Night Terrors

Throughout the 5 stages of sleep stages three and four are where most of the wrestling around and hypnotic jerks occur. Well what also could occur in these stages are episodes called night terrors. Night terrors are terrifying episodes during sleep where a person franticly wails their arms and legs, jumps around, and screams in their sleep; half of the time not being aware they are doing this. The reason I know so much about this is because my mother suffers from night terrors. She will be dead asleep for a while and all of a sudden she will start screaming and flailing her arms and legs all over the place. When people are around her when she does this, trust me it’s beyond frightening. When you try and wake her up to see if she is okay after this happens it is hard to get her awake because during stage 3 of sleep is when it is difficult to wake people up. Also what is strange is when you do get her awake after shaking her a bit, she doesn’t remember freaking out like she did. At first my family I used to get really scared when this happened because we didn’t know what was going on, now we realized that waking her up and asking her if she’s okay isn’t going to do any good because it just freaks her out more because she doesn’t know she does this stuff. I don’t know she’s dreaming or if she just jerks around randomly but it always interested me because we never know why or how this happens.  Usually night terrors occur in children so why my 38 year old mother suffers from them also I have no idea maybe it’s from nightmares or just some weird hormone or chemical in her brain but it’s just so strange that she never remembers freaking around like that.

The Aftermath of That One 4^th of July

When our psych class began the lesson on classical conditioning, one topic we hit that immediately caught my attention was taste aversion. As soon as we started talking about how it deals with humans having an aversion to food if they ever become sick after eating the certain food. I almost wanted to become sick right then and there because I automatically thought about soft pretzels and cheese. Years ago it was the 4^th of July and I was only about 10 years old. My family, friends, and I were all at a big family party to celebrate like we do every year. Along with the other 10 pounds of food I ate that day the last thing I ate was a soft pretzels\ dipped in melted cheese, just like the ones you would buy from Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. Little did I know that that was the last time I would ever be able to eat a soft pretzel like that ever again. During the night I got so sick I was throwing up all throughout the night and into the next day. It was to the point where it seemed like I had food poisoning. I got over the illness or the stomach bug or whatever I had but now the thought of pretzels and cheese like that makes me want to gag. 8 years later and I still cannot even smell them without feeling some type of sickness and gross feeling in my stomach. Last year while I was still in high school my friends used to buy them at lunch and I would literally have to move away from them sometimes because I would want to vomit. It’s a little graphic, I know, but for whatever reason I got sick from the pretzels and cheese that night made me never able to eat them again. I never knew the actual term for the problem until that day is psych class when we covered taste aversion, so I guess I have a taste aversion to soft pretzels and cheese.

Fake But Real Memories

Infantile Amnesia is the theory that our earliest memories happen around 3-4 years. When I was about 4 years old I was out in our backyard playing with my friends, my older brother, and his friends. In our backyard we had a patio that was connect to the driveway and it was all cemented. My brother and his friends are all about 6 years older than me so they were around 10 or 11 years old here. One of my brother’s friends thought it would be fun to put me on his shoulders, and yes I admit it was but then somehow he ended up dropping me and I smashed my head off of the concrete patio. I was unconscious and the ambulance had to be called and I was taken in it.

The one first vivid memory I have is being in the ambulance going down my street, having this big box type this on my head and the EMT’s ripping the shirt I was wearing off (and I remember this very well because it was my favorite shirt). Now we talked in class about some of our earliest memoires if they occurred really early in age most of the time they are traumas and that’s exactly what this one was. The only thing I myself specifically remember is that ambulance ride, I do not recall from my own memory the falling or anything before or after.

The only reason I know the whole story is from my family telling it to me. This was the first situation I thought of when we learned about implanting memories in class. Implanting memories involves someone telling you things that have occurred and you along with them just like as if they were your own memories. Now I know me hitting my head off the ground did happen because of what has been told to me but when I tell the story to others I, half of the time, forget that I’m not telling what’s from my exact memory. I’m telling the story from what other people like my parents and brother have told me. When we learned about this during class I thought it was pretty cool that I can literally play out the scenario in my head of the whole incident happening when really the only thing that actually comes from my own memory is the ambulance ride, all the other memories of it is from what others have told me. So I basically have these fake memories about a real memory.

Over all of the topics we have discussed so far in class one that I can relate something I have actually done before is Naturalistic Observation. Naturalistic observation is a type of research where people who are involved or targeted will change their behavior if they know that they are being observed. At home my mother and I did something like naturalistic observation regarding my younger 7-year-old sister.  We have started to notice that my sister will act two totally different ways from being at home compared to being out in public or with people that she does not know. For example at home if she does not get what she wants or her own way she will throw a fit.  And then if we are out in public at a restaurant or a store if my mom or I tell her no to something or she can’t have a toy she won’t say anything she will just pout her head. My mom and me have been noticing this for a while and we actually find it pretty entertaining.

So one week we decided to make our own little experiment. She happens to love playing with cell phones so during the week at home every time I pulled mine out she would ask to play with it and I would say no because she will break it. She would flip out and even cry sometimes about how she wasn’t a baby and all other stuff 7 year olds can possibly think of to get their way. She would get very angry every time I did this at home. But one time when my family went out to dinner I pulled my phone out once again and she asked to play with it and I told her no because of the same reason. This time she did not say a word. She just put her head down and found something else to do.

My sister acts differently in a public area because she knows there are other people around. Its not just my mom and I at home so she cant act like a little brat. The other people around her that she doesn’t know affects the way she acts. Although my mother and I did not know at the time what we were actually doing regarding naturalistic observation but as soon as we went over the topic in class it was the first thing that came to my mind.