Dreams

About a week ago, LJ had a “scary” dream and woke up crying two times during the night. The next day I asked him what the dream was about. He said that he was in a pool (we had just come back from vacation with a lot of pool time) and there was a giant spider. It came up to him and then he realized it had a baby and it was just protecting its baby. He said, “then we became friends!” However, he had this dream two or three nights in a row, waking up more than usual and even telling his aunt about it before even saying “hello” one morning.

Finally, one night when snuggling before bed, he told me he didn’t want to go to bed because he was scared he was going to have that dream. I quite honestly did not know how to answer but somehow said the exact right thing because he didn’t have the dream that night or ever again since. When he told me he was scared he was going to have the dream about the spider, I told him to talk to his dream and say, “Dream, you are silly. You know that a spider couldn’t live in a pool. And also you are silly because you know that every morning someone cleans the pool to get all the bugs out before I get in. Now leave me alone.” I am sure some parenting expert could read this and tell me I could have responded differently according to choose-your-parenting-philosophy, but it was how I knew to respond, and you know what? It worked.

Later I reflected on how I responded and why it might have worked. It is possible that it worked simply because he was so tired and since it was like the third or fourth night of having the dream, he was just over it. However, I like to think it worked because of how I have seen similar things work in my own life.

This year has been a year of personal development for me. I recently read the book by Elizabeth Gilbert “Big Magic” in which she basically talks about the creative magic and passion inside each of us. She says that it is okay to be fearful and to recognize fear when putting one’s creations into the world. You cannot make fear go away but you cannot let it drive you. She uses the metaphor of actually telling fear, “Fear, I see you. You can sit over there in the corner, but you cannot bother me.” Or “Fear, you can come along for the ride. Sit in the passenger seat if you want to but you sure as hell aren’t talking the wheel.” Adopting this mentality has allowed me to do some pretty uncomfortable and creative things this year including writing my first children’s book which is due to be published in October! More on that in a future blog but back to LJ and his dream…

Acknowledging our fears but not allowing them to drive is helpful and in retrospect, that is what I did with LJ’s dream. I did not tell him he was crazy for having that dream. I did not tell him he should not be scared of the dream. I intentionally made sure to not make him feel like there was something wrong with HIM for having the dream or how he felt about the dream. I acknowledged it and then made it not about him. I talked to his dream telling the dream it was silly (not stupid because I will not allow the kids to use that word) just as I have talked to my own fears over the last year. Dear reader, in what ways could you change how you talk to your fears and dreams? What is a fear of yours that you want to tell to get in the damn passenger seat and just come along for the ride?