Jane Teresa Anderson recalls having “lots and lots of nightmares” as a child.
“My parents generally told me to just go back to sleep.” The dream therapist and analyst believes that there are other ways to respond when your child has a nightmare.
Do children have more nightmares than adults?
“It’s often said that children have more nightmares than adults,” says Jane “I imagine it’s probably true.”
Nightmares are much more exasperated in children than in adults for a multitude of reasons.
“When you think about it, children from birth are experiencing a massive amount of change, far more so than as adults, where we go out and we have a reasonable idea what to expect from the world.”
“Children are facing change all the time, and as human beings, we’re always stressed or we’re scared of change.”
Children, therefore, have to process these changes, and that in turn creates more nightmares.
Our understanding of the world also helps us cope when we do have a nightmare in adult life.
“An adult might wake up from a nightmare and think. That was a terrible nightmare. I’m going to get up and have a drink of water. I’m going to go back to sleep. Whereas a child will call out and be really stressed because they don’t understand what’s happening. So, it’s more noticeable that they’re having nightmares.
“Children tend to think these bad dreams are actually happening, as it’s hard to differentiate the dream from their reality. I remember one child telling her mother that she was dreaming about a bad bear in her pillow and her mom’s going, no, it was a dream. She said, no, no, it’s in my pillow. It’s happening now.
“So whereas when we get older, even though we might not understand our dreams, we know to some extent that they are produced by our mind while we’re asleep, a child thinks it’s actually happening.”
What impacts the amount and intensity of nightmares for children?
Jane believes it has to do with their environment, which can included ‘stresses’ at home.
“Not to put it on the parents at all, but if there is stress in the house, obviously the child’s going to pick up on that and be stressed as well.”
Alwin Wagener, a professional counsellor who specialises in dreamwork, agrees: “Think about family conflict in a home. A child’s whole sense of safety is based on feeling the dependability and the love of parents.
“When you have parents who are not getting along and fighting in some ways it feels like there’s great danger about one’s own safety and being loved, so a terrifying experience.”
What can parents do to prevent this stress?
“Number one”, says Jane, “try to keep life as stress free as possible for the child at home. Number two, try to realize that all children have nightmares. This isn’t abnormal. There’s nothing wrong with the child.
“It’s not as if the parents are purposefully bad parents and creating all this stress”, she reiterates, “it does happen.”
Alwin says: “It’s upsetting, but it’s normal. And I think normalising some of those experiences can also maybe make them a little bit less frightening.”
Both Alwin and Jane make it clear that the best approach when a child is having a nightmare is not to dismiss it or downplay it for them.
“Don’t say it’s only a dream, don’t worry about it, go back to sleep.” says Jane. “Because for the child it was very real and they want their feelings validated and their fear validated. The parent should say that’s terrible, you poor thing tell me more about it, how did you feel.”
Alwin adds to this: “Try to understand their experiences, what’s going on in their world. If there are things going on that are frightening to them, helping them understand it better can help.”
Jane recalls: “I had a tsunami dream when I was younger, which I think was funny because, like you, I was born in England.
“When I was a child in England we didn’t have tsunamis and I didn’t have TV or anything, so I don’t know where I got the idea of a tsunami. I guess I was frightened of waves at the beach so my dream made them really big waves.
“Another one I had a lot was that there were snakes at the bottom of my bed. So I would go to bed and not want to stretch out my body because my toes might meet the snakes at the bottom of the bed.
“So there’s an example of the dream coming first, but then I would get to bed and not put my feet down because there were snakes there.” This shows how real dreams can feel for children, due to their understanding of the world around them.
Parents should therefore try and contextualise the dream in their child’s routine and validate the emotions they are expressing after having a nightmare.
“If the child is dreaming about a tsunami,” says Jane, “and they’re saying, there’s this huge thing that I just can’t run away from. The parent could then think. Okay, where in their life might my child be feeling that there’s something big happening that they can’t get away from?”
“So it’s taking the child’s dream as a metaphor and thinking, what does this sound like to me?”
The monster dream
Alwin says: “Dreams like being pursued by a monster, that’s an example of a common dream.
“There’s something after you and you can’t get away and it’s really scary. Maybe you got scolded and you’re upset with yourself and you’re afraid that you can’t do anything right. That feeling is depicted metaphorically as this monster.
“You don’t have an idea of how to regulate it so the idea you have for it is almost captured as that monster that’s chasing you.”
Jane says that if a child dreams about a monster, “the parent can say let’s imagine the monster wasn’t a monster after all. It was a lovely cuddly teddy bear.
“Then get the child to talk about the teddy bear and let’s give it a cuddle, and even pick up a teddy bear and have a cuddle.
“If you feel your child isn’t good at visualising or imagining to actually put the lights on, get out a piece of paper and some crayons and get them to draw a better version of the dream. So you’re teaching them from an early stage to change what they don’t like.”
Alwin talks about recontextualising the dream as well, but instead of making the monster nice, you could try making it funny. “I’ve done this with my son before with a nightmare, having him just lay in bed and imagine making changes to it.
“I think of Harry Potter with the boggart, have you ever watched that, where they put the roller skates on the scary thing? Transform it.”
Ultimately, Jane explains that, “it is a big deal. The child has had that experience that they felt was real.
“Also for the parents to ask themselves, when was the last time I had a nightmare? Actually, that was really scary. I wanted to tell someone about that. I would have loved someone to listen and give me a hug. So do the same.”
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