Sleeping is bliss, and we always look forward to a peaceful and undisturbed night. But if you have ever happened to see your roommate or sibling stand up in their sleep and start talking, or screaming, or do weird stuff, you can easily freak out.
Unpredictable sleep behaviors, like sleepwalking or sleep hallucinations, are all known as parasomnias.
What happens is that people, especially children, are caught in-between their dream world and waking, without any knowledge of it. To a random onlooker it may seem that these people opened they eyes but forgot to actually wake up.
Parasomnias occur immediately after falling asleep, during sleep or minutes before waking-up. The unusual behaviors happen because the regular transition between the sleep stages becomes blurred. The good news is that parasomnias last for only about 5 minutes or less, although it can feel a lot longer. The best thing you can do, as an onlooker, is try not to wake the sleeping person up. Because if you do, you can scare him or her even more and prolong the episode.
Take a closer look at most common parasomnias to know what to expect:
People seem very calm and wide awake. They usually move slowly and appear to have a good sense of direction. It’s best to gently help them go back to bed without waking them up. Usually sleepwalkers have no recollection of their actions. They can wake up in the middle of the event and feel completely confused and disoriented.
This is an involuntary clenching and gnashing of teeth during sleep. It can happen because of stress or the use of medication, and can lead to sore jaw muscles, increased tooth sensitivity, as well as damaged teeth, headaches.
Terrors are not the same as bad dreams, and most commonly they are seen in children. Little ones get really upset, frightened, they may jump out of bed and run around the room talking and crying. Only around two percent of adults can have sleep terrors and may not even remember them.
People open their eyes and find themselves amid familiar surroundings, feeling fully awake. They experience phantom sensations, hear voices and see weird objects and other people in their room. They can neither move nor speak or scream, even when they put an effort. It’s temporary and lasts for about 2 minutes.
While parasomnias are relatively harmless, they are disruptive both for the person experiencing them and their bed partner or a roommate. In this case a sleep professional can help solve this problem or see if this is a symptom of a much serious sleep disorder.