My brother jumped out a window in my dream!

I know this might sound a little ridiculous to some of you, but I promise you, it doesn't feel funny to us... My brother has been dealing with sleep issues since he was in elementary school—it started out as these intense night terrors where he’d just scream, and then there were times he’d bolt upright and start sprinting through the house until we could get to him and calm him down. For years, we were lucky because either my parents or I were always awake to rush in, flip the lights on, and settle him back down. It seemed to happen less frequently as time went on, but honestly? I have this nagging feeling that even though it's rarer now, it's actually getting much worse... Yesterday, I was upstairs in my room studying when I suddenly heard him—since his room is directly below mine, I could hear those frantic footsteps running around—so I rushed downstairs, fully expecting to find my parents already up and trying to soothe him. But there was no screaming... I reached his door and saw my parents still fast asleep, and his window was wide open. He was gone. Total panic set in—I mean, thank God he lives on the ground floor—but I was terrified he’d jumped out of the window! I called his name frantically, nothing... Then, out of nowhere, he rings the doorbell. I run to open the door and there he is, standing there in just his boxers, looking completely disoriented and having absolutely no clue what he had just done. He eventually just went back to bed, and thankfully, nothing happened during the rest of the night.

About two years ago, he saw a specialist—a psychiatrist—and she suggested some kind of medication. I can't recall the specific name right now, but she mentioned it wouldn't be wise to use it daily, but perhaps as an occasional thing if he's having an especially high-stress day... the idea being that it might help him "process" things during the night so the episodes don't escalate.
He's twenty years old now. We are at a complete loss as to what to do next, but personally, I feel like jumping straight to medication seems a bit extreme... maybe we should try things like keeping a light on, or herbal teas before bed, or even actual therapy first, and then consider the pills as a last resort?
We really aren't making very smart decisions here 🤷

I would be so grateful if anyone could offer some advice, especially if you're going through something similar or if you know someone who has dealt with this kind of thing.
🙂

There's a specialized Sleep Disorders Center located at a major hospital over in Chicago. They deal specifically with the exact kind of issues you mentioned regarding your brother's condition.

If a psychiatrist prescribes medication, you really ought to follow through with it. I watched this program ages ago about what they call night terrors here in the States—cases where mothers would actually suffocate their own children because they thought they were protecting them from some imaginary threat. Just do a little digging online; there's a ton of information out there. I put in a bit of effort to find this for you:
http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/3...ofNightTerrors

My brother went through those exact same struggles when he was a kid. It was constant midnight screaming, sleepwalking, acting completely out of it—he’d even wake up and do things like pour a drink into an ashtray on the table, just totally disconnected from reality. He eventually received a borderline personality disorder diagnosis at nineteen, and by twenty-one, he ended up at a psychiatric facility in Seattle after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I'm not saying your brother is dealing with the same thing, but what you described sounds almost identical to his experience.

I dealt with something pretty similar throughout my entire teenage years, so it started tapering off around
19 or so.
I honestly have no clue what your brother is going through, but for me, I’d wake up mid-dream,
eyes wide open, yet totally lost in these hallucinations that ended up waking everyone else up in the house.
I’d be rambling away at them, telling all these random stories; one time I even got fully dressed up, and another time I actually wandered out onto the balcony on the 4th floor.
The cold air hitting me was basically what jolted me back to reality right there by the railing.
Then there was the time I pounded on the window so hard I actually broke it... those hallucinations were just that intense—people, animals, everything looked as real as a scene from a movie.
I guess it was probably just a hormone thing for me, or maybe just my brain finishing its development or something like that.🤷

Whenever I had a fever, the night terrors would hit. I’d just bolt upright and start screaming my head off. The weirdest part? I knew exactly what was happening. My eyes were wide open, I could see everything around me, but I just couldn't snap out of it. And the dreams? Absolute nonsense. Nothing like some Hollywood horror movie crap—just pure stupidity. Once, I even ended up rolling around on the floor 😁 or sitting at my desk typing total gibberish on the computer. It was constant. Thankfully, that was back when I was a kid and it's stopped now. My mom used to drag me to psychiatrists and all sorts of specialists, but they all gave me the same verdict: I'm perfectly fine, mentally and physically...🙂

Honestly, I think their situation is way more complicated than mine was. I doubt this will actually work for them, but hey, it’s worth a shot. When I was a kid, I used to sleepwalk and talk in my sleep all the time. My parents eventually got so paranoid they started checking every single night to make sure the blackout curtains were pulled shut tight—they were convinced it was some lunar cycle nonsense. Since then, it hasn't happened once. To this day, I still sleep in total darkness with the blinds completely closed.

It’s probably just the moon's influence, honestly. You really shouldn't brush that stuff off.

My son has been acting totally bizarre ever since he was little whenever there's a full moon. Like, it'll be late at night and someone rings the doorbell, and when I open it, there he is standing at the door—eyes squeezed shut.
Then the next morning, I'm heading out to work and find out he's been sleeping in the bathtub.
He'll wake up around 3:00 AM and just go pee in his slippers. Another time, he was dragging furniture around. And the crazy part is, he never remembers a single thing we talk about the next day.

Every single time the moon is full, we have to be on high alert, like someone has to stay up and keep watch.
Supposedly, there's no cure for this kind of thing.

Honestly, I feel like only God can fix this one... and I don't mean that in some vague, metaphorical way. I mean it literally. Maybe there’s just something broken deep down in his soul, because from what I can tell, there isn't anything physically wrong with him. It feels like he's carrying some kind of internal weight, something eating at him that he refuses to let out...

electricgull8 said:I honestly think only God can help at this point... and I don't mean that in a cliché way, I mean it literally. It might be a soul issue, because from what I can tell, there isn't anything physically wrong. Maybe he's just carrying something heavy inside that he won't let go of...

Agreed...