As a parent, the most frightening dream you can have is that something terrible happens to your child. It shakes you to your very core! Naturally, you wonder if your dream is a foreshadowing, a warning, of something that is around the corner. Let me assure all you frantic parents out there that – if this were the case – none of our children would live to see adulthood! This dream is so common it’s not even funny. I think it’s safe to assume that every parent in the history of parenthood has had the dreadful something-bad-happened-to-my-child dream.

Then why, oh why, does our subconscious choose to torment our already fragile parental minds this way? Well, what you may view as torment, the subconscious views as helpful parental advice.  Read on to find out what I mean.  The following is from my nationally syndicated column The Dream Zone…

Dear Lauri,
Last night I dreamed that an unknown man was taking my 9 year old son away from me. We were in my house. He was carrying my son down the stairs from my second story. My son was crying. I was chasing after the man and shouting in anger. I can’t remember what I was saying to the man. The man did not have a face. I do recall feeling like I did not know the man.
– Ellen 41, Red Lion, PA

Lauri: Your son is growing faster than you would like and that man taking him away from you is life! Life kidnaps our children. Seemingly in the blink of an eye our pudgy, little munchkins are pulled away from us and there is nothing we can do about it. This is a common dream that was triggered by a milestone in your son’s life. I assume he just started 3rd or 4th grade? That could be the milestone, unless there is anything else that happened recently that made you realize how big he is getting and how much less he needs you? The purpose behind this heart-wrenching dream is the simple reminder that time is going really freaking fast and that you better make the most out of the time you do have with your son because, in the blink of an eye, you’ll be packing up his bags and sending him off to college.  Sigh. Where does the time go?

Ellen replies: Oh my! He just went into 3rd grade. His older sister just entered junior high so he is all on his own now in elementary school. No more older sister at school to guide him and show him the way. And he is soooo over me doting all over him all the time. It makes perfect sense. Thank you Lauri!

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