NIGHT TERRORS
Night terrors are probably due to some digestive disturbance, with a coexisting highly nervous temperament. They oftentimes, in older children, follow the reading of thrilling stories or a visit to an exciting moving-picture show. The child goes to sleep and gets along nicely for two or three hours and then suddenly jumps up out of bed and rushes to its mother with little or no explanation for the act. In his dreams the thoughts and the imaginations of his waking moments are all confounded and alarming.
We recall one little fellow who constantly feared big, black birds coming in the window and attacking him—he had been reading about Sinbad the Sailor and his experiences with the big bird. He so feared this big, black bird that he could not go to sleep. For a number of nights he did not have the courage to tell his parents that it was the fear of the big bird that kept him from going to sleep, but finally he confided in his mother and told her of his fear. The mother and father both entered into a conversation with him through an open door which connected the two rooms, after the lights were out; they laughed and talked about the big bird, they openly talked of it and allowed their imagination to work with the child's imagination in planning how he could combat with the bird, should it really come, asking him how big it really was and what color he thought its eyes were and how big an object he thought its feet could carry. They all three planned a fairy story they might write which would rival the fairy stories of the Arabian Nights. In a very short time—possibly a week or ten days—the little fellow felt quite equal to these imaginary assaults, his fears were quieted and his slumbers were no more disturbed by visions of the big, black bird.
Everything should be done to relieve the stomach and intestines of laborious work during the sleeping hours, hence let the evening meal be light and eaten early enough to be out of the way, as far as digestion is concerned, by bed time.