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heightened awareness of surrounding when I sleep

kenneth nathan

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Something happend last night. For instance, last night I screamed out of my bed. I felt the presence of someone, they were in danger, I felt something, i just can't describe. I ended up giving a blood gargling scream, as if someone is trying to kill me and it was so loud probably the whole street would have heard it.

My dad thought something was wrong with me psychologically as he was startled. Because he was startled, he was able to see the old man standing on our driveway and just staring at our house around 3 am for a long time. The very person, i described as my parents wondered why i screamed around 1 am. I told them I saw someone and it startled me. I recalled checking out the window, as if someone was there. I even felt like someone was trying to get into our house, as i thought i heard some thing.

My parents called the police as the man didn't leave the driveway. When the cops came, they quickly surrounded the individual and flashed the light. It was an old women covered in a blanket, not an old man as she was covered in a blanket and it was dark so we couldn't really see. She was disorientated and constantly told the police her husband and son went into the house and she was waiting for them to come out. So, we knew she needed help.

The police took her to the hospital after the police explained everything. Then i remembered my father telling my mother how he heard supposedly crazy women was screaming "someone is sexually assaulting me" couple of blocks to our house, around 12 am as he tried to put out the garbage. I thought maybe this women was that and she needed help. If I didn't scream, my father wouldn't be startled to see the old women outside who obviously needed help as its not safe in the middle of the night like that, as she might have physical problems, its cold outside. As a result, she was able to get help.

Before that, I noticed I have these concerns about my surrounding often, when i go to bed. I constantly wake up and look out the window. Often I feel someones presence and then dismiss it as i might be dreaming. I wasn't dreaming when this happend. Someone was actually standing outside from 1am-5am, no one noticed until my father saw that women. Its also not my first time screaming, it happend couple of times before. I often recall feeling the presence of someone, looking out the window or hearing someone scream. I feel this fearful, like i'm about to die, sensation, then i scream. My family thinks i have night terror but its so rare, when i have it, i noticed my father has something very similar, except he doesn't scream, he simply runs from his bed and asks my mother what was that noise, after he was startled by my scream. More specifically 2 hours after he goes back to bed after I screamed, he has this episode. One time, we both thought we heard someone downstairs or something. First i thought i heard something. Then he thought he heard something too. I don't know why it happens to us. From what happened last night, our concerns are real. We were able to help an old women. I decided to be more vigilant of my surrounding, as who knows next time there might be someone in danger, and I hear something, thinking I'm dreaming, so i dismiss it.
 

1watchman

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Well, you might be in some degree of danger where you live, but I wonder if a lot of your distress is within you. Certainly you need to receive and stay in communion with the Lord Jesus, and find that "...peace that passeth all understandings", as God says. God takes good care of His own children.
 
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What you're describing is called hypervigilance. How long has this been going on? If longer than a few days I'd recommend a therapist to rule out trauma issues. If less than a week, there's a good chance things will subside on their own. What may be helpful is writing about the incident in detail chronologically in narrative form and utilizing emotion regulation techniques when you're going to bed. Hypervigilance reflects a state of sympathetic dominance, i.e., your sympathetic nervous system ("fight-or-flight") is activated, causing you to pay attention to your surroundings because your body is expecting danger. Accessing emotion regulation, such as through deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, stretching, Yoga, positive imagery, or other techniques can help lower sympathetic dominance, restoring parasympathetic ("rest-and-digest") tone, which will lower the hypervigilance and help you sleep.
 
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kenneth nathan

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Why did the women have to wind up on my doorsteps. That never happened to me before. I never really experienced a extremely traumatic experience. Something did happen recently. I found out my friend passed away, it wasnt really traumatic because I didnt experience grief as much. The so called hypervigiliance happened way before he died. It started at age 17 and now im 26. I cant recall any traumatic experience before that. My father did have traumatic experience in his childhood, he wouldnt talk about it, but you could tell by the way he behaves, this insecureness. Maybe its affecting me. After seeing that women, it makes feel like i have the right to be hypervigiiant. I should trust my instincts.
 
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