The other night something weird happened to me. Like a part 2 from the day. I have had weird incidents like this happen to me that I can remember since I was about 15. It only occurs about once every year to year and a half so not frequent enough for me to give it much thought until the other night. I feel sorry for Glen for having to sleep next to me.

I went to sleep some time after 11 and all was well. The next thing I knew, my eyes were wide opened and I could hear myself screaming in sheer terror as I stared at the looming dark curtains in the room. I was frightened out of my mind. In moment that I screamed I thrust myself backwards away from the horrors I seem to have seen. The combination scream/thrust threw my husband right out of bed and his face hit the nightstand giving him a swollen purple eye, a lump on his cheek, and a bruised knot on his nose.

I managed to turn on the light but was scared to what felt like almost shock. My heart was beating out of my chest. It was like something looming. It was as if something foreboding lie just beyond my vision but what? I wasn�t having a nightmare. I wasn�t even dreaming that I knew of. Was it a ghost? Did I see the dead and freak? What the hell was it and why was I so afraid? I couldn�t settle down and was too afraid to go to sleep. I suddenly felt like I must be some kind of loony. Normal people aren�t afraid of nothing at all. I thought I was ready to be admitted

Glen wanted to comfort me but didn�t know how because I couldn�t put my finger on what was wrong. He walked me through the whole house and checked every room to show me that everything was ok. Still the fear remained. All the other times this had happened I just kind of figured it was ghosts or maybe a nightmare that escaped before I could remember it. Now that I�m older, it just felt nuts. I wondered if this fear would go away or if maybe I shorted something in my brain. Was this the onset of paranoid schizophrenia? That would be just my luck.

I went upstairs to call my parents. Glen sat with me his eye swelling by the minute. I just needed to hear I was ok. Someone tell me I�m normal and I�m not going insane and that all would be ok. It just sounds better coming from my parents. Once I had calmed down I went back to bed.

The next morning when I woke up it was as if I�d never felt anything. Then it hit me. I needed to find an answer for this. I looked it up and finally got an answer. I suffer from night terrors. It listed everything I had gone through to a T. I knew about night terrors in children but it never occurred to me that it could occur in adults. It�s different than nightmares in that you are only in stage 3 or 4 before hitting REM sleep. You aren�t quite in the dreaming stage yet that�s why you can�t explain what scared you. Your heart beats triple times what it normally does. I used to sleep walk when I was younger and that happens in the same stage before REM sleep.

It all makes sense now. I thank Bob this doesn�t happen often. At least there is an explanation besides ghost or being touched in the head. Speaking of touched in the head, my husband looks like the victim of spousal abuse. OK, so he kind of is. Does that really count though?

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