Fear at four

I usually play some word games, joke around, tell some crazy stories to Jr. just before she goes to bed. It is a magical time for me because the two of us share a world that only the two of us can understand in those five to ten minutes. Anyone walking in on our conversations would think we are aliens talking in klingon or some such thing because we use a lot of words that we created from gibberish.

Jr. usually tells me all about her day and her plans for the next in a few sentences. A few nights ago, she tells me :

"daddy? I don't want to have any dreams daddy! I don't want to think about anything after I go to sleep. Can you make the dreams go away please?"

Here I was trying to teach my little one to be a dreamer and she hits me with this !! Jr. is dreamy by default, always in her own world, looking back and lost in thought as she walks forward, walking into walls, doors etc. in the process, a fact that has been noticed at home and school, something she probably inherits from my mom!

So, what would prompt Ms. Dreamz from wanting them to go away? I have not touched this topic for fear of bringing the bad dreams back, hoping that they will go away on their own or she will get used to it.

The funny thing is, I started thinking about my own childhood experiences. I used to get nightmares often. I have apparently had daymares too when I was young. My parents say I used to wake up during my afternoon nap in the weekends and cry! What happened after some time ? Did I learn to control my dreams, divert them, deflect them ? or somehow learned to turn them off and go into deep sleep ? I wish I remembered, so I could pass on some valuable infomation to Jr., but I draw a blank!

I still dream and sometimes they are horrible. I just turn in the bed to face the other wall and a bad dream disappers, or at least there is a pause (vaguely remember reading something in National Geographic a long time ago, that suggested this method). Other times a visit to the bathroom or drinking a glass of water disrupts it (maybe the bad dream was my body telling my mind to go pee or drink water, or else bad things were going to happen!).

For now Jr. is going to get a story on the benefits of dreams and how one or two bad ones are just a way to contrast the good ones. Something along the lines of "how can you appreciate light if you dont know what darkness is ?".



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