It may surprise you to know that it is thought children begin dreaming even before they are born. A large amount of Rapid Eye Movement sleep is required to stimulate the brain into action both before and after birth. We cannot know what a baby actually dreams about but we do know that children begin to talk about their dreams around the age of two years old. Toddlers will often dream about their daily lives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and animals. A majority of two to three year old children actually associate dreaming with going to bed rather than
going to sleep as we come to perceive it later on. As adults we often dream about school, not surprising considering the huge amount of our developing life is spent there, but it is rarely a subject that children dream about and if they do it will not be in the same context as grown-ups dream about school. If school does crop up in a child’s dream it will more likely than not be in the form of a particular location, children dream of locations more often that complex situations.
A child who lives in the country may have vivid dreams of a nearby stream, in nightmares they may dream of falling into the stream. A child in the city is more likely to have nightmares about burglars or attackers breaking into the house, possibly due to constant news reports of such things. Though it should be pointed out that the house symbolizes the self just as much in children as it does in adults. Computers feature heavily in children’s dreams and TV shows can often be the source of many a disturbing dream. During times of illness children will often dream of abstract patterns and color, blobs and blotched behaving erratically. Children can often dream of dying and death when they are sick, these dreams are more common for children than we may suppose; it is very important that we show them it is good to talk about it.
Dreaming of angels and guardian spirits is also common in young children, some suggest that this may be because they are a soul that is newly absorbed into a brain and still remembers what is was like being a soul; being free, without cares and floating around with angels. This could be an important link for the child, a link to her or his immortality; something we tend to forget as we grow. It is important to nurture these dreams and keep them alive for as long as possible to develop a rounded, spiritual human being with a true sense of the universal. It will also help rekindle long lost sparks within the adult carers of the adventurous child and open a world of wonder for all concerned.