A few days ago, M woke up and cried to his daddy about a sad dream. I had already gone to work by the time he woke for the day, so I only heard about it after I got home. As I helped him get ready for bed, he told me he had had a sad dream, but he didn’t want to tell me. I soon learned why.
One of the reasons he didn’t want to say anything, I think, was because he knew that thinking and talking about it again would make him cry. Another reason he may not have wanted to tell me was perhaps due to the part I played in the sad dream.
He got worked up to the point of sobbing three times before finally falling asleep that night. And the dream? He dreamed he’d been flushed down the toilet. He ended up nowhere. And me? I’d done the flushing.
Yeah, that kind of made me sad about his sad dream, too.
The next day, he was still very upset about the dream. It was still vivid enough that it got him crying again several times. And the worst part is that there is nothing that his mommy could do to make it better.
And over the past few days, he’s continued to talk about how he doesn’t like his sad dreams. Apparently he had another bad dream one night again, not quite so traumatizing, based on his description, but apparently the feel of it stuck enough. It’s gotten a little better for him in that he’s not bursting into tears every time he says the words. But he still talks so much about how the sad dreams are sticking to his head and he can’t get them off.
I wish there was more that I could do. But I think he’s just going through some major brain development, perhaps his dreams are just getting more vivid in general. Perhaps he’s just trying to work something out that he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of yet. So in the meantime, I’ll hold him, give him cuddles when he needs them, and let him talk about it, or not, as he prefers. And hopefully the sad dreams will let go or be destroyed for good one of these days, too.
