What are "parasomnias"?
Parasomnias are essentially movements that occur during sleep. That's really the definition. Now, I think it's helpful to understand what's going on in your brain; if you look at your brain waves during a parasomnia, and then I'll explain what parasomnias are. So, usually these events, or these things, occur when you are transitioning from a deeper stage of sleep to a lighter stage of sleep. It's much like a transmission in a car, where a car will change gears from, say, fourth gear up to third gear; if you're driving a stick shift, and you're not so good at it, then you may get that sort of grinding thing in between, because you haven't successfully changed the gears properly. Well, a parasomnia is almost the same thing. What happens is when transitioning from your deep stage of sleep to your lighter stage of sleep you kind of get stuck between stages. It's almost like being in The Matrix; you're kind of not in one world and you're not in another world. You're kind of somewhere in between. When you're in that state you are still in sleep state, but you may be in a state of arousals; some form of arousal. Parasomnias actually manifest in different flavours, if you like. You can have sleep talking, sleep walking, and you can have something in younger children called confusional arousal, which is very similar to what happens in older kids and called a night terror. Often if you just leave them they will kind of subside on their own and the child will settle down. These are very frightening for parents to see, but it's important for them to understand that's not abnormal and that it can occur normally in about three to four percent of the childhood population.
