How stories can help your child’s nightmares
I have nightmares. Not just bad dreams—horror-movie type nightmares. The kind where you need to run from something dark and evil, but your feet are as heavy as boulders and you can barely lift them, or someone is about to harm a loved one while you watch helplessly.
I’ve struggled with this for as long as I can remember. I memorized the Bible verses, prayed, avoided scary movies, and stopped eating chocolate before bed. While those things help, the nightmares still rampage. These nightmares lurked in the darkened corners of my mind, full of monsters and shadows.
It’s not just me waking up covered in sweat anymore—it’s my three boys too. I cradle and soothe him and assure him of their safety, but the tears still rain on my arms, and they still tells me they’re afraid of their bedroom.
What do we do as parents? When we can’t seem to get a grip on our own nightmares, how do we comfort our little ones who are suffering right alongside us?
Why We Have Nightmares
Science and psychology are still studying the root cause of nightmares. Even in our advanced understandings of life, the brain, and the human body, sleep (especially dreams) remains a mystery to us.
As believers, though, we know the underlying reason behind our nightmares: the fall. Because Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, all of mankind inherited not only sin but a life of thorns and thistles. Cancer, flus, mental illnesses, gut problems, and even nightmares all stem from the fall—they are the painful toil and sweat from our brow (Gen. 3:17–19) and the groaning of creation (Rom. 8:21–22).
If it weren’t for the fall, how would our minds even form such horrifying images? What would inspire such a morbid plotline? If it weren’t for sin, our hearts wouldn’t know evil and death. Before the fall, man, animals, and all creation lived in perfect harmony—but then the bite from the forbidden fruit became a noisy gong to the peaceful garden. Now our lives are brimming with fears and memories that make our stomachs clench and churn.
How to Face Nightmares
Yet as believers, we also know that the story doesn’t end there. One day, nightmares won’t haunt us anymore because we will live in the Promised Land of Eternal Life, where God is our light (Rev. 21:23–24), and all wicked darkness has been stricken and banished by the gleaming sword of our Savior (Rev. 1:16, 19:15). But until the day of redemption—that happily-ever-after to God’s grand story—what do we do?
Counselors and psychologists recommend re-telling our bad dreams to train our brains to tell happier stories while we sleep. Dr. Jade Wu explains on Psychology Today: “One of the most widely used and evidence-based treatments for nightmares, whether they’re caused by PTSD or not, is imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT). This therapy has a very simple premise—having nightmares is a learned behavior for the brain, which means it’s possible to unlearn.” It seems that nightmares are possibly caused by our brains getting stuck in the ruts of creating bad dreams, and so we can train them to create better endings by rewriting them.
In my own nightmares, I rarely have the power to change the scene. However, when I’m awake, I can exercise God-given rule over my imagination and rewrite them. In the past several years, I found courage to face my nightmares particularly through writing fiction—by reframing these stories with a gospel lens. I re-enact my nightmares through my characters, drawing a sword and facing the goblins. My feet are nimble, not stuck. I’m not alone but surrounded by companions ready to fight. The nightmares still come, but each day I retell them in light of redemption—a reflection of the hope I wait for in Christ. I do the same as I read fantasy as well.
Even if you aren’t a natural storyteller, or you’re a tired mom chasing toddlers during the day and feeding babies throughout the night, you can still use these principles. You don’t need to create elaborate stories with immense world-building. Instead, you can work together with your little one to recreate any kind of happy ending to a nightmare—whether you change the roaring dinosaur to a singing and dancing lizard or imagine a trap door for them to escape through. Make suggestions how they can change their dreams and give them a chance to come up with their own silly or victorious endings. In doing so, you and your child can rewrite your nightmares as stories of salvation and joy.
Reflecting Redemption
Together, as a family, we can take our nightmares from the realm of lonely darkness and draw them out into the light. We don’t need to face these scary stories alone—this is a way we can practically bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). Nightmares can become yet another opportunity to rehearse the story of the gospel to ourselves and our children as we create a reflection of the redemption to come with our stories.
This is where reading fairy tales and fantasy stories together as a family can be beneficial because they equip us to create similar stories of hope. Together, we can draw every nightmare into the light of day and retell it with a story of courage and victory—looking to that day when our own great Deliverer forever rescues us from the dark.
