The Spider Dream Vanquished!
So, you may have read about earlier mentions of my son's battles with a very unpleasant spider dream. Alone in a house full of spiders. Trapped. They're attacking from all sides... That sort of thing.
Sage has been having really troubled nights. We all have. We tried suggesting that he get active in the dream. Swing up that Nerf Gun and start blasting. A flamethrower? Sure. Bring it on. Take care of business. Sage was a bit incensed about these suggestions. He just wasn't sure I was taking him seriously. I was, but...
For a couple of weeks, nothing worked. And then, a breakthrough.
Apparently, last night, for the first time, he realized he was in the dream while it was happening. He knew. He just had to figure out what to do. I'm both proud and troubled by what he came up with.
He used to be alone, right? Not this time. This time, he turns around and grabs... me. Dear ole dad. Unceremoniously, he shoves me toward the swarming spiders. Then he runs. He doesn't watch what happens. He just gets out of there. As he runs he breaks through the dreamwall and wakes up.
As glad as I am that he thinks he has the dream beat... I'm of mixed feelings on his method.
Any thoughts? Should I be troubled?
Sage has been having really troubled nights. We all have. We tried suggesting that he get active in the dream. Swing up that Nerf Gun and start blasting. A flamethrower? Sure. Bring it on. Take care of business. Sage was a bit incensed about these suggestions. He just wasn't sure I was taking him seriously. I was, but...
For a couple of weeks, nothing worked. And then, a breakthrough.
Apparently, last night, for the first time, he realized he was in the dream while it was happening. He knew. He just had to figure out what to do. I'm both proud and troubled by what he came up with.
He used to be alone, right? Not this time. This time, he turns around and grabs... me. Dear ole dad. Unceremoniously, he shoves me toward the swarming spiders. Then he runs. He doesn't watch what happens. He just gets out of there. As he runs he breaks through the dreamwall and wakes up.
As glad as I am that he thinks he has the dream beat... I'm of mixed feelings on his method.
Any thoughts? Should I be troubled?
Labels: Family Stuff, Sage Anthony Durham, Spidery Random Things
posted by David Anthony Durham at
6:22 PM
4 Comments:
I am so glad for him. Once he has realized he can manipulate his dreams, that is a great achievement.
(I am not a psychologist, just speaking from experience - although I am pretty glad I never dreamed about spiders while I still had that spider phobia. That is why I really felt for him and crossed my fingers that he would find a method to get out.)
And I would say it is a good sign, because it shows hos much he trusts you.
Maybe he just is not the aggressive type. Violence is not always a solution, sometimes it is better to get help and to know who to turn to.
Still crossing my fingers, that it keeps, but pretty optimistic.
Is it possible you don't like spiders, either, and this is the reason for your mixed feelings?
I've got no particular problem with spiders, though we did live for a couple of years in Fresno, CA. We had A LOT of black widows around our house - and occasionally inside it. On a summer night, we could go out with a flashlight and find five, ten or more of them just in the garden. It was pretty menacing. I think this time was a big part of Sage coming to have his fear of spiders, actually.
My mixed feelings aren't really mixed, but what I meant was the notion of him throwing me to the spiders. I do believe it's because he trusts me, but when he first said it I had a moment of, "Uh... so you what are you trying to say about me? I'm spider food..." ;)
Glad to be spider food if it helps him, by the way. And you're right, Sage isn't aggressive. That's an interesting insight - in terms of looking at why the flamethrower wasn't an option for him. He needed something else. Help from dad, I guess.
That's pretty cool, now that I think about it.
I'd like to think it wasn't so much him throwing you under the proverbial bus full of arachnids as him having such complete faith in your ability to deal with said creatures that he didn't need to watch how you did it. Ever the optimist, I suppose. Good for him.
Well, it definitely seemed to work. Been a couple weeks now and still no relapses. Whatever I did to those spiders was quite definitive.
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