[Marat]

PhDWanna: My discussion of the typical age of onset of schizophrenia was in reference to Ringer's speculation (post 16) that an earlier age of death in previous historical periods may account for the absence of reports of schizophrenia prior to 1790, given that "schizophrenia ... tends to develop later in life." You can make captious objections to the best age range to provide, but I am sure you are aware that the typical age of onset of schizophrenia is a topic of debate, and for the general point I was making, that schizophrenia is a disease with an early age of onset, fussing over the best range to cite is irrelevant.

Generally, though, I'm disappointed that you didn't make a fuller reply to my long discussion about the evidence indicating that schizophrenia may be a new disease, since it is an interesting topic. Professor R. M. Hare has two articles about this subject which I'm sure you'd find interesting.

[Katie1938]

Okay can someone please help me... I joined this website to help find out whats wrong with my friend, I'm no genius.. I'm just wanting some clarity.
The other night we were all at a party and we were drinking. When we were all fast asleep i was awoken by loud panting (i'm usually a pretty deep sleeper so this was unusal). My friend was finding it hard to breathe and i have never seen him or anyone so panicked before. His eyes were open and he appeared to me, conscious. His girlfriend , who was lying next to him was asking me to help get him up and so we walked him outside. He was still struggling to breathe but had his eyes open and with our help was walking okay. we sat him down outside and he rocked back and forth repeating 'how are they going to get out, I need to help them' constantly. He kept on saying the same thing. By that time I presumed that he was sleep walking and advised his girlfriend to not touch him or attempt to wake him up. However she spoke to him, saying things like 'Chris, its me, are you okay and do you know where you are?'. He replied syaing 'I'm at the crossroads.. they cant get out.. I cant help them!'. byt this stage we were very worried as I have never seen him so frightened and panicked. We eventually carried him back to bed where he continued to pant until he settled down and said 'Im so scared' before closing his eyes and falling straight back to sleep. Yes we were drinking however, he only had around 2 beers and is not usually effected by alcohol consumption. can someone please help me as im just a concerned friend. He does not remember any of this happening.

[Marat]

The standard name sometimes used for the phenomenon you describe is 'night terrors,' referring to the awakening of a patient from a nightmarish dream state which he does not fully escape on waking. Adolf Hitler used to suffer from this condition, and his biographers report him awakening one night in a state of terror and constantly repeating, 'He! He!!" while pointing to some invisible spectre in the corner of his bedroom. Hypnogogic illusions of this sort can be a symptom of neurosis or just of transient stress and may well be indicative of nothing serious. People often cross dreaming and waking states, so some people see faces and dreamlike images before they even fall asleep, while others persist in having dream experiences even after they wake up.

The closest I've come in my own life to such experiences is awakening and continuing to worry about some problem which arose in my dreams, but only slowly realizing that it could not be real. This experience was not accompanied by any dreamlike imagery, but manifested only as a concept.

[PhDwannabe]

Yup, very likely a night terror. I'll add that there's typically nothing to be concerned about. The appearance and content of the terror can seem really frightening to an observer, but it's not usually regarded as reliably indicative of any sort of psychological distress (as nightmares can sometimes be). It's a bit more common in younger boys--early to middle childhood is when you see most of them, with remittance by puberty--but can happen at any stage of the lifespan. Adults who have them will usually have a history of parasomnias, like hypnagogic hallucination, hypnopompic paralysis, somnambuilism, or other sorts of things. However, they can also sometimes be pretty random (when they're random like that, they're most often associated with environmental factors like mild alcohol or drug intoxication, sleep deprivation, physical illnesses, or even changes in sleeping arrangements). If it's part of a pattern of sleep difficulties, he might want to go get checked out. But really, that's time only worthily spent if he's got some serious problems with sleeping well.

Bottom line, though: don't freak him out about it, and don't freak out yourself. It is far less concerning than it looks like.

[Katie1938]

Thank you both for your feedback. I guess, having witnessed it myself it seemed more frightening than it probably would be to look back on. This has helped alot -much appreciated!

[PhDwannabe]

Glad to hear that helped, Katie. As a caveat--if this wasn't already clear--things like this can be symptoms of anything. Of course, anything can sort of be a symptom of anything. To jump to the most serious ones, is there a chance that the onset of night terror experiences signifies a tumor or neurological dysfunction? Yes. Is that quite startlingly unlikely? Also yes. It goes without saying that nobody can give real medical advice over here. If your friend is himself concerned, of course he should go in to his primary care doc for a checkup. In the absence of any other symptoms, however, they'd very likely tell him the same thing we told you. I don't mean to re-freak you after de-freaking you, because there's no reason to be freaked; just making sure we do the due diligence here.