To think I am having night terrors but not sure?

[Acey68]

I have had strange experiences during sleeping / waking and they have started to become more frequent. I first had one when I was 18 (now 35 years old)
I read about night terrors and how people describe waking up screaming, hallucinating etc.
I'm not sure if I am having a milder case or if it's something totally different.
It only happens when I am sleeping in a different environment and only when I am sleeping in complete darkness (so usually a hotel with black out curtains, away in the countryside etc). I find myself waking up and the fear starts when I cannot see a thing. If I can look around the room and see a light from an alarm clock or a light under the door I am ok as long as I have a point of reference.
Without this it's like I totally forget where I am (I don't have the ability to sit there and think logically about where I might be) and I stumble around the room in fear reaching out for my surroundings, I often cry out 'help me!' but there's never intense screaming or any kind of hallucinations that someone is trying to hurt me but there fear is definitely there, would this also pass as a sleep terror?
I appreciate some people might say 'make sure there is always a small light on' but I would more just like to understand what is happening to me also! I've had a look online and can't really find anything similar! The only way I can describe it is like waking up in a black hole, but at the same time also have no concept of who I am or how I got there so it's just very intense panic. This will usually last about 30 seconds to a minute until I slowly come to and realise what is going on and where I am.

Sounds like a fight or flight response. When you have a fear response to a particular thing/situation, your mind/body remembers and will 'warn' you (trigger your fight or flight response) next time you experience that same thing/situation - 'reminding' you this is a dangerous situation (even though its not).

I'm 40 and have been regularly having night terrors since my teens, for me it happens not long after falling asleep and I will wake in a blind panic and confusion and leap out of bed and run away and its almost always spiders I'm running from. Sometimes I come round quite quickly, realise what's happening and go back to bed and other times it can take a while and I other run to my partner for help or tear my room apart looking for the spider. There never is one. This can sometimes happen several times a night. It's happened to me everywhere (home, holidays etc) EXCEPT in hospital whilst having a sleep study done! I think it probably has something to do with anxiety. Perhaps you are experiencing this because of some anxiety about being in unfamiliar surroundings?

Pitch black darkness is really disorienting. I get this too, but milder than yours, as before I'm actually standing up I realise where I am. I suppose it is similar to a night terror in that you're not fully conscious when it happens, but also not the same as you're not actually seeing things from your dreams in the real world (which is what happens during night terrors). I always sleep with some light in the room as a response.

The only time I experience a similar scenario is when I sleep in a pitch black room. I have always felt complete darkness to be oppressive so always sleep with some form of low light. With me I think I wake regularly and don't notice/remember it however if the room is pitch black when I wake I automatically go in to panic mode and feel scared and disorientated.