An evolutionary perspective on night terrors

Abstract

Night terrors, also known as sleep terrors, are an early childhood parasomnia characterized by screams or cries, behavioral manifestations of extreme fear, difficulty waking and inconsolability upon awakening. The mechanism causing night terrors is unknown, and a consistently successful treatment has yet to be documented. Here, we argue that cultural practices have moved us away from an ultimate solution: cosleeping. Cosleeping is the norm for closely related primates and for humans in non-Western cultures. In recent years, however, cosleeping has been discouraged by the Western medical community. From an evolutionary perspective, cosleeping provides health and safety benefits for developing children. We discuss night terrors, and immediate and long-term health features, with respect to cosleeping, room-sharing and solitary sleeping. We suggest that cosleeping with children (≥1-year-old) may prevent night terrors and that, under certain circumstances, cosleeping with infants (≤11-months-old) is preferable to room-sharing, and both are preferable to solitary sleeping.

Keywords: diseases of culture; parasomnia; physiological benefits; psychosocial benefits; sleep training.