Night Terrors
Night terrors have been identified as a category of post-traumatic dreaming in pre-verbal children, distinct from the nightmares that occur in REM-sleep, which usually convey a story. They are characterized by an inarticulate state of terror in the child, who is extremely hard to comfort or waken, and subsequently shows no memory of the event. Here is a clear example:
Kristy at 33 gave birth to twins in hospital, a 4-lb girl followed by a 6-lb boy, under epidural sedation. The girl’s birth was normal but the boy presented in a breech position. When his legs were out he became stuck, with his arms locked above his head, and there were conflicting instructions from the staff about whether or not to push. What could this have been like for the baby, trapped for several minutes in the pressures of the birth canal? The specialist managed to manipulate the baby to get him out, but he was quite limp when he was born. Mother and babies stayed on in intensive care for 10 days before going home.
Both babies developed well and seemed happy in the daytime, but the boy had a pattern from the start of very distressed crying in the middle of the night, sometimes for hours. He would cry loud and hard, with glazed eyes, and could not be comforted when Kristy held him, and did not even seem to connect with her. Yet he would wake happy in the morning. This was stressful and exhausting. The parents had all the physical checks done, including for allergies, but found no medical cause. These bouts continued till he was 2 1/2. He grew up a healthy child.
Once he told his mother, “No more monsters,” but that was all – he was too young to describe dreams, or to put language to feelings.
Kristy believes that this terrified crying could have been caused by the traumatic experience of his birth, in which he nearly died. Since his twin sister showed none of the same pattern, it cannot have been caused by anything in his environment, nor by separation, nor by any identifiable physical malfunction.
Research by a group of pediatric specialists in a hospital for burned children (Stoddard et al in Barrett, 1996) describes the typical presentation (p.32-3): “During a night terror the child suddenly sits upright in bed, screams, and is extremely aroused and frightened. The episode is associated with intense autonomic discharge: palpitations, sweating and a ‘glassy-eyed’,’ panic-stricken stare. The child is inconsolable and not responsive to surroundings…Because night terrors arise out of St 3-4 NREM-sleep, they are most likely to occur during the first 2 to 3 hours following sleep onset.”
Recent research in neuroscience has established clearly that our bodies can carry at a cellular level sub-conscious “implicit memories” of our emotional experience. Dr Stanislav Grof, a notable researcher of altered states of consciousness, believes that some people do have access to powerful body-memories of their own birth, a traumatic process in itself, which may be complicated by additional factors. He describes in detail (1993) reported memories that have emerged from his patients about different stages in the birth process.
It seems very likely that Kristy’s experience with her baby son is an example of post-trauma stress from his difficult birth.
[Ref: D. Barrett, ed, 1996, Trauma and Dreams, Harvard Univ Press, Cambridge, Mass, USA;
S. Grof and H Bennett, 1993, The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They shape Our Lives, HarperSanFrancisco, USA]