I am a heavy sleeper on most nights.
I rarely wake up, no matter how noisy things get.
However, my son’s shrieking, especially when he has a nightmare, may force me to jump out of bed to check on him once in a while. Tonight was one of those days. We had gone to bed a few hours earlier than usual, and I was sound asleep. I was confused when I first heard him scream. I ignored it the first time and went back to sleep, waiting for my husband to signal me if there was another alarm. About 15 minutes later, little Andrew screamed again, and I ran across the corridor to his room. He sat on his bed, clutching the pillow tightly. I saw terror in his eyes as he pointed towards the wall on his side. This was near the AC, and I immediately knew that whatever kept him awake was linked to the AC. He said that there was some strange banging sound that kept repeating after every few minutes. He thought someone was on the other end of the wall and wanted to get him. I called my husband to check it out as I helped calm down our son. He returned and reported that the HVAC covering was loose and had to be removed. It seems as though the wind had blown off the cover, and it hangs loosely. Every time the wind blew, it would bang itself on the side and create the disturbing sounds my son heard. We had to sleep with him in our bed that night until he worked with his father to fix the unit the next day.