Here is a link to a segment of a TLC episode on sleep disorders. In this portion of the episode, you are able to see a few examples of what a night terror may look like when it occurs for some people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSVwmSzxKtU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSVwmSzxKtU
Hans Ruedi Giger is recognized as one of the world's foremost artists of Fantastic Realism. Fantastic Realism is a style of painting and literature in which fantastic or imaginary and often unsettling images or events re depicted in a sharply detailed, realistic manner. By 1964, Giger was producing some of his first artworks. He was creating mostly ink drawing and oil paintings. He also worked in sculpture and had an abiding desire to extend the core elements of his artistic vision beyond the confines of paper into the 3D reality of his surroundings. Giger's most memorable works fall into the category of "biomechanoid" art, describing the merging of human anatomy with mechanical elements in dark, sexual, nightmarish worlds inspired by the night terrors that haunted him from his childhood. Painting his dark and disturbing visions provided a kind of self-therapy for Giger. He said, “I don’t have these dreams anymore. Well, maybe I do but I don’t make sketches of them. I draw some of the things I have dreamt. For example, there’s a rather unpleasant dream where I am stuck in a tomb and the only way out is a very narrow passage. There are huge stones and I am totally stuck. I cannot move at all. So terrifying, claustrophobic nightmares. I made some drawings of them, and every time I look at them, it puts me back into that terrible situation. Looking at these pictures bothers me so much, that I don’t look at them anymore.” Giger now has a museum and bar to show his artwork. His museum is renovated from a 400 year old medieval chateau high atop a hill in the Swiss town of Gruyeres. It houses the most comprehensive permanent display of his paintings, sculptures, furniture, and film designs, spanning his entire career. His bar is housed inside the museum which incorporates a womb-like interior with giant skeletal arches that cover the vaulted ceiling.
Another victim of night terrors was discovered by Christopher Raoul Carranza and Jane Rogers Dill (Ph.D., L.M.F.T, D.A.P.A). Joe had suffered from night terrors his entire life due to growing up in an extremely abusive home of which he could still remember many of the details about this tortuous childhood. Joe suffered from pure childhood Type A Night Terrors. His parents told their fictitious story to the treating professionals who then diagnosed Joe with the Type A and then told his parents that, to their satisfaction, he would grow out the condition. It is apparent that Joe no longer lives in his childhood home and with his family as he married his wife, Lucy, and moved to a house of his own. Just when Joe thought he escaped the abusive life that he used to live, it became clear that his wife exhibited many of the same extreme personality characteristics and aberrant behaviors that his parents had displayed as he was growing up. Due to this, instead of Joe's night terrors ending, they continued. Joe had seen several therapist who were all unable to make sense out of his wife and her abusive actions. Joe had been married to Lucy for over ten years before Joe decided to end the marriage. Lucy was constantly listening for one word out of Joe;s mouth that she could explode over and use as an excuse for further rage and extramarital sex. All of the apparently normal, loving things he would do, or the innocent words he would say, led to violent explosions that lasted for weeks or even months at a time. It is obvious to say that Joe's night terrors were constant during the marriage and Lucy was always the focus of his anger and words during these episodes. Unlike his parents, Lucy insisted that Joe get professional help. She presented an inaccurate story to the doctor and mentioned nothing of their miserable marriage. During Joe's night terror attacks, while in stage four sleep, he subconsciously would scream out about his past and present emotional pain. Although Joe did get the professional help, during the session Lucy talked the entire time and Joe ended up only being prescribed with a relatively high dosage of a benzodiazepine drug which would suppress deep, slow wave stage four sleep.
From this prescription, Joe's night terror symptoms did diminish but none of his deep, underlying problems were being resolved, or even addressed. Although Joe's symptoms were lessened by the drug, it was effecting his daily-life. His patience and involvement with his children suffered, he drove around the freeways in a sleep-deprived daze, and his work performance and absenteeism became job-threatening concerns. Lucy was satisfied with the fact that his night terror disorder was "solved" as she was getting a better and fuller sleep at night, but Joe was not as satisfied. Eventually, Joe decided to quit taking the medication, which upset Lucy who figured drugs were the perfect resolution for his disorder.
It was not until Joe left his wife, Lucy, that his night terrors stopped. Since Lucy was so similar to his parents during childhood, abusive, tortuous, and dangerous, this forced Joe's night terrors to continue and even worsen. Lucy brought back the memories and details of his terrible childhood which triggered his disorder. Once he left Lucy, he was able to get the help he needed and eventually stop these terrible nightmares.