Night Time Drama

​An unusual trait the females in my family share is active sleep. On our best nights’ we toss and turn, wiggle and squirm. On the worst, we punch and kick. In addition to moving all over the place, we talk. A lot. We are even known to have full conversations while still sound asleep.
 
This trait starts early, often as night terrors, night mares and vivid dreams as young children. My mom vividly recounts a night when I came screaming into their room, sound asleep, frantic that a snake was chasing me. When my daughter started having night terrors a few months ago (yup this has been passed down to her!), the first time my aunt witnessed it she said it reminded her of the many nights my cousin arose with night terrors.
 
As I said, it runs in the family. I shouldn’t have been alarmed when it was passed down another generation to my daughter.
 
But, as a first-time mom, even being aware that it was likely she would exhibit these, after my daughter’s first night terror I did what most first-time moms do. I googled. I read article after article trying to get a better understanding of the cause and treatment of these alarming fits. The literature suggests these disturbances are often brought on by sleep deprivation and extreme tiredness, stress, fever, and sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings.
 
These factors made some sense. The night terrors did start occurring more frequently when my daughter decided she no longer needed an afternoon nap. Without her nap, she has probably been more sleep deprived. Additionally, every time she stays overnight at a family member’s she wakes them with her screaming fits as she remains sound asleep.
 
But, as we have been tracking her sleeping patterns, we have found the night terrors occur just as frequently on days she has had a nap as days she hasn’t. And the family member’s she sleeps at, she has been sleep-overs since she was three months old, have noticed the increase as well. And we know she hasn’t been having fevers, and I don’t think she has been under any undue stress. So I have sat back, scratched my head and pondered what else might be going on? Why else might she be having night terrors? And why might they be so prevalent in my family?
 
It got me thinking and wondering if night terrors might be linked to intuition. The literature suggests night terrors most often occur during stage 3 non-REM or delta sleep. This is the non-REM sleep stage where dreaming does occur. It is also suggested that during delta wave sleep, a person’s deepest sleep, that one’s body heals and the individual can access the unconscious mind.
 
This led me to more questions… could this active sleep and the dramatic night terrors be because she is intuitive? Is she interacting with the other side? Could she be astral travelling? If she is doing these things, why (at least from my perspective) are these experiences disturbing. Wouldn’t visiting the other-side be fulfilling. All sorts of questions arise.  And unfortunately for these questions, the research and literature offers no answers other than the assurance that my child experiences no discomfort.
 
Left with no answers and lots of questions, I’ve turned to the tools my husband and I use and I offer my clients that experience sleep disturbances. And you know what? They’ve worked!! At least a little… so here are what we are doing:
 
Crystals – We have loaded her room up with crystals. Fortunately, she loves her rocks and is happy to have them in her room. Which crystals have we chosen? Quartz points in the window to disperse energy, hematite to ground her, rose quartz for nurturing and infinite for healing. In our bedroom, my husband and I have blue and black kyanite for dreams and to ease anxiety as well as a salt lamp. We have also been sure to remove all amethyst from her room, because while it is great for people that want to enhance their dreams those who are already experiencing dreams it can be worse.
 
Grounding & Centering Exercises – To assist her in being more grounded and centered, we have been teaching Baby Girl breathing exercises, meditation and yoga. While she doesn’t do any of these for any length of time, we are getting her in the habit of using them to calm herself and release stress. At this point they are fun, and honestly I think she likes to copy momma, but they must be having some effect.
 
Boundaries – Since Halloween, Baby Girl has recognized the difference between the living and Spirit. As she has been interacting with them, the sage advice my grandfather provided me with has been shared with her: “Acknowledge Spirit but then tell them to go away if you don’t want to be bothered.” She simply tells them, “Stop it.” And it works. We’ve reminded her she can do that at night.
 
Time for Spirit – I encourage my students to take time to communicate with Spirit every day, and if possible the same time every day. I do the same thing with my daughter. Every day we take a moment to connect with our loved ones that have passed be it my grandmother or grandfather, my husband’s father, my uncle and many others. By doing that, hopefully they won’t bother her as much at night.
 
These tools seem to be working. Our plan is to keep it up! Hope they work for you too!!

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