Screaming in the Night, Wandering the House — A Guide to Distinguishing Night Terrors, Sleepwalking, and Nightmares

Audience: Parents of children aged 1–8 who show unusual nighttime behavior
Target length: ~1,600 words
Status: Draft v1 (translated from Japanese v1)
Original: ../278_parasomnia.md

Lead

Suddenly screaming in the middle of the night. Eyes open but unresponsive to calls. Up and walking around. And then, in the morning, no memory of any of it.

These are not nightmares. They are a distinct class of phenomena — — that arise in the deep stages of sleep and operate through an entirely different physiological mechanism than dreaming. Understanding that difference is the starting point for knowing what a parent should actually do in the middle of the night.

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Lead

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