Setting: A bedroom in the suburbs. A 20 something year old woman lies beside her partner, a 30 something, in their bed. It is dark. It is the middle of the night. The two are snoring peacefully.
Son Enters.
Crying.
Big, ugly tears.
Son: I’ve had a bad dream.
The son shakes and cries. He is unable to voice what the dream was about. He snuggles into his father’s arms.
He spends the next half hour crying out that he cannot sleep, that his dream was terrifying.
The shaking continues.
He is held, he is comforted.
He goes to sleep.
He doesn’t talk about the stress of the night before until just going to bed the following night. He is found typing into Dr. Google “How to stop nightmares”.
Emergency response: Dream catchers.
The family sits down to make dream catchers at bed time, telling stories of where each individual piece has come from. This one holds a unicorn necklace (the mother’s totem animal, for sure), a feather from the family bird, a feather from a trip to the beach and another from a family picnic. The beads have been sourced from community stores, friends and trips to the bead store.
Stories are woven into the dream catcher. Times of good, times of laughter, times to replace the nightmares.
This one holds an Easter story, working with clay together, a heart to represent the love in the family and blue and green beads to symbolise the calmness of the sea.
It worked. No bad dreams and a sleepy boy.
{Sweet dreams, beautiful boy}
And inquisitive!
