It does sound like it could be night terrors. My DS1 had about a month at around 2.5 years where he had a few. He would wake up screaming, and appeared to be awake but was inconsolable. It was almost like a full blown tantrum which you couldn't intervene with. I found that if I tried to comfort him it just made it worse and made it last longer. So in the end we would just sit with him, and make sure he didn't hurt himself. Sometimes that meant putting him on the floor because he was thrashing around so much, other times it was just sitting at the end of his bed.

At the time I did a lot of research into them, which is worth doing to help you understand how to get through them. We were lucky though, they passed after a few weeks. We didn't get them every night, just every few nights and they would pretty much happen at exactly the same time. Sorry, I'm not too much help, but there is a lot of info out there if you google. I hope it passes quickly for you, it is heartbreaking watching your little one seem so distraught.