Anyone remember what a night terror feels like?
After reading up on previous threads on the topic of night terrors, many of the descriptions describe being in a sleep like state although one seems to be awake. Then once a person is officially awoken, many times the person doesn't remember the experience.
I'm curious if anyone does remember their thoughts and actions during a night terror? I can remember what I would classify as a night terror in great detail, but maybe I'm mislabeling an event that is actually something else.
I remember being in a half awakened state, as if I was stuck between sleeping and consciousness. Then I would get the thought of what it feels like to touch a cold plate of glass, and everything around me would begin growing and getting larger as I felt like I was getting smaller. I would start thrashing around in bed and start screaming. Everything I touched felt wrong. The sensations of everything I touched didn't feel real, and everything looking distant through my eyes. I felt as though my mind was in someone elses body, when I would want to move my arm it didn't feel like my arm, when I would touch things it felt disconnected from the objects, and when I would look around it was like I was looking through someone elses eyes. I would look at myself and it looked like me, but I felt like my mind was my own but operating a fake body with a remote control or something... very hard to explain. I would thrash around frantically trying to find something that felt real to try to connect too that felt real, and would get so panicked that I would start hyperventilating, and this would go on for 5-15 minutes or so.
Eventually I was able to throw myself into reality again by finding something that would cause an extreme sensation, for example turning the shower on cold and freezing myself, doing something to cause myself extreme pain, slamming fingers in cabinet doors. I know it sounds crazy but it was the only thing that would get me out of these experiences.
Is this a night terror, or is this something else.
I had a night terror quite recently. I was laying in bed and I sensed someone coming in. I didn't hear or see anything, I just "knew" it was there. It walked over to me, and I thought if I laid still, it would just pass over to me. It didn't. It knelt over and wrapped its arms around me, an elbow pressing down on my chest. It took a lot of strength (motivated by fear) for me to get it off. It was really horrible.
What you described sounds like a night terror to me, but I wouldn't know, as the aforementioned was my first.
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Averages
AS: 138.8
NT : 54.6