Sleep paralysis is something that is actually very common. Many people have it, I've had it myself. And what happens is, when you're in that REM stage of sleep, your brain is very active. You're dreaming your most during that stage, you're mind, your eyes are moving, there's a lot going on. It's like fireworks going on in your brain.

We've looked at sleep diaries of patients with insomnia, and they'll say that they don't sleep for one or two days. And the body actually has a natural function, after about the third day to start catching up and you get a little bit more sleep the third night. And that's usually what I tell my patients.

Night terrors are in deep sleep, and they're more common in kids, as are nightmares, but what happens in a night terror is like a flash - we think a flash of some image or something happens in the brain. We don't really quite know what. And it usually ends up with the child screaming almost like screaming bloody murder. It's very scary for the parents or whoever else is around.

There's confusional arousals, there are states in deeper sleep that can happen where people will go and they'll disappear and they'll take on some other persona. They'll commit some crime, but it's all when they are in a very deep stage of sleep. So you really need to have a very thorough evaluation.

Nightmares are distinctly different from dreams in the way that people feel them and experience them. So a lot of people think that a nightmare is something where something is chasing them and you have to wake up screaming. Yes, that's one of the more common nightmares that we see is the person chasing someone or they're being chased.

The other option we have are medication treatments. So you'll have the treatments such as Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata, and we'll also have Rozerem and for some patients we use Benzodiazopine/Clonazepam. Things like that to help with anxiety.

Honestly, what we use a lot is melatonin. So we use lower dosages of melatonin, taking it at different times, depending upon where we are traveling and that can really help adjust the body's rhythm to wherever you are going.