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.
Shelby HarrisThere are people who have repetitive nightmares. And what happens is their brain is trying to process the stress and help their brain actually deal with what happens if this stress happens again, so their brain's preparing them to deal with it in case the stress happens again, but it's so scary that they awaken from it.
Shelby HarrisThere are some patients who just have insomnia and they've had it since they were a kid and we don't quite know why. So when we look at the cause, we definitely want to treat whatever else is going on, but insomnia often because it becomes its own diagnosis and that requires its own treatment.
Shelby HarrisSome patients will report that they have sleep paralysis. If we see sleep paralysis alone and nothing else, we don't really think all that much of it, but if we see other symptoms, then it might be a red flag for something else that's going on.
Shelby HarrisSo there's a few different ways that we treat insomnia. The first thing that we always do is we look at the cause.
Shelby HarrisSo it's like your brain has a large filing cabinet and it's opening up each drawer and it's taking in various images and memories from the day, consolidating what it needs to and puts in whatever file. And then if there's something that doesn't fit in any of the files and doesn't really belong, you'll forget about it. So it's a way of really getting a succinct way of storing things in your brain.
Shelby Harris