Terrors of the night

Parents can help chase away the fear when children suffer bad dreams. REBECCA WALSH takes some tips from the experts.

Traumatic life events such as the terrorist attacks on the United States can cause nightmares, but often our bad dreams have no ready explanation.

We all dream, and most people have nightmares. But what are they, do some of us have more than others and what can we do if our children suffer from them?

The simplest way to describe a nightmare is that it is a scary dream. Typically, people wake up anxious or distressed, and children are likely to call out for their parents.

But the problem with that definition, says Glynn Owens, a professor of psychology at Auckland University's Tamaki Campus, is that some people can have nightmares and sleep through them.

People also have their own views about what a nightmare is. While one person will be upset, another will just shrug it off. If a dream troubles you, then it could be considered a nightmare, Professor Owens says.

Nightmares tend to occur towards morning and the most common one is about being chased - by some sort of creature, a person or a sense of something bad.

Nightmares are less common after adolescence.

Some people are chronic nightmare sufferers. This may be the result of traumatic life events, and may involve flashbacks.

People who are dying often have nightmares. For some it might be the result of being told out of the blue they have a terminal illness and they are afraid of dying, or it could be a side-effect of opiate-type drugs such as morphine.

Professor Owens says in one chilling nightmare a patient visited a graveyard and saw one headstone without a name. The person then realised the name was on his hospital appointment card.

For others, the stomach-churning sensation of falling from a great height only to wake with a start before you hit the ground, is the worst nightmare they have experienced.

Auckland psychologist Steven Hayns says nightmares are not always a sign of stress or upset.

Mr Hayns, the director of Triple P: Positive Parenting Programme, says about a third of pre-schoolers have nightmares at least once a fortnight. If a child has a recurring nightmare it could be a sign of stress or emotional upset.

He says it is critical that parents talk to their children about their dreams and explain that everyone has them but they can be managed.

"We try to give children tools like closing their eyes and imagining their favourite thing," Mr Hayns says. "Quite often I would say, 'Do you want to let bad dreams boss you around or are you going to be the boss of bad dreams?"'

For example, get kids to imagine they are the clever scientist who can make monsters vanish. "The classic mistake that parents will make is to go into a child's bedroom and say, 'Don't worry, daddy scared the scary monster away'. If you do that, you've proven there are such things as scary monsters."

Encouraging children to take deep breaths or practise going floppy like a rag doll can help.

"Dream modification" - where people relive the nightmare but are taught a different outcome - is also used with adult sufferers.

Professor Owens says one woman who had woken to find a rat on her later had a recurring nightmare in which a rat jumped on to her face and tried to bite her nose.

She learned to introduce a new ending where she imagined her "brave, fearless cat" leaped up and caught the rat.

Far less common than nightmares are night terrors, which tend to happen in the first few hours after falling asleep, during deep, non-dreaming sleep.

Research suggests between 5 and 15 per cent of under-fives and about 1 per cent of adolescents will experience these.

Children are not awake during night terrors, although they can appear to be. They may thrash around, scream, sweat, breathe faster and look terrified. Often their eyes will be open and they may have a glassy stare.

But they are not conscious and won't remember when they wake up.

Mr Hayns says night terrors happen when a child gets stuck between two sleep states. Smaller children fall into a deep sleep within the first 50 to 75 minutes of falling asleep. They may then briefly wake or go into non-dreaming sleep.

Night terrors tend to run in families and are more likely if children have been sleep-deprived or haven't been going to bed at a regular time.

To avoid night terrors, try to ensure children get regular and some extra sleep. Don't try to wake children experiencing a night terror as it scares them more.

Hold them gently if they are thrashing around.

If your child has more than one or two night terrors a month, seek medical help.