Hours after the Wild Rumpus in 2016 ended, our younger daughter died. In the early hours of Oct. 30, Laura ended her life in a dark Chase Street backyard. Many of her friends, family members, Canopy students and co-workers shared their grief to help ease the pain. Similarly, dreams of sorrow and fear are often best shared, too. 

When Laura was pre-school age, she happily shared her dreams and expanded them into stories. In one dream, she described turning on the faucet. Instead of water, bunnies bounded into the sink. They were her favorite colors, yellow and orange. They’d all fly to planet “BUPITER,” a yellow and orange planet, where they could play.

I knew to listen with interest and not judge what Laura was telling me. After all, she was having such a good time! I wish we’d spent more time discussing dreams. Hopefully, today’s parents take time to talk with their kids about dreams, too.

Diane Bales, associate professor and human development specialist with the UGA extension, explains that when children report something they dreamed, we can’t confirm it. This may make the adult listener skeptical. “Just because other people can’t observe the experience, it’s still important to that individual,” Bales says.

Scary dreams or nightmares are outlets for our inner fears. For a child, sometimes a changing world is enough to cause dreams about monsters. “Younger children aren’t good at distinguishing what is real from what is imagined,” Bales explains. “This cognitive misunderstanding generally occurs about 4–7 years old.”

What to do about a child’s scary dreams? “Monster spray works well!” Bales says. Find a small, empty spray bottle and allow the child to help label and decorate it. Then, put some water in the bottle. Just before bedtime, the child and adult can carry the bottle around the room and spray the corners and under the bed to keep monsters away. “Children are often scared of things they can’t control. Yet there are little ways to offer a sense of control to a child,” she says.

Adults can help children process their dreams in several ways. “Ask your child to draw a picture of a scary dream. Then let them tear it up or burn it up to feel that sense of control.” As a young child, Laura saw a cartoon involving an animated extension cord with angry eyes chasing kids. It terrified her. Drawing the extension cord on a slip of paper and burning it in a metal bowl helped her get rid of the fear. It seemed so simple, yet it worked!

For children who express fears about their dreams but can’t converse easily, Bales recommends using a puppet. “If you can, try to find out what’s behind it,” she says. “Let the child talk to a puppet, act it out or draw it on paper without you taking the lead.” Children like knowing their words are being taken seriously, she adds.

Heidi Simmonds, an Athens dream leader and workshop presenter, understands the importance of dreams and taking time to discuss them. She helped me with a heartrending dream about Laura’s death. She listened to me describe it and encouraged me to engage with it. To do so, I imagined placing my dream outside in a patch of sunlight, walking around it in a circle and fully acknowledging it as I walked. Suddenly, the weight lifted from my shoulders, and my despair lessened. It helps to engage our dreams, because they’re really about our inner selves and an important part of us. Dream discussions have the potential to help all of us—no matter what our age or the sorrow we bear.