During a zoom reading recently I spoke a little about my night terrors. A few people messages to ask more, so I thought with Melatonin Spring Collection out on Thursday - wherein my life of parasomnia is central - I thought I'd explain my sleep disorder(s)

I started having night terrors at a very young age, like 2. That's typical though, a lot of young children get them - my daughter has had one recently (though I worry genetics may mean she gets them bad). I remember an early one about snakes. They were everywhere.

I reference the snake night terror in my poem Bedroom from St Day Road. I woke to my mum carrying me across the bedroom, I could see snakes all over the floor. I don't know if I had been screaming before the memory begins.

In another early night terror, I saw a giant through my window. He didn't seem scary and I didn't feel threatened. I reference this in my poem Upstairs from St Day Road. But my night terrors h hasn't is pass off reality as phantasmagoria. Once

This meant when the fuse box in the house would occasionally catch fire I'd not respond to it properly. Or the time a woman I'd never seen before entered my bedroom and I just said hi and rolled over. These were both real things but I responded as if in dream.

Unfortunately, as I got older the night terrors got worse. You expect a child to grow out of them, I didn't, they became more violent. Sometimes unintentionally. I had a night terror that somebody was throwing a football at me. I headbutted the wall repeatedly. Blood everywhere.

Sometimes I would wake up with blood on my pillow and sheets and that would be how I knew I had had a night terror. Other times it would be a member of the household trying to calm or restrain me.

These night terrors were so varied: spiders the size of tvs, men holding knives, a robot with a spinning top, a panda stamping a picture of a panda on the walls, crabs and lobsters everywhere, walls and ceilings caving in. Sometimes just a general sense of fear.

Particularly tough night terrors were when my brothers would die. They'd be crushed under walls or choking to death, or bleeding out, and I couldn't save them. But it was real in that moment. I've seen and truly felt loved ones die more than anyone should.

Nightterrors average about 2-3 times a month in a regular sufferer. I had them up to 10 times a night, every night. I might have had the odd night off, but otherwise there it was: this immense fear and threat every single night.

Imagine what that does to you. Every night you go to bed knowing you are about to experience your worst fears, and not just as a dream, but as a full sensory experience - emotions and all. And when it ends it'll just start again and again and again.

As I got older I would watch TV in bed, and I'd turn it off and go to sleep, then wake up and it's be on and I'd spend a few minutes watching it before realising the TV isn't on and I'm watching a night terror. I still wake up and read on in books that don't exist.

I couldn't have sleepovers often through fear that they'd see this and I'd become a laughing stock. I definitely couldn't stay at friends often for fear of waking their whole family by screaming.

When I was in my late teens I tried to escape from a night terror but the door wouldn't open, so I kicked it and kicked it until I became lucid and realised I was kicking a wall. My toes were broke, I bled a lot. This one is in Tertiary Colours

I also, once, in such a panic to leave, opened the door as my foot was below it and ripped off a toenail. I didn't even notice but snapped out of my night terror after I fell down the stairs.

I walked up the street as a child in my boxers. I used to wake up in various rooms of the house with no idea how I got there. I sometimes had a terrible mix of sleep paralysis with the night terrors. They were the worst

Another bad one was when the woman who bled from her eyes was crying in the corner of the room, holding her child who was also bleeding from her eyes. I reference this one in the Tertiary Colours poem posted earlier.

So, I became scared of sleep. Obviously. I had my own flat at 17, living alone, screaming every night. Insomnia the rest of it. I got into bad debt from not being able to manage finances. The stress made the night terrors worse. I became very very ill and began to depersonalise.

I fought this for a few years. A lack of lucidity that was ever-present in both my waking and sleeping life. The doctors had prescribed so many different tablets and treatments. None worked. The debts piled up. The night terrors piled up. The recession hit.

I joined the navy. Weird and ultimately terrible decision. I don't like the military but I needed money, so I became a submariner. And I screamed and fought and thrashed and cried and hurt myself every damn night. I was eventually medically discharged.

Turns out it's pretty dangerous to have might terrors during silent submarine runs, and around torpedoes. Also, because I trashed my navy dorm on base during a night terror. Tore it right up. The doc said I shouldn't have been allowed to join whatsoever.

Before I left they sent me to yet another sleep clinic who were fascinated by the sheer quantity of my night terrors. I told them about various things that had happened to me through my life and the recommended therapy. CBT. I didn't do it.

But I did leave my ex a year later, and that's when the depersonalisation ended. She wasn't very nice to me at all, and between the night terrors, her, and my depersonalisation I considered (strongly) driving my car into a wall.

(I don't blame her. We were young when we got together and I don't think she knew how to be in a healthy relationship. As far as I'm aware she's living a good and healthy life now.)

Anyway, the night terrors calmed a little and I learnt to maybe get some sleep - whisky helped. But then I found myself relying on whisky. Then the insomnia got worse. Then I met my now-wife who, when told about my night terrors, said 'ill fight the spiders for you.'

Problem was I hadn't dealt with all the stuff that needed therapy. So I got on that and had CBT. It didn't work. Had emdr. Didn't work. Had one on one therapy. It didn't work after he told me to talk to a child version of myself. That broke me. I hated me. I never went back.

Eventually I found group therapy through a Cornish organisation that sadly folded a couple years ago. It saved my life. I still had night terrors but they were now just like 5 times a week. Plus, I'd learnt to forgive myself for what happened to me in my past.

(that's the hardest part, forgiving yourself for these things happening to you. I saw myself as weak and pathetic that I didn't fight back etc.)

I left group therapy a week after my daughter Rue was born. I felt good. I didn't need it anymore. That's a tough but important day, to be released back without that safety net.

I couldn't sleep in the same room as Emma and Rue for the first couple months in case I did something terrible during a night terror. I'd sleep in the living room with the monitor on loud and coming running to keep Em company during night feeds, and to change Rue's nappy.

But, in Rue there was a harbour, this glorious beam of home that needed me. And I needed her. I felt whole and complete, like she was this tangible thing I could ground myself with. I could get better for her.

The night terrors dwindled. Slowly but surely. Now I have them maybe once or twice a month. The insomnia still comes and goes. I talk all night in my sleep. I lick the roof of my mouth whole sleeping unit it is sore and red.

I speak gibberish and sing songs in my sleep. I sit up and stand and lie back down. But I don't really have terror anymore. Because that's what it was, terror, night after night after night

And that is what Melatonin Spring Collection tried to evoke in a small £5 pamphlet of poetry. This history with sleep.

This is such a brief history of it though. It doesn't delve into what happened on the subs and in training. Or the multitude of bizarre terrors. Or the audio only terrors. Or so much more.

I'll save all that for a non-fiction book inevitably titled Memoirs of a Parasomniac.

The whole story , in detail, is wild though.