so i've been thinking a lot about night terrors lately. i found myself on a night terror support message board yesterday and ended up watching this crazy video.
in my cursory searches i've learned that night terrors generally affect children aged two to six, but the message board seems to indicate that there are some pretty unhappy adult sufferers out there, too.
night terrors are distinct from nightmares in that they typically aren't connected to any particular imagery or imagined provocation; sufferers seem to be experiencing episodes of pure fear, of fear without an object. people say anxiety is fear without an object, but i think of anxiety more as a vague, disorganized fear of all objects at once. this might just be a less succinct way of saying the same thing, but i maintain my argument: pure fear seems like something else altogether, something primal and dark and, in its own way, exciting. barring any night terror sufferers reading this, have you ever experienced terror--shrieking, uncontrollable terror--connected to nothing at all? the idea just blows my mind.
my fascination with night terrors is sort of in keeping with my fascination with people being haunted for any reason. i think that is really funny, to imagine or know a person who is haunted. you think you know somebody, maybe you work with them, but then you bring up the war or their dad or brushfires or something and they get this glassy, far-off look in their eyes, the kind of look that tells you oh, he's haunted and then you think to yourself hahaha! i love haunted so much that i have fantasies about being haunted myself. but i digress.
do you think i could make a movie about a person with night terrors?
do you think i could make it a comedy, too?
the very idea does it for me real bad.
oh, i'm excited now! and haunted.
