Dreams, Nightmares, Night Terrors…and More

It started on a ranch in Texas where my husband and I were at a reunion with my cousins. We were parked just outside their bedroom so we could be connected to electric hookup. I had gone to bed earlier and my husband joined me an hour or so after. I said good night and went back to sleep. I was awakened by the sound of footsteps outside. I also heard three people talking. A woman told the men that we had guns inside and they should break in, steal the guns, and kill us. I got up and tried to peak out the windows to see them but was unable to find a spot where I could look out and they could not see me. I turned on the outside light and tried to wake up my husband, but every time I woke him up he said there was no one out there and to come back to bed. I got more and more hysterical until he finally got up and shook me and told me to “wake up”. At that time I did but I still declared I had heard people outside. He told me emphatically there had been no one. He had not heard anyone at all. He finally convinced me that it had been just a nightmare with sleep walking and talking but to this day I am sure I heard someone there. I know it was a hallucinatory night terror and since then I have had many more.

I spend most of the night talking, frequently waking up myself and my husband. A number of times I have started fighting the bed and he has had to hold me and reassure me that all is OK. Last night I woke up from a series of terrors that continued on and on so I finally got up and read some while drinking a glass of milk. After that I was able to sleep. I still had plenty of dreams and lots of talking but nothing frightening.

There was one incident about two years prior to the Texas ordeal that is, perhaps, the most terrifying. My husband called out that someone was breaking in and to please slide the gun to him along the hall floor. I moved the pillows, slid open the backboard of the bed, pulled out the gun container, removed the gun, unwrapped it from its oilcloth, reach down to the bottom drawer of the night table and got out a box of shells, and started loading the gun. He heard some noise coming from the bedroom and came back to check and was startled to see what I was doing. I said I was getting the gun ready for him since he told me people were breaking in and he needed it. He came over gently and held me and woke me up and said there was no one there and he had not called out. I find it amazing (and scary) that I could do all of that while asleep.

Last night was one of the worst. The terrors would not stop. I became so frightened I was almost ready to call my psych and ask for some relief. I thought for sure I had lost my mind and had developed schizophrenia (which my mother had had). These dreams are SO REAL that they make reality pale in comparison.