I'm hoping that someone can help me. I have been screaming ,swearing and shouting in my sleep. I need to see a sleep doctor in my area. I live in Scituate MA. Can you help me?

Capcodcats,

Welcome to this beautiful site, first!

Screaming, swearing and shouting in sleep signifies your fear, stresss and strain. Are you pre-occupied with some sort of pressure, frustration or emotional disturbance? Do you have some problem, which is causing severe and intense tension to you? Often, dreams act as safety valves, a sort of psychological relief.

You are describing a sleep disorder called Night Terrors. It is when you fall asleep but you don't know you've fallen asleep and your worst fears seem to come true. You'll sit up in bed screaming and even may seem to be awake, but really you are still having a Night Terror, and usually any attempt to console you is futile. When you do finally regain conciseness you rarely or never remember your night terror, until many years later in life. Good news though, there are several medications that can be taken once at bedtime that eliminate night terrors with very few side effects and often times after a certain period taking the medication you can stop and never have a night terror again. The experience is more disturbing for the people around you then for you and should be treated. One other possibility, though it is rare, is if you take a drug called Xanax of similar to Xanax in too high of a dose at bed time you will involuntarily sit up, scream for a period and lay back down and sleep through the night like nothing happened. This experience is rarely if ever remembered, and only when taking those kind of medications. You should see a doctor for any of these conditions or to see if it is possibly something else.