How to scare your husband 101 - Rachael Johns

Sometimes I scare my husband in the night. I’ll wake up (often about an hour after I’ve gone to bed) absolutely terrified. My heart is pounding, I can be sweating and I’m completely convinced something terrible is happening or about to happen. I sometimes threaten DH or am dead-set convinced that he is out to get me.  The next morning I can recall something happened but while it’s actually happening I’m on another planet.

My hubby jokes that one day I’ll kill him in my sleep and use night terrors as my defence in court. Honestly, Your Honour, I didn’t know what I was doing.

But all jokes aside, I suffer from night terrors that vary in intensity and they are not fun. They disturb not only my own sleep but also my husband’s. They freak me out and sometimes have me questioning my mental health. My night terrors occurred on and off in my teens but stopped again until I had kids. I think maybe the severe sleep disturbances they caused me (I had three BAD sleepers) somehow got my brain into the habit of waking up.

A few years ago, I started thinking about what would happen if someone had been suffering severe night terrors continually for years. I thought about how hard it would be for them to sleep (actually stay the night) with someone for the first time. And that led me to thinking about a hero with night terrors.

When I first created Cameron McCormac from One Perfect Night, all I knew was that he was a man who suffered bad night terrors and because of them he never stayed the night with a woman. From here, I asked the usual why questions and started to make him three-dimensional.

I knew I’d need to write a very special heroine who would have the healing power for him to trust himself to stay the night with her and maybe even ease his affliction.

So I guess in a roundabout way, One Perfect Night is a very personal book to me. It came from personal experience and I twisted that inspiration into a story. Maybe that’s one reason I should be thankful for my night time burden.

Since we’re talking sleep, I thought I’d leave you with some fun sleep facts, I’ve found:

• ·         1 out of 4 married couples sleep in separate beds.
• ·         12 % of people dream only in black and white.
• ·         People who don’t dream generally have personality disorders.
• ·         3% of adults suffer from sleep terrors.
• ·         You’ll die from sleep deprivation before food deprivation.
• ·         Within five minutes of waking up 50% of your dream is forgotten. Within 10 minutes, it’s 90%.
• ·         Men feel sleepy after sex because of the exercise, orgasms are reached when you let go of "all fear and anxiety" -this relaxes the body.

There are probably more stories to be found in those few facts above. Does anyone else suffer from night terrors?

Book Blurb of ONE PERFECT NIGHT:

Peppa Grant’s fellow employees may call their new CEO Mr. McSexy, but she’s also heard that he’s aloof and distant. Cameron McCormac certainly seems cold toward Christmas when she meets him at the company’s annual party…but he’s also the sexiest man Peppa has ever seen. And when he offers to forgive the damage she accidentally caused to his expensive car in exchange for accompanying him to his family’s holiday get-together, she agrees.

Cameron needs a date to the family party to get his matchmaking relatives off his back. Their chemistry is instant and undeniable, leading to an incredible one-night stand. But Peppa wants love and family, while Cameron’s only interested in temporary pleasure. When their relationship takes an unexpectedly serious turn, will he run the other way—or will he give love a second chance?

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