Hi Gary
I don't have an answer for you and your student but I would like to share an
interesting "sleep" experience I recently had. I also would like to hear
any explanations that that our colleagues may have.
I am in my fifties, I have lived alone and slept in my current home and my
current bed in my current bedroom for 10 years. Last week for two nights in
a row I had what I felt were "night terrors." These experiences were a
first for me. To condense the experience I will just put it this way: It
was early morning, approximately 2:00 am. I had been asleep for about 4
hours. I woke up, all of the lights were out in the house and there was a
new moon so it was dark with the exception of a few low light items such as
a digital clock and the light on a fire alarm.
I became aware that I was awake, my eyes were open. I was lying in bed
facing the ceiling and I noticed several images in the space between me and
the ceiling and walls. The images had faces but the whole image including
the features of a face were somewhat like puffy thunder clouds. Rather than
being shades of gray and white they were shades of a deep navy blue and a
lighter gray blue. One was large and hovering right above me the others were
smaller and off in the distance (still within my room) as if the were
observing the largest one. I felt fright and intrusion. I began to feel
panic. Being awake I realized
that what I was seeing was not real. I looked around the room saying to
myself "these are just shadows." I was not able to convince myself that the
images were just shadows. I understood if I touched one of the images and
it was not really there I would know that it was just an image of something
that was not really there. I had to sit up to be able to touch the image.
When I reached out to touch it it pulled away so that I could not touch it.
I tried several times and the same thing happened. I could not touch it
because it pulled away. At this point, still feeling the terror of the
presence of something I did not understand, I decided to turn on the light.
I was frightened to take my eyes off of the image and move to be able to
turn on the light because I didn't know what it would do. I forced myself to
turned the light on and when I did all of the images were gone. I slept the
rest of the night with the light on.
What makes me really curious about this two night experience is that it
was new to me--I have no memory of ever going through it or anything like it
before. The images were the same both nights how I dealt with it was
somewhat different. The first night I did not try to touch it, I just
leaped out of bed and rant to the light. The second night is when I tried
to touch it and I turned on a light by the bed. I know my eyes were open
and that I was consciously making decisions about how to deal with the
situation and the fear that I was feeling. These two night sleep
experiences were not what I would call nightmares. For me a nightmare is
something that happens when my eyes are closed, I may want to scream or to
hit the enemy but I can't get my voice to work or I can't get my arm to
move. Eventually, somehow I wake up and realize it was only a dream.
With the two night "sleep" experience I describe above my eyes were
open, I could move my arms and my body to reach and to try to touch the
image, I was conscious of the fear and courageous enough to take battle with
the image. I forced myself to move, to get out of bed, and to turn on the
lights.
In evaluating these "night terror" experiences on my own, I feel like I
indeed had night terrors and that it was like having psychotic
hallucinations. I have never had "psychotic hallucinations" before as far
as I know. I was not high or intoxicated on drugs or alcohol. I feel very
bewildered by these two nights.
It has been two weeks since these two "night terrors" occurred and every
night since has been normal with either a full night of continuous sleep or
a fairly good night sleep with a few eyes open conscious wake-ups with no
terror images. I share my story because I am very curious about what might
have been going on in my internal world and external world.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gerald Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: tips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 6:54 AM
Subject: student dream
> A student in my Gen Psych class asked about a dream/sleep phenomenon
> she experienced. We were discussing hypnogogic and hypnopompic
> experiences. It sounded to me like she was in a non-rem state and was
> experiencing something akin to night terror, but she has had it since
> childhood and it recurs. We were wondering what produces the white
> light: Here is her account:
>
> My dream is just a white light that fills my whole field of "vision"
> and this sense of extreme terror. When I was younger and it would
> happen I would wake-up and try to call out for my mom but no sound would
> come out and I could not move. Now I realize it is just a dream and
> "fight" it. Some time that works and sometimes not. I still have to
> get up and stay up or I'll fall back into it. It's the same
> everytime--same intensity.
> ------------------------------------
> Any tipsters have ideas as to why/how the white light is produced? My
> idea of it being non-rem is weakened if she goes immediately back into
> it--because I assume this would take more time to enter a deeper stage
> of sleep. Perhaps not? She has not indicated any other problems or
> concerns in her life, but this does bother her.
>
> Gary Peterson
> Saginaw Valley State University
>
