Children’s dreams – a “book” for the specialist
Any experiences, stresses and even invisible biochemical processes occurring in the human body are reflected in the dreams of both adults and children. The only difference is that adults more often see “everyday” dreams, stories from everyday life, and children – from the realm of fantasy, with unusual twists and turns, filled with fairy tale creatures and magical stories. Children’s dreams are complex and deep, and you can “read” them like a book.
– For a long time I thought that young children do not remember dreams, – Natalia Kostinskaya shares her observations, – but, as it turns out, they remember them and can retell their content from about four years old. Especially remember bad dreams. Offense, fright, betrayal, dissatisfaction with parents, quarrel with friends – all these experiences automatically become the cause of night terrors. And the more frightening dream, the deeper the problem and the more chances that psychological turmoil will result in a very specific disease or already signaling its arrival.
Dream Categories
Children’s dreams can be categorized into certain varieties.
- Joyful. Pleasant, emotional, tender dreams (walks with mom, flowers and butterflies, reading a book or playing with pets) indicate that the child’s health is almost completely fine. Absolutely “healthy” and dreams in which the baby makes some effort: goes up the stairs, carries a heavy weight, sits on a train or goes on a hike. It is interesting that children often forget good dreams, but they can definitely say that when they woke up, they were pleasant.
- Disturbing. For example, a child dreams that he or she is being deceived, caught up or frightened. Perhaps in the dream he is hiding from someone or hiding something from him, sees people in masks. Suspicious for the diagnostician and children’s dreams associated with the increase, growth of something: the child is building a house, collecting fruit in a basket in the garden, counting money, collecting stamps or cars. In this case, there is a high percentage of probability that toxins accumulate in the body. And, perhaps, soon their amount will reach a critical point. As a rule, the reason lies in metabolic disorders, malfunctions in the liver, biliary tract and so on.
- Fantastic. A special group – magical dreams. They are always colored, unusual, bright, filled with visions of other planets, the presence of aliens, different amazing creatures in night dreams. “Creative” dreams see very impressionable, artistic natures. Such children are most often threatened by diseases of the nervous system: chronic fatigue syndrome, asthenia, neuroses.
- Catastrophic. Another category of dreams – disasters, accidents, when the child sees fires, accidents, reports from the cemetery. Children’s dreams become desperately frightening: the sleeper is not just pursued by robbers – over the child hangs the threat of violence and even murder. The same group includes dreams about the attack of wild animals or monsters. Often after such turns in the plots of night “movies” the child wakes up screaming in a cold sweat. Usually the details of a terrible dream fade from memory, and the morning remains only an unpleasant residue. It is much worse if the child easily recalls the details. This indicates a deep emotional trauma, which can provoke chronic diseases: bronchial asthma, diabetes mellitus. Often “horror stories” are dreamt during serious illnesses (they are caused by hepatitis, infectious diseases, severe fevers) or after trauma, but in this case the causes are obvious, and the “symptoms” will go away simultaneously with recovery. – One of my patients – says Natalia Kostinskaya – was haunted by nightmares after a double stress: the divorce of her parents and the death of her grandfather. The situation was aggravated by bad relations with her classmates. The girl had the same dream in different interpretations: together with her parents she was driving a car, but at a turn the car flew into an abyss. Soon a checkup with an endocrinologist revealed an enlarged thyroid gland, and then a second disease – diabetes mellitus – joined the girl.
- Natal. Dreams that recall the birth experience as echoes of the birth stress experienced stand out. If the birth was difficult, the growing child may dream of situations in which he or she is wandering through mazes, cannot get out of a tunnel, is being swallowed by someone, or is trying in vain to find a way out.
Sometimes the frightening content of a dream is just an echo of physiological processes occurring in the body. A precipitous fall into an abyss is usually dreamt at the beginning of the night and is associated with involuntary muscle contractions where the arms and legs twitch. The reasons for disturbing sleep with dreaming, slurred conversations and frightening dreams can be very simple: the nervous system does not keep up with the rapid leap in the development of the child. To improve the quality of the night’s rest, it can be enough to support the body with a vitamin complex, reduce the load at school and exclude TV and computer two hours before going to bed.
Natalia Kostinskaya advises to prevent bad dreams and hereditary diseases with the help of… art. Anxious and frightening dreams can be cured by practicing music, painting and modeling.
Healing peas
It turns out that even heredity can influence children’s dreams. If a child has good dreams, experts say that in the family, most likely, there are no severe, transmitted from generation to generation of diseases. If children often have troubling dreams, there is every reason to believe that some of the relatives, up to the seventh knee, had problems with joints, benign tumors, weak heart.
The worst is the case with recurrent nightmares, they can clearly speak of “bad” genetics: cancer in the family, blood diseases, severe diabetes mellitus. However, heredity is not a verdict, but a warning. Therefore, do not be frightened of possible problems, it is better to take care of the prevention of family illnesses in advance. And dreams will help in this: they will “prompt” when and what exactly you need to pay attention to.
As a rule, children’s doctors from polyclinics do not pay much attention to children’s dreams. Homeopathic doctors are mostly interested in the details of children’s dreams. And not just interested, but, firstly, closely involved in the treatment of “bad” dreams, and secondly, select drugs for specific ailments, taking into account the nature of dreams. For example, if the child at night someone chases, help homeopathic remedies based on table salt. Usually such dreams indicate impending diseases of the cardiovascular system. If in dreams a small person is constantly in a hurry, afraid to be late, he is always leaving the train, he is afraid of heights or somewhere diving, it is a signal of possible diseases of the nervous system, and help in such situations means based on silver. But dreams associated with fires, most often come with a tendency to diseases of the endocrine glands and are treated with homeopathic preparations based on durman.
There is a great way to check whether the homeopath has made a mistake with the choice of drug: just take a pea before bedtime and… wait for good dreams. If you dreamed something pleasant, the remedy is suitable, if nothing dreamed or worse, had nightmares – not the right drug, you need to look for something else. The experiment lasts for three days, then the homeopathic doctor makes final conclusions.
