Childhood nightmares may be "health warning"

[Still Waters]

Regular nightmares in childhood may be an early warning sign of psychotic disorders, researchers in the UK warn.

The study, in the journal Sleep, said most children had nightmares, but persistent ones may be a sign of something more serious.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...health-26385274

[MissJatti]

something like this scares the crap out of me, since I have 2 little ones... my eldest (8yo) prefer watching movies from a very young age, that is adult in nature (PG), rather than disney/animation.... god knows why

so at night he like shaking, waking up and so on

[White Crane Feather]

Yes let's find more reasons and ways to medicate our kids earlier. There are vast correlation problems here.

[SSilhouette]

From the article in the link:

Warning light

The team at the University of Warwick said a long-term problem with nightmares and terrors was linked to a higher risk of mental health problems later.

Around 47 in every 1,000 children has some form of psychotic experience.

However, those having nightmares aged 12 were three-and-a-half times more likely to have problems and the risk was nearly doubled by regular night terrors.

One of the researchers, Prof Dieter Wolke, told the BBC: "Nightmares are relatively common, as are night terrors, it is quite normal, but if they persist then there may be something more serious about it."

The relationship between sleep problems and psychosis is not clear.

One theory is that bullying or other traumatic events early in life can cause both symptoms.

Or the way some children's brains are wired means the boundaries between what is real and unreal, or sleeping and wakefulness, are less distinct.

The traumatic event theory could be true. But also the second theory needs visiting. What is real or unreal eh?

For years I had nightmares as a child between the ages of as young as I can remember to around pre puberty. They were of demons and other dark entities trying to pin me down, or calling my name from the heat register in my room. They happened nearly every night and nearly every morning my parents would find me asleep with my blanket in other parts of the house. Family pets were afraid of my room, petrified of it actually. For years this went on as the demons became more manifest and more sophisticated. They turned from just trying to frighten me to death to trying to coerce me to "join them". They promised my terrifying dreams would end if I would just acquiesce to joining them. I kept refusing so they would alternate between terrifying and coercing to show me they meant business if I didn't join up with "the team".

As I got older and began to read and understand things, I found a book on the black arts. It said in one part that if one didn't want anything to do with the entities plauging them, they had only to say "NO" to them in a firm voice. So the next time I was besieged in my dreams by them, I found myself trapped in a pinkish room with thick fleshy walls. There were no doors or windows. The chief of these demons was confronting me directly. By this time I'd say I was about maybe 10 years old. He told me matter of factly that if I joined up with them that I could have any power I wanted, anything in life I wanted. He tried to tell me I really had no choice anyway because I was trapped in that pinkish room, that hellscape. He wanted me to feel helpless like there really was no other choice but to join them. It came to a point where he said "well, what do you say?". I looked right at him and said very loud and clear "NO! I will not join you now. I will not join you EVER. I don't care what you do to me it simply isn't going to happen." I stared him down after that and as I did, a door opened in the side of the pinkish wall and I walked out into this brilliant white light.

I kid you not from that moment forward those nightmares ended. Not another night. Just like that. As a precaution though, I did pray and asked God to spare me these demons if I pledged a life of service to the Light. My life did not become perfection from that point on. Yet it got better by degrees with ups and downs in my teen years and early 20s. My tests continue and they are, well, you just wouldn't believe them if I told you, so I won't. But there is a pervasive beauty behind all of it. A knowledge of being tested, pushed and pulled so it doesn't seem personal anymore. Very very strange things have happened in my life since I said "NO" to that demon in my dream. It is as if they hang always on the periphery of my life just waiting to see if I'll falter in my resolve. So far, so good.

As to the "what's real and unreal" part, both my sister and my father have also admitted fairly recently that that house has strange events. Both of them have heard their names also called aloud from the heat registers. My father reports to this day seeing a dark silhouette of a man levitating up behind the backlit curtains in his room from the neighbor's house up to the rooftop. Then he hears footfall up above him. We investigated that roof the last time we were there to see if the lichen or wood shakes had been disturbed by footfall. Not a sign, not a scuff. There was consistent mossyness on all the shingles with old cobwebs strung between them that surely would be scuffed away with a person up there.

So?? Maybe these kids having these nightmares are just regular kids experiencing REAL things that the researchers themselves are too scared to explore the possibility of being real. Much easier to blame some organic psychosis on little kids than to consider the possibility that we don't know all there is to know about this strange world we live in, and dream in.

Edited March 3, 2014 by SSilhouette