How Night Terrors Work

Should Know the podcast. Uh, we are in our deep freeze chamber. Yeah, it's a little cold in here. It's freezing and I'm never freezing. No, I don't know what's going on. Yeah, Like I just video producer Casey just pushed a big rack of frozen beef carcasses by So I think they're moonlighting, you know, is a is a beef carcass freezer the butcher. When I said I don't know it's going on, I meant literally, I'm confused from hypothermia setting in facting my brain. You're just generally confused

about everything. Yeah, well, it's it's cold, cold as age, cold as heck. Chuck, Yes, have you my friend ever had what's commonly referred to as a night terror. Um, are you referring to a sleep terror or pavoor nocturnus or axis one colon three oh seven point four six, or uh possession by a demon? No? I don't think so. I haven't either. I would probably remember, I would think as a child having these, although not necessarily unless your mom or dad said, hey, there's something really wrong with

your kid, well, it would have been a thing. In other words, right, yeah, because yeah, that's a good point. It's gonna say thank goodness that we didn't have that, but really thank goodness for our family, because when you have a night teror sleep tear, you typically aren't capable of forming any kind of memory of the event, certainly

of anything that's driving you crazy with fear. Yeah, you wake up, you're surrounded by your entire family who's like sweating bullets with looks of terror on their faces, shaking, and you're like, what's what's going on? Yeah? Where the pancakes? I was gonna say twinkies? But yeah, did you eat twinkies for breakfast as a child? Well? No, I kind of more imagine this happening at like two in the morning.

Got you. You know, nobody wants to cook being grabbed twinkie pretty easy, I bet what would be good since I recently invented the recy cat, all right, and people actually ate them. Um, take a twinkie, get a pan hot oh yeah, spray it with some or even better, get some get a stick of butter and run it over the pan, and then get one of those bacon grill presses and then small two twinkies down. I don't know if you should do that last part and griddle

them up nice and crispy. Okay, wow, yeah, maybe you should do whether they're really golden brown and not just fake golden brown. Man, that'd be good. You know. I quit ultra processed foods, but I might try that. Actually, yeah, I mean I'm joking. Of course I would never do that. I had a twinkie and I think I ate one for that episode. But I don't think I've had too many sense then either. But that sounds good. Well, you just said a crisp, buttery twinkie, and it does sound

kind of good. That's what stinks about having extra pounds, as people probably say, yeah, chuck to seat twinkies all day. Well, they call you twinkie behind your back. I don't fried chicken all day, that's my problem. Oh yeah, yeah, fried chicken will do it. But it can really be worth it depending on the fried chicken to be raised in the South. Where's the best place around here? Well, some of the grocery stores around here have great fried chicken

in their deli. Really, yeah, that's my like, I don't go to like fast food fried chicken. Oh yeah, no, I'm I'm not surprised about that, but I figured you'd say something like Mary Max or something like that. Occasionally at a at a nice restaurant that has, you know, over priced fried chicken, I'll try it. Mary Max is good pretty much across the board with everything. Yeah, it's ever had their um mint julip. No, it is so tasty, huge,

that is it. Yes, it's just great. Well that's because they have to satisfy the aging alcoholics that go there for lunch drinks. Mary max Tea Room is in Atlanta, by the way. Oh yeah, everybody knows. It's a classic old school Southern restaurant. But but you know, it's a team room, so it's supposed to be a little nicer. It's not like a meat and three right exactly, but yeah, yeah, and uh Mary Max is also very famous for Mary Mack having suffered night terrors as child. Yeah. See, people

thought we were on a tangent. Nope, not true. No, that was all all written out. So night terrors. I have never had them that I know of. I did recount my sleep walking, uh episode in our sleepwalking episode. Well put and by the way, we did sleepwalking is science phasing out sleep? October? Is sleep that important? September two, Robust, thirteen minute episode Sleepwalking August? Is there a disease that kills us by preventing sleep? October? And that's it? What

about lucid dreaming? Okay? Yeah, sure? And then but I typed in sleep as the keyword, so it didn't come up. I think there's a couple more even that a dreams would have brought up a few more than you're right. Yeah. So anyway, if people want to hear everything, we know, sleep sweet, the sleep sweet, that's it. Um. But yeah, we haven't done. Oh and then by this time we'll have done. Uh. What was the one we just recorded about sleep? Gettysburg address It was a paras omnia too.

Oh geez man, we just recorded. It hasn't even been released at this moment. You know what I'm talking about, all right? Yeah, but you put me on the spot, so I can't think of anything. I can't either put both of us. It'll be added to the sleep suite eventually. And here's another contribution. So we're talking night tears. Like you said, there's some other terms for it. Apparently, if you're serious about researching night tears, you call him sleep tears.

Because this was pointed out by a couple of pedantic sites. That can happen anytime you sleep, if you take a nap during the day, you can suffer one of them. So you really shouldn't call him night tears. Yeah, if you're one of those six year olds that works the late shift and he's sleep all day long, that is severely pedantic. But that's I was being unfair because adults can get them, although it's uh much more common in children. Let's just say between four and twelve. The best number

we have is about six six. Um, there is one. I don't even know about this one. One study said, but I think we should just throw that out the door, because nowhere else did I see that. Yeah, there's a, Oh, really, you didn't see that one. No, No, I didn't. I mostly saw about around somewhere around six percent of kids from anywhere between two and a half to twelve years of age UM typically will suffer night terrors. And there's like you're going to find out that there very few

things that are known about night terrors sleep tears. UM, there's like tantalizing clues here there, but no one's ever sat down and really like connected the dots. There's nobody. There is virtually no sleep terror researcher that I came across. I came across a few academics talking about it, and there've been like apparently a few studies or whatever, but there doesn't seem to be anybody who's focused on night tares.

Which is really strange to me because if you do kind of start doing research about night tears, you find that there is a lot of anxiety among parents. For sure. This would help a lot of people, a lot of families who are disturbed by this. Well, I can't imagine being a parent and having your kid like, I mean, it's not a nightmare. We're going to make the distinction

over and over. It's it's different it happens in a different time, which we'll get to during sleep, but it is uh, it is terror, like hyperventilating and your heart rate is increased, your your eyes might be opening. You're still asleep. You talk about terrifying and your people will dilate. That's the stuff of nightmares, Like you've got the fight or flight response going on. That's while you're asleep and can't have your eyes upen Could you imagine anything more creepy?

Oh no, that's that's very creepy. Well, that's that's part of the problem. I think that's one of the things, not just being woken up by your kid having a night tearor um. The fact that they're moving around like they're scared to death, but there's nothing and they're like walking around. They're like pushing you out of the way. They're they're they're interacting with the world as if they're

awake and scared out of their minds. But you can't connect with them, you can't console them because they're asleep. They're not actually interacting with you. They're not hearing your reassurances because they're not awake right now. They're in another world, the world of sleep. It's really bizarre. Are you sure they can't hear? Yeah, you have to wake them up, and you're not supposed to do that. Secondly, but they're

not there. They're they're they're physically and they're acting like they're they're they're not there, so you're they're literally inconsolable at that point while they're having a night tare So Yeah, for a parent and this is your little two or three year old kid suffering this, you can't do anything about it. You just have to wait for it to go away. And these things can last up to like twenty minutes, and there's nothing you can do aside from

keeping them from harming themselves. Yeah. Plus that means you're awake for twenty minutes when you you should be sleeping, just pounding twinkies. Uh. Gender wise, boys and girls get it about the same, so it's really no difference. And um, it's not like menstruation as no gender specific specific as far as I know, we haven't done an episode on that specifically. Though. We did female puberty. That that's that's enough? Is that all? Yeah? We did male puberty and female puberty.

No more. I shouldn't have even brought it up. Um, so gender doesn't matter. And um, they typically tail off after you're a little kid, but you can't get them as adults. And they say, after sixty five years old, you were almost certain to not have a sleep terror. And I just assume it's because nothing scares you at that point. You've seen it all teenagers. Yea, the you're you're impending death in teenagers, um, which probably reminds you

of your impending death. Really the world changing and all that. Um, Yeah, there's a clue right there. Over sixty five night terrors are almost unheard of. Another little tranche of life where they're very much unheard of his adolescence. So you might have them, um, when you're prepubescent, and then they go away during adolescence, then they might pick up again as

an adult. Um. You know what's going on there. It seems to be as far as like the very few people who are thinking about this stuff, there seems to be some sort of agreement that it has to do especially in children with the developing central nervous system. You know what, that's a great place for us to take a break, so I can go look up what central nervous system means. All right, you said, central nervous system, and um, you know what it means. I do. I

went and looked it up. This descending string of nerves that goes down from your brain and hangs down over your body. That's right, I think like a marry net. Yeah, it is very much like that. Um. So wow, that was a great analogy. Actually, he just blew my mind. Thank you. So you just tease before we left about having to do with the central nervous system. Um, apparently our our CNS matures up until the age of about

do you know what CNS means? Central nervous is right? Um, but I was kind of surprised at I was shocked at that was that late. Apparently it's a fairly recent finding relief among science that it used to be you know eight, you know, end of puberty. Um, Nope. Supposedly now they believe the CNS keeps going and developing until uh, well, we should talk a little bit about sleep. I know we covered this in that awesome thirteen minute episode How

Sleep Works. Yeah, just the stages of sleep. Yeah, it seems like this was better explained than our entire thirteen minute episode. Yeah, and that we talked about in the Dreams Episode two, And we had a TV episode of our Science Channel show called Night Terror. Yeah, poor Kent clinking Beard slept, walked, you had sleep back me all

sorts of terrible stuff. That was a fun episode. That was um and and there's even a continuity mistake in that episode if you remember probably several um did you know? Our first three episodes are up on YouTube in full. I think somebody actually sat there with their phone and recorded it on their computer and then posted it to YouTube. Now is it the real first episode? Meaning the pilot that was the eleventh episode was the one that they aired first. It was actually episode two, but it was

called episode one, wasn't it? All I know is coffee? Coffee? But that was the first one, wasn't it? That was episode one? It wasn't episode two? Yeah, that was the pilot. The pilot was episode eleven. Yeah, but that was totally different format. No, the pilot remember it was broken up between body dysmorphic disorder and zombies. Oh no, no, no, no, that's the pilot now, that wasn't it was? That was the That was what we shot as proof of concept

that they ended up airing as the pilot. They call it pilos where but the pilot episode of the real show when we actually we're in a different location was was Coffee Bought? Which they aired I guess tenth coffee about air first? No, it didn't really, Yeah, that was the rub Man. It's like, why would you air the pilot last? Well, we aired the pilot last twice because they showed the proof of concept one at the end. Right, Yeah, they hated the show so much they decided to air

one extra episode. Oh man, what a rabbit hole that was so uh talk about it. Yeah, this this article here says we spent about a third of our lives in deep sleep. Well that's not true, just sleeping and um, that's true. Well it depends on the person, of course. Sure, yeah, I guess that's true. I equate that with this sitting at red lights thing. I've always been suspicious of that, Like, it depends on where you are, spend how much you drive? Yeah, x number of days at a red light. Yeah, these

are broad uh percentages, I think. Yeah, Um, I have a friend that is so like that. I think started worrying about his death early on in life and trained himself to get as little asleep as possible so he could do more. Oh that's neat and dude, since I've known him in the in his early twenties, has been getting like five hours or less sleep at night and

it's good. He's good with that too. Um, he should listen to that is Science Phasing out sleep episode because it was remember a lot about pills that help you, um, stay up for forty eight hours and then just sleep for the normal like eight. He didn't eat pills, he just trained himself high. Yeah that's pretty interesting. Um. All right,

so when we go to shweepy time. Uh, there's something called a dinner scene ADNNI sign a chemical that starts to build up in your body, your brain, your brain, right yeah, yeah, Oh, it's a neurotransmitter and at the very least as present in your brain. I don't know if it's manufactured there. You know, a lot of your serotonine, like a tremendous amount of your serotonin is actually producing your gut. That that doesn't surprise me. It was surprising to me the first time I heard it because you

think it's a brain. It's a new transmitter, so obviously the brains can generate Nope, most of it's in your gut. No, I mean, I guess it didn't surprise me, and that I know that a lot of healthy gut um life life like a healthy gut can affect way more parts of your life there, just like digestion. Um. So anyway, um, that builds up the adenna scene and then uh, serotonin, like you mentioned that goes to the brain and says, all right, let's shut it down for the night. Shut

it down, everybody. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here exactly. Then they play Rick Astley on the loudspeaker. Oh, is that what they do to get people out? Well, every bar has her own song. Okay, is Rick Astley go to though? You think I could see it? Yeah? I used to play at Mexicali Grill in college. I would play when we had the the Eek fraternity big groups on the deck late at night.

I would play Public Enemy really loud. Oh yeah, And they didn't like it, I'm sure, and we loved it. Drove him out and they went back to the fraternity house and did whatever they do there. Watch Dr Quinn medicine woman. Is that what they're doing there? Is a great letterman top I used to have this book of Letterman Top ten lists from the nineties. Probably a third of the jokes that I've said on this show really are like rooted in that book, and that was one

of them. It was like top ten signs You're in a bad fraternity. It was like, every Saturday Night is Dr Quinn Medicine Woman Night? Your your secret fraternity handshake consists of quietly holding hands for long periods of time. Zee mckagar's I think Dr Quinn Medicine Woman is probably top five least cool shows of all time. You know, yeah, murder she wrote this up there. Okay, fine, it's not cool. I watched that show at least once a week. Still,

I love that show. Where do you find it on Netflix? Yah? I think it's probably on Amazon Prime. Do you really watch that? I really genuinely like in in a totally non ironic way. Well, Angela Lansbury is pretty sexy. I don't know about that, but it's just it's a cozy little show, especially you know, she travels abroad and and goes to Europe and in New York A lot those episodes are like so so for me. The ones that are set in Cabot Cove and there's like a storm

and a murderer Maine. I think. Um, so it's like a quiet little town and you know, something happens and it's just like a cozy show. You can't can't stand it. And it's not like she doesn't like the show itself, it's just like, um, Angela Lansbury is such like a schoolmarm to her. She always feels like she's in trouble. Now on the background, Yeah, that's funny. So she's not a big murder she wrote fan Uh did she just walk through when it's on and be like, stop telling

me what to do? Angela? No, I won't go to my room. Um, all right, so where are we were falling asleep because the because Murder she wrote on because Murder she wrotes on. And then we enter stage one of five four h five, well technically five yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, so there's four stages and then a fifth an encore. Yeah I guess yeah, it doesn't isn't considered a stage,

it's its own thing. Well. Stage one is when you're you're sort of in that place where if things are all good and you're not super anxious, don't have a lot of anxiety. It's nice and quiet, it's dark. Um, that means you're heading into sleep. If things are not great, or you're anxious, or something's disturbing you, you could fall back awake from stage one, that tenuous period. Stage one. Yeah, that is stage one. If you have a book, you're going to sleep in stage one. That's right. It was

exploding head syndrome. That was the one. So you go on to stage two, start drifting off, and this is apparently where you spend a lot of your sleep time, although I don't know that this is necessarily true, but your your brain waves start to take on a different form. I think they go from alpha to maybe beta. Okay, they're slowing down a little bit, you're calmed down, you're

not thinking quite as much. Um, your eye movement stops, and you're just basically in that twilight period where you're you're basically sleepy, but you could be awakened fairly easily until you get the stage three. Yeah, that's when things get real. That's when. Um. These there's something called delta waves, and they were discovered by a guy named W. Gray Walter the nineteen hundreds who was very gracious not to insist that they're called alter waves. Totally would have He's like,

go with delta Uh. They operate between zero and four hurts, and those delta waves are what makes they're They're responsible for the restorative aspect of sleep, like when you wake up and you feel great and refreshed, say thank you delta waves. And um that doctor I guess he was a doctor, doctor Walter Um. He was a student of Hanburger. Hansburger mhm man. That's close. It's so so you shouldn't name your kid Hansburger. Uh. Hansburger Uh invented the E E G machine, and then Gray went on to make

that machine a little bit better. He improved upon it, which is what allowed him to discover these knobs are ugly. I'm gonna place him with orange. One looks old. So that allowed him to discover the delta waves, which are great. Those those are that's those are my favorite brainway. Yeah. Even the name delta waves just sounds very soothing to me. Del to right. So you're in did you say stage

four or three? That's things get cranking up in three and by the time you're at four, it's all delta waste and and like you said, that's where you get that RESTful sleep because this is where tissue regeneration and repair takes place. Your brain is shut down, like your your executive function is turned off. You're not thinking, you're not judging, you're not chewing over like all the stupid things that you said wrong and how you could have said them better that day, none of that's going on. Um,

you're just kind of out like a light. But your motor strip is still conceivably active, it can be UM, and your emotional centers are able to be activated as well. For the most part, they're not. You're just out right right. Then after stage four you totally shift gears and you enter R E M sleep. So the first four stages are non r E M sleep, and then you enter R E M sleep rapid eye movement sleep, and it's called that because your eyes just go nuts so all

over the place. The rest of your body is paralyzed, and your brain turns back on and starts producing producing the same brain waves alpha waves that you have when you're awake. So you're thinking, you're dreaming, you're doing all this stuff, but your body is paralyzed, right, and then the whole thing starts over again. After about ninety minutes, you go back into stage one sleep. Okay, yeah, and whatever you do during R A M Sleep, don't go

back to Rockville. It's terrible. What's funny is I think you make that joke every time we talk about the stages of sleep. Well, I do, but it's a different song every time. Okay, Yeah, it's just a bad r M reference. You're right. I just feel like I have to I'm with you, I'm with you someone. I wish someone would send us a list of my dumb R E M jokes from all of our very sleep people. Don't waste your lives, yeah's yours? Go volunteer for a

charity instead. So um, the whole that whole cycle between the four stages and R E M Sleep takes about ninety minutes, and then through about the first half of say you're say you're getting a good eight hours. First four hours, those first four stages are going to take up most of that ninety minutes to ten minutes, and R E M is going to be less. And then about halfway through your R E M is gonna start getting longer and longer. In the cycle. Right, So the

second half of your sleep you're dreaming more. But again it's the important point here is during stage three and four, you're not dreaming. You're just out like a light. Yeah, and I guess that what you just said before that explains why I often feel like I, um remember my dreams or dream heavier towards my waking hours. Yeah. Well. Plus, also, if you are in R. A E. M sleep and you awaken from it rather than awakening during one of your other sleep cycles, you're going to remember your dream

because you're you're regaining consciousness, you're awakening. But again, your brain has been on the whole time. You're just becoming aware of what you were just thinking. So you're gonna be able to form those memories when you're sleeping in say stage three or four. Is we'll see you don't form memories because your brain is not working like that. Yeah. I probably asked you this in one of our dreamcasts.

But are you able to pick up a dream after you've woken up and and it's something you want to you know, resolve or keep doing? Not really, I've gotten pretty good at that, have you. That's pretty neat? Yeah, I don't it's not quite dream sailing like we talked about, um, but I definitely like it happened this week. I was having a dream that was great, and I woke up, went and used the bathroom sitting down so I don't

wake up enough. And then I was like, all right, and I just like think about nothing but that as I go back to sleep. Okay, where was I? Yeah, I got right back in it. That's awesome, man, that's pretty neat. But I'm still not which is the one where you control the dream? Is that dreaming? I wouldn't say that. I'm that's where you're like, and now I'm going to fly watch this and then you fly in your dream. Can't do that, all right? So those are

the stages. Good extra info there by the way, I didn't know that about the varying time cycle as you sleep. I thought it was sort of all equal. I bring it, you do bring it. Um. So what they do know about night terrors or sleep terrors is between three and four stages. Three and four is when this is happening. Yes, in other words, it part of it has to do with this transition that happens between the stages. They just

don't know exactly why. No, And it doesn't really make sense because both stages three and four are considered deep sleep. It's just deep sleep and super deep sleep. It's something during that transition can cause night terrors. Yeah, and the nightmares. I don't know if we fully said this. Nightmares occur only during R E. M sleep, but uh, that's one distinguishing factor from night terrors, and the fact that you can you know, you can remember a nightmare. I can't

remember a night terror. Nope. You wake up and you might still feel fearful for some reason, but you you don't wake up and say, there was a beast in my room trying to kill me. It's kind of like how when you're watching Law and Order and you're like super into it and like you just hate the murderer in this episode, and then on comes like um, like a Sharman ad and you're like this, why do I feel so like mad? And then you realize, oh, it's

because I'm still keyed up from Law and Order. Same thing with the night tear, Like you don't remember why you're fearful, you just feel fearful. Still, it hasn't subsided. I've never seen that show, but I was hanging in there. You've never seen Law and Order? Huh, No, that is not possible. I don't watch many major network TV shows. Law and Order has been on for like twenty years, and you've never seen a Law and Order. No, they're missing out. I've never seen cs. I've never seen any

of those shows. That's fine, you're missing out a little bit. With lawn Or, it's a really great procedural cop drama. Now that's the one with Len that had Jerry or back right, Lenny who? I love that guy. He's great, But he's not the only one that's great. Like virtually every single person who's been on this rotating cast has done a great job. Didn't say by the Bell guy get on there? Or was that another back? Yeah? Didn't he?

Eventually he was on one of those procedurals. He was on a lawyer procedural with one of the guys from Clueless. Really yeah, the skateboarder from Clueless. What? Yeah? They were like goofy lawyers. Oh no, no, no, that's a different one. I know you're talking about that. I don't. I don't know if Zach was ever a cop. Oh no, I'm thinking of Ricky Schroeder, didn't he end up on law, Law and Order. Boy, this is one of those moments

where people are screaming at the computer right now. So I genuinely don't think it was long and Order, but it was something like that. I know what you're talking about. All right, let's take a break and we'll figure out. You can be Ricky Schroeder and I'll be Zach right ready to one. Okay, all right, So where we left off was that they're not sure why it happens between three and four. They think it has something to do

with what they call a snag in this transition. It's pretty SCIENTI yeah, it's a snag, so yeah, pretty much did I again? They think it has to do with your central nervous system still growing. But I mean, that's weird because it only happens in some kids, and like that exploding head syndrome, it happens in just the same way. So there's there's something amiss here. It can't it's not

just like a normal aspect of childhood, you know. So that would mean that there's a snag in the development of central nervous system that it was was could happen in a certain way a certain prescribed way. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Um, not at least one person does. It does run in the family, um, seemingly or oftentimes. Um. Stress and anxiety can be a big trigger sleep apnea, Uh, sleep deprivation if you have migraines, UM, thyroid hormones being

produced too much, too much booze, a lot of booze. Uh. Maybe if you're sleeping out at summer camp or somewhere else you've never been. Yeah. Apparently they have linked stressed to it. Like I guess some parents have noticed that the kid has a particularly stressful day, they may be predisposed of having a night tare boys stress on kids? That's just heartbreaking. Well, it's also been to basically all forms of abuse. Yeah, it leads to a higher risk

of night terrors. And they have found that if you a small percentage of kids who experienced night tabors, terrors might go on to have psychosis later in life. I saw that too, So I saw like that that was widely reported. There was one study that found it, but it was a decent studies six kids, and it found that kids who have night terrors are eight times likely or to experience psychosis later on in life, like you said, uh, and they have found there it can develop along with anxiety,

bipolar disorder, and depression. In adults. It can be co morbid with those correct. I hate that word, but it gets it across, it does. It's just feel morbid, just sounds. You know. They should have come up with a different word, like hygienic. Co hygienic. That's the word you hate, right, yeah, morbid. I don't know. It's one of those words that means two completely different things. And why why do that just have a different word. Well, let's come up with it

right now. I don't give me, give me some letters. No, okay, I think that was a wise decision. Um. They used to give you meds. Uh. Nowadays they don't do that so much. So I saw that in this article, but I also saw elsewhere that they're like, nope, med's best thing to do. If your kid has horrible nights, give them valium, like basically benzo diazepines, which are things like valium.

I think some antidepressants are benzo as a peans, but something that will just knock you out and you're not gonna have a night there, or any kind of interrupted sleep. Apparently if it's bad enough, they will prescribe those. I'm sure it's not like their go to like here, let's give your kids these chemicals pharmaceuticals. But I think it's um it's still on the table. And I saw this report in a number of different places that um, there's a reported case of some kid who had forty episodes

of night terrors in a single night. Wow, yeah, you would give that kid valium? Holy cow? Yeah yeah, because think about it, like, even if the kids not remembering what's going on, that's still having like the fight or flight effect forty times in a single night on its little central nervous or central nervous system. It's not good. So you'd be way better off just giving the kid valum.

Then one thing that um they found is that a lot of times if you have two pepe that can bring on a night terror if your bladder is really full. Uh So what they do in that case is they recommend you, um, wake your kid up a couple hours into sleep and go, um take uh take the little boy or girl to the bathroom, put them back to sleep. And the thing that I saw about that, though, I'm

sure that that has something to do with it. But I also think that they are inadvertently following what's called scheduled awakening, which is the the go to treatment for night tares. Yeah, I mean it's exactly what it sounds like, which is you try and I mean I guess you have to time it out pretty well. Yeah, but there apparently are very predictable. Like if your kid suffers from night tears on a regular basis, they're gonna have them

at about the same time every night. So you just wake your kid up like ten minutes before then you like five seconds before that. You wait, um, you you wake him up just ten fifteen minutes something like that before they normally have a night tare. Um, give them some water something like, tuck them in a little bit. But you roused them enough that you are preventing them from going into such deep sleep that they'll have a

night tare. So they kind of dipped down towards sleep, um, but or towards that super deep sleep, but never so much that they experience a night tare. But they're still getting good sleep, better sleep because they're they're um not experiencing the fight or flighters. Because I was wondering about that about disrupting the sleep pattern. But if yeah, that sounds like it's a win win. Yeah, allegedly they're they're still getting great sleep. Um. And I do want to

mention too with the bladder problem. I've said this before in the show and it is my duty as always to say it again. It was a late bed wetter. And I always like to say this on the show because kids out there that listen to this, if you're late bed wetter, don't don't be ashamed. Nothing to be ashamed about. It happens. It's hereditary. I went to bed till I was wellve ish and no, it was about twelve, and um, it was you know, a lot of anxiety

for a little chucky spending that out and stuff. So if you're if you're listening out there and you're a late bedwetter, just hang in there. It'll stop. And um, hopefully you have parents that are understanding and friends parents that are understanding. That's a big one. That's nice. Chuck. Yeah, I'm not embarrassed anymore. I don't think you should be. I'll pee in front of anybody. Yeah, go to sleep right now and I'll do it. Uh. And then you

you know, we're talking about this. Um. Scheduled awakenings are devices, and I found one on a popular online retailer for a hundred and twenty nine bucks. And what it is. It's just a little thing that well I wasn't gonna say the name, but sure it's probably Luly. Yeah, you're right, uh it. Um, it's a It vibrates the mattress at

intervals to wake your kid up gently. Yeah. Well, supposedly it also learns when your kid has so you program in when your kid normally has a night tare through an app, I believe, and then it starts to pay attention and learn when your kid actually has them. And then yeah, it vibrates and and it does the same thing as a schedule of awakening device, so you don't have to be bothered, just let the robot take care

of your kids. I looked at the reviews though, and um, it got um eighty one percent either four or five star ratings, which means, you know, when it was it was something like this, that means it worked for them. How many ratings I don't remember, I mean several hundred, I think, uh, and then eleven percent at um one star, and again that just means it didn't work for them. Like when you read it, people like it's absolute garbage.

It didn't work for some people are like I would have given it five but I thought the packaging it came in was dumb looking. Some people do that, man, because people the worst. So whether or not you're using a device or you're doing a scheduled awakening like Flatliners, it's all about the timing. I got a time it just right right or else pointing no return two movie references. They're remaking Flatliners, by the way, of course, with a new generation starring Juneo. Oh really yeah, who else? I

can't remember. Keep for Southerland just signed on. But you know, one of those deals where they bring him back is probably the old The old weirdo sits under the desk, that's my guess. Uh. And I wanted to talk to about something I didn't know existed. Um sheets that keep you cool at night. Apparently sometimes they think it can be triggered by overheating. And people have found success with these wonder sheets that I didn't know existed. So I

looked them up. Their sheets that keep you cooler. It's like a sheet that's a giant fan well, it's two to three degrees cooler to the touch. Nice wicks moisture away like our favorite nunties. Um prevents absorption of heat from lights of your bed sits in the sun all day, and sleep during the day. I guess. Uh, you're a little kid on the lead shift and three times more airflow. So we have to get some of those. Give it a shot. Nice. One of the other things I saw

that they think might trigger it is restless legs syndrome. Yeah, supposedly there's a link with those two. The Jimmy legs that'll keep you up. So there's a story. Should we talk about this guy in Phoenix? I feel like we talked about him in the sleep walking episode. Yeah, we talked about people killing and sleepwalking episode. Like he's not the only one. Noah, I know, let's talk about him again. Scott the ladder for later. I'll bet we said the

same thing in the Sleepwalking Scott. His nickname is save it Scott, save it for later. No, I mean sorry, I shouldn't be joking. He's in prison. Yes he Uh, this was he Um. He stabbed his wife forty four times and then held her head underwater in a pool. Swimming pool. So what happened is this guy got up in the middle of the night, went out to fix his swimming pool, um with a hunting knife as a screwdriver.

His wife wakes him up. And that's why we said not to wake someone up, because if someone's gonna get violent during a sleep terror, it's because you were trying to wake them up. And apparently you're supposed to just gently guide them back to bed. Yeah, she did not. She apparently startled him. Uh. He stabbed her uh forty four times and then tried to drown her. And his neighbor saw this called the cops, and that was his defense that it was a sleep terror, which you know

can occur with sleepwalking. Um. And it didn't work. The defense. Um. Basically the prosecution said their marriage isn't some rosy thing like he said, Um, they're Mormon and she was trying to kind of leave the church behind a little bit, and he was upset about that. He wanted to have kids, more kids and she didn't. Uh. Defense said all that stuff was true, but not really that big of a deal, Like it didn't lead him to snap and kill his wife. Um. But that was his defense and it didn't work. He's

now in prison for life with no parole. Man. Can you imagine though, if he really was just totally sleepwalking having a night tare sad for everyone, Yeah, especially her. I saw a BuzzFeed article actually called can You Die from a Nightmare? And it was about this. Um, this artist named Tobias Long hung himself in New York and it's strongly suspected by people who know him that he did it in the midst of a night terror himself. Yes, he hunged himself. So you, um, you'll see during research

for sleep terror and night terror that it's harmless. In any website where that's salt that saying this will have an asterisk or will say but you can actually die from it. People have fallen out of windows, people have hurt other family members because, um, you can't have injurious episodes is what they're called of night terrors, because you're

sitting there flailing, You're like trying to fight something off. Um, You're you're again moving around because remember this comes during stage three and four of deep sleep, where your brains off but your motor function can still work, so you can get up and walk around and feel fear and be fighting stuff off. Um, but you're you're you're not having a nightmare. You're having a night tear. So you can harm yourself and others, so it isn't just a

totally harmless thing, which is usually what they say. Yeah, by the way, we're gonna get email else because you said hung innut hanged there. Thanks for that, all right? What's going on in the brain though, specifically, like they don't know what causes it, but they know what's lighting up,

then it all kind of makes sense. Well, it's like I was saying, like the when you're in stage three or four, your executive function is off, but you can still experience emotions like fear and panic and you can still move around, but you're not you're have you have delta brainways, so you're not thinking, you're not dreaming, you're just your body is just doing something really bizarre that it's not normally supposed to do. Yeah, so that's what

a night terror is. What what what's going on basically is you can commit acts of violence because that's switched on, but you don't have that an inhibition switched on, that switched off. So what they found is what is happening during a night gare. Is it's it resembles exactly or mirrors? Is it mirrors or is that opposite? Mirror would be opposite. It resembles what happens when someone is violent when they're awake. All right, no inhibition going on? Executive functioning, ah off off. Yeah,

it's a really weird, dangerous thing. Luckily it's mostly just in kids, but apparently in adults that can be really bad because you know, adults can be muscular, they know they're way around a knife. They can be little kid it's just like you just hold them in place by putting pressure on their forehead. Their little kids that are more muscular than me. Remember when I used to lifeguard, I'd see like it's like a little twelve year old boy. I'm like, that kid is naturally cut, like more than

more than I would ever hope to be. Hate those kids. Uh. Lastly, there is an indie go go for an augmented reality app called night Terrors that sounds pretty awesome and um it's an app on your phone and it takes over the flashlight on your phone, so you turn out all the lights in your house and you walk through looking

at your house. The camera on your phone. That's how you're looking at your house and it's lit by the flashlight and everything, and all of a sudden, like a monster will pop up, like out from around the hall, your hall. It's just a really neat concept and apparently they're executing it very well. What What is the whole point though? To scare the Jesus side of yourself. It's a horror game app but it's not really a game. It's as you walk around your house and it scares

you to death. It's like Pokemon Go, but for creeps, although Pokemon does for creeps too. There you go. I didn't even know that was until yesterday. It's pretty new. It's not that shameful. Given another weekend, it would have been shameful. That's it, Huh. I got nothing else. Well, if you want to know more about night terrors, you can type those words in the search part how stuff works dot com, so it's like search parts. Time for listener mail. Uh, this is about Gettysburg address. Hey guys,

thanks for the show. Uh. Not only do you all address cool and interesting topics in a meaningful way, the dynamic between the two of y'all adds a layer of enjoyment that can't be can't be duplicated. Thank you, perfect mix of seriousness and humor. Perfect. This guy's right up our alley. Uh why I'm writing those I listen to? However, No, no, no,

this is good. I listened to the podcast on the Gettysburg address, and you mentioned all students across the country pointlessly memorize this and other speeches, never really get what it's even about. I can tell you I was one of those memorized passages. Memorizing passages never ever helps anyone learn. In high school, we not only had to memorize Gettysburg Address Gettysburg, but Mark Anthony speech, which is what I had to do, uh mcbet tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy.

And in the month of April every year we had to memorize a poem of our choice of at least ten lines for National Poetry Month. They did it all the time. And you know how many of those things I remember now? Zero? Do you know how much I can tell you about the passages and their meaning? Nothing. I couldn't even tell you what poems I decided to memorize, although I think one year I chose an e. Commings poem because it was technically ten lines but maybe a

total of fifteen words. Yeah, Matt, he's doing it right. Uh. I like comming, so good choice. So I'm with you all on how pointless this all is. Keep up the great work. You have a fan for life, and that is Matt from Richmond, Virginia. Matt Anderson. Thanks a lot, Matt, much appreciative. We appreciate the support. You know what I remember from that age or like ad jingles like I

feel like chicken tent Knight, Like Chicken tent Night. Yeah, chicken tent Knight, and you don't remember schooling, but you remember where's the beef? Yeah? And chicken tonight was good? And I think I remember that it was just a jar of sauce. Oh, but it's like a whole gimmick around it just chicken, and you can have chicken tonight. So in other words, cooking meal entirely made of other sauce and pour this stuff on your family will finally love you. And they also had one called beef Tonight

pork tonight. I don't think they did. I'm sure those were playing, but they never did it. They're like, we just can't get the sauce right, Who's ever created a good sauce for pork or beef? Uh? If you want to get in touch with me or Chuck, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you

Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff Works dot com, m