What sort of images come to mind, what dreams and delusions, when one suffers from a psychological sleep disorder? I’m thinking of ‘pavor nocturnus’, sleep paralysis or other demons.
Dear Lynn Greil
With pavor nocturnus, there are no typical visual images in the mind. Pavor nocturnus, or ‘night terrors’, is characterised precisely by the sudden onset of unfounded physical anxiety. Nightmares are something else entirely. With sleep paralysis, there are different perceptions, mostly impersonal ones: patterns and structures, experiences of light and the like.
The most common, of course, are vivid dreams, ranging up to nightmares, which occur at night. However, these do not coincide with the two conditions just mentioned. Scientifically speaking, it is not possible to draw a clear distinction between vivid dreams and nightmares. Usually, alongside elements drawn from one’s past life or the last few days, there are distorted, bizarre and intensely frightening elements.
In childhood and early adolescence, this need not be an indication of actual traumatic experiences – the imagination is simply very vivid. In adulthood, however, dreams with a high proportion of nightmarish elements do indicate something traumatic that one has experienced or been intensely preoccupied with. Such dreams may be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder.
That’s my answer. Best regards
Andreas Maercker