Creations Anonymous (creationsanon) wrote in musings, @ 2010-11-15 12:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | news |
[Seattle Times, Max Main byline.]
SWEET DREAMS [Picture of locally available book on children and nightmares.] It is hardly possible to ignore the repeated reports of a man appearing in the dreams of children throughout the city. A man with claws, one who can conjure up horrors in dreams. I am here to tell you, Seattle, that this man is just a man. The blades are not claws. They're makeshift gloves from the local hardware store. The horrors he evokes are not real, they are merely the monsters we fear under our beds. He is only a man, and how he manages to get into the dreams of the dreamers is irrelevant. What matters, is keeping your children safe from him. Dreams occur during the REM cycle of sleep, a time when brain activity has been proven to mirror wakefulness. It is, therefore, no surprise that dreams have a sense of reality to them that is sometimes uncanny. However, just as we can control our reality, we can control our dreams. Nightmares are no different. The dreamer controls the dream. In our fear, we hand the monster the reins, but that is our choice. To protect our children, we must understand that they control their dream. They can lock him away, they can run, they can take the floor out from beneath him. They can win. But they must understand that they can do this. That it is the same as climbing out of bed and closing the closet door when they fear what is inside. Which brings us to the most important and, admittedly, most difficult thing to understand. Fear begets fear. We feed this monster. We cannot be afraid, and we must explain to our children that they need not fear this man. In fearing him, they give him power, just as all terrors in dreams are made bigger and scarier by our own fear. Explaining something like this to children isn't easy. It isn't easy for the rest of us, either. Standing in the face of horrible things and not being afraid, it requires a calm that is hard for us to achieve. To quote J. Ruth Gendler, "fear has a large shadow, but he himself is small." This man is small. We give him his size, his strength, his power, Seattle. Only we can take it away. Convince your children they can wake up. Tell them the monsters in their dreams cannot hurt them. Put baby monitors in their bedrooms and wake them at the first sign of a nightmare. I know this sounds fantastical, but ask your children about their dreams, talk to them, keep them safe... CON'T page C2 → |
ACCOUNTS OF DREAM CONTROL, page C3 → NUMBER OF DREAM INJURIES REPORTED, page C3 → |