The differences between night terrors and nightmares are important to understand. As a parent of young children you may encounter both from time to time, with average age of night terrors occurring between the ages of 3-12 years old. Some children may experience night terrors sooner, while others continue to experience them into their teens. In contrast, nightmares may occur for all of us from time to time, and occasionally children have particular difficulty for a short or long period of time with certain fearful nightmares that keep recurring.

You could say one of the key differences between night terrors and nightmares is that night terrors scare parents, while nightmares scare kids. When children have a night terror, they are still in a deep stage of sleep. They may look like they’re awake, scream, yell, thrash, get up and run around, but they are not awake. They’ll usually refuse any offer of help and won’t recognize parents or caregivers. The fact that the body remains active and the child seems awake and in deep distress fools many parents into thinking they can help talk the child down from a night terror. This is ineffective, since the child won’t hear you, and any attempts to fully wake the child may create additional distress.

If children do wake during a night terror, which may last for a minute to as long as an hour, they will not remember anything of the event. They usually won’t require comfort and may simply seem confused if the parent is present in the middle of the night. In most cases, doctors recommend that you don’t try to wake children with night terrors, but simply make sure they are safe and secure in their sleeping space, restrain them gently as needed during a night terror, and let them eventually fall back to sleep. As stated, this kind of unusual behavior in a child can be frightening!

While night terrors and nightmares are both frightening, nightmares are the scary dreams that frighten kids (and plenty of adults too). Most children really remember their nightmares, and they can tell you about them if they wake. Moreover, anyone is more likely to wake when a nightmare is in progress because these occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, and recall of dreams is most common during light sleep cycles.

When a child hustles to your bed in the middle of the night with tales of terrible dreams, he or she really does need your comfort and will benefit from it. This alone is very different from a night terror. No child will inform you of a night terror, since no child can remember having one, and if woken, couldn’t tell you what happened.

Night terrors and nightmares may arise from different sources too. Poor sleep, extreme stress, fever, different types of medication or merely lack of central nervous system maturity may result in night terrors. If these symptoms persist for more than a few weeks, it’s a good idea to consult a pediatrician, and if they emerge in adolescents or adults, they are well worth mentioning to a doctor. Nightmares may also occur because of stress, traumatic events (past or present), some medications, pregnancy — which may produce very lucid dreams — and various kinds of illness especially when accompanied with fever.

Still you can generally note the main differences between night terrors and nightmares come down to the following. With night terrors there is no recall, and people are unable to wake though they may say a few words and make noises. Those in the midst of a night terror usually cannot be comforted and aren’t awake enough to sense your presence. With a nightmare, people will usually recall what they dreamed and may be particularly comforted after waking by a person reassuring them that what occurred was only a bad dream.