Let me know if I can do something to help you. Sending many hugs to you

Thank you so much for your loving response and offering your support, Mickey. I will PM you some of the details. I have been researching some tips and they've been helping a little bit. I haven't had many negative dreams or night terrors that I can remember this week and I recently had a medication change, so I am hopeful that the changes will be permanent.

I'm sorry you are struggling with this. I don't know as I have anything in the way of suggestions to offer. For a large chunk of my life (as I recall up until around the time I first took antidepressants) I experienced episodes of sleep paralysis. I'd have a dream that involved me being in some sort of potentially dangerous situation. (Often it involved me laying in the street with cars coming.) And, during the dream I'd partially wake & be unable to move at all or make any kind of sound. It was terrifying especially since, for most of the years I had these experiences, I didn't understand what they were about.

What I learned to do, during these episodes, was to focus my attention on the index finger of my right hand & keep trying to move it. After a few seconds I'd finally be able to move it &, once I did, the paralysis would dissipate throughout my body. I haven't had one of these episodes in probably 20 years now. But just the memory of them makes me cringe.

This sounds so incredibly scary. I am so sorry that you have had these episodes. I've had episodes similar but not that debilitaing. I really hope they never happen again. Thanks for relating to me. Everyone here have made me feel better about it. I feel like we're all on a team supporting each other!

i'm sorry you are getting this, I get this too. Can you go into more details about your dreams?