Dream interpreter, any one?

While sitting in the Doctors waiting room (one of these many times I have been there) I was reading an article in a magazine, well I was reading several as I was waiting there for like 35 minutes, anyway it was about Children and their dreams. I thought it was interesting that the woman writing the article was saying how when her three year old daughter came to her one morning telling her of a dream she had had, in great detail. She said "I hurried and grabbed a pen and paper and wrote it down. Now we keep a "dream journal" for her and I have fun looking back on them and reading them."

I thought that was a neat idea, a dream journal. I wish I would have thought of this earlier since E has had some crazy dreams before.

Any way the article talked about how kids dreams (as well as adults) much of the time have to do with things we experience in the day and our dreams some times "symbolize" our daily thoughts, emotions etc. The author then talked about reading through her daughters dream journal and figuring out some of her fears or some experiences that happened at school that she would not have known about if she had not written these dreams down. I thought it was a really interesting article. I wish I could remember what magazine it was in, oh well. Trust me it was interesting.

The article then talked about how it is good for us as parents to ask about and listen to our children's dreams saying that children retelling there dreams (especially bad ones) help them get over them faster and they feel more comforted when we ( the parents) are willing to listen to their dreams, good or bad. It also said we should never dismiss bad dreams as "just a dream" that it could mean something and we need to recognize them when they do "mean some thing". I thought this was interesting and it makes sense. Me, as an adult like to talk about my dreams to my spouse, especially if they were very vivid and I remember lots of details. If it's a nightmare I like for him to listen closer, it makes me feel better. So of course it would be good for my children to do the same and for me to respond appropriately.

The other morning E climbed in bed with me and I thought about that article I read, so I asked her "did you have any dreams last night?" I posed the question like they said to in the article and she responded immediately to it saying "yes, I had one bad one, and one scary one." I asked her what the bad one was and this is what she said...

"I dreamed there was a girl in the mirror looking at herself and she was sad and then she started scratching the mirror all the way down."

OK, that scared me! I pictured the girl white-faced looking like a ghost in a horror film but that was just me, because apparently this was not her scary dream but just her "bad" dream.

Interesting, I wonder what it means?

Then I asked what her scary dream was and she tells me....

"I was sitting on the side walk playing and then across the street coming at me was a big dragon and then I was running away from it because I was scared of it."

I have no idea what either of these dreams mean, I'm no good at interpreting dreams but I thought it was interesting how just asking "did you have any dreams last night?" and then saying "tell me about them" got her talking. Whereas if I just say to her "did you have good dreams" she would just respond "No" and leave it at that. I guess I shouldn't assume that her dreams will always be good.

Any way I thought I'd share this interesting view on kids dreams.

I think I might start a dream journal for her. We shall see.