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

By Leon MoriguchiPublished May 15, 2026Updated May 18, 20264 min read日本語版あり
Audience
Parents of children aged 1–8 who show unusual nighttime behavior

TL;DR

  • ·Night terrors are Non-REM events that occur in the first 1–3 hours of sleep, with the child unresponsive and amnesic the next morning — the opposite pattern from nightmares, which happen in the second half of sleep when REM is concentrated
  • ·The correct response during a night terror is to do nothing except ensure physical safety; attempting to wake or console the child typically prolongs the episode by disrupting the transition out of deep sleep
  • ·About 90% of night terrors and sleepwalking resolve spontaneously before adolescence; frequency above three times per week, dangerous behaviors, or episodes intensifying after age six are the signals to seek specialist input

Contents

  1. Lead
  2. Sleep Architecture and Where These Events Occur
  3. Non-REM Parasomnia — Night Terrors, Sleepwalking, Confusional Arousal
  4. Night Terrors (Sleep Terrors)
  5. Sleepwalking (Somnambulism)
  6. Confusional Arousal and Sleep Talking
  7. Distinguishing From Nightmares
  8. Natural Course and When to Seek Help
  9. Practical Takeaways
  10. Summary
  11. References

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 — Non-REM parasomnias: abnormal behaviors that occur during deep non-dreaming sleep stages, including night terrors and sleepwalking — 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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In the memori app

The memori app is built so you can check these patterns against your records instead of your memory.

  • Bedtime sessions: time-to-sleep accumulates separately for each method you try — rocking, lying down beside them, white noise.
  • A per-night tally of how many feeds and wakings there were.
  • White noise and ambient sound, with a caution when the volume climbs too high.
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