Night Terrors

This is an old one from last year. I'm afraid its not very Christmas-ee

October 1st, 2005

Waking, Walking Night Terrors

The other night Zack woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Now I’ll confess that normally I let Debbie handle the Zack wakings. Its not that I’m lazy, well I am but that’s not the main reason, its that when I go to comfort Zack he demands that his mom rock him. There are time he points to the door and and commands me to ‘Go’. My role is reduced to fetching milk or whatever while Deb is rocking Zack trying to get him back to sleep.

This week he woke up every night between midnight and 2 a.m. We’re not sure why but every night he woke up asking for Deb in his sweet, sing-song voice. This changed on Friday night when he woke up screaming. It was obvious he woke up from a night mare. Problem was it turned out he hadn’t woke up at all.

He’s able to open doors now. A new trick that has Deb and I scared about what he might be able to get into or out of. On this night he opened the door and walked out of his room. Its not the first time he’s done this but normally he just says a few words like ‘milk’, ‘have you’ - which means he wants to be held, or ‘blanket and rock’ meaning he wants his white blanket to snuggle up with and he wants to be rocked.

This night was different, however. He looked at Deb and I and ran screaming the other way saying he was scared. We chased after him but he would have none of it. He ran all over the house asking for mom and dad. When we approached he ran off again, screaming. It was as if he didn’t recognize us as us but somehow saw us as something else.

I offered the usual cold milk and he just looked at me and screamed. He did the same to Deb. Any attempt to hold him or calm him down just made him scream more. Eventually he ran into the bath room nearest his room and slammed the door.

The whole event was horrible. Zack’s voice didn’t sound so much like Zack as something scared and feral. He ran from room to room desperately looking for someone he knew. Zachary was suffering and there was nothing Deb or I could do to make it better.

Deb’s family has experience this sort of behavior before. Both of Debbie and her daughters had walking night terrors as children. Kathryn once described to her mom what she saw during one of these episodes. She said her mom moved herky jerky being one place one second and then moving instantaneously somewhere else. Kathryn further said her dad was spinning rapidly in place as he talked to her. I can only guess at what Zack was seeing when he looked at Deb and I.

Secluded in the bathroom we could hear Zack sobbing for his parents. Debbie went in to calm him. He began screaming like before. She picked Zack up and he thrashed around until he saw himself in the mirror. Something about that brought him to full wakefulness. He stopped crying and calmed down. He began speaking like Zachary again and asked for some milk.

I have to say the whole episode scared me. My sci-fi/fantasy writer’s brain went to some sort of tormenting force that is somehow scared away by its own reflection. In truth, it was probably Zack seeing himself that snapped him out of whatever mental state was causing the hallucinations. Still, it seems odd that that one stimulus snapped Zack out of it.

The event forced me to read a bit on toddler sleeping patterns. It turns out this isn’t that rare an event. Still, as a parent you try to find the patterns that lead to this sort of problem.

In the end, I don’t know. It could have been food, a bad day at day care, or something he saw on TV. Still other explanations could be hereditary brain chemistry or environment factors such as pollens or mold. Who knows? I just know that I hope the episodes are rare. And if they aren’t, I hope we always have a mirror handy to drive away the demons.