Dream

Hello, Iryna!

I’m so scared right now. I’m afraid to fall asleep and even more worried about my child. I don’t know how to calm down and deal with these feelings.

Please accept my words of support. A recurring dream filled with fear for your son can indeed disrupt your life, steal your peace, and overshadow your days—exactly as it’s happening to you.

What can you do? You need to actively help yourself by understanding the message behind this dream. This requires working with a psychologist skilled in dream analysis. Fortunately, I studied this topic in depth at university (even wrote my thesis on it) and have since used this knowledge extensively in my work with clients.

For a full result, personal interaction is necessary—today, this is available online (!)
Why in person? The method involves first narrating the dream’s content, clarifying details, and then working with the dream’s images and characters, naturally including emotions, motives, and symbolic actions...

As you understand, a forum doesn’t offer these possibilities, but we can still do something together.

First, I ask you to tell me about your current life period. What’s happening in your family? What tasks are you facing, and what difficulties are you encountering? This information is important for understanding the broader context in which these dreams appeared.

Second, recall what happened in the days leading up to the first distressing dream—three months ago. Were you strongly affected by something in the news, at your son’s school, or elsewhere?

Third, about your son. How do you see him as a mother? Do you notice signs of increased attachment between you? How does the child’s father behave? Are there other children in the family?

Fourth, what is your attitude toward omens and beliefs in the supernatural? For me, a dream is a product of the unconscious carrying a tangled message about impressions, thoughts, and motives that haven’t found resolution at a conscious level. Nothing more. And for you?

Hello Irina. I have been working with dreams for a long time, and I can say with certainty that in 99.5% of cases, dreams do not describe reality itself. Often, they are symbols that the unconscious uses to communicate with consciousness.

The dream itself is, of course, terrifying, and this indicates a feeling of fear of losing something very important to you. That is, the fear is so intense that it manifests through images of a child's death.

Try to shift your perspective and look at the dream through the following questions:

What is the dream trying to tell me?

What am I afraid of as much as I fear a child's death? And here, it could be the fear of fear itself. That is, the fear of a child's death is so intense that the fear itself has become a source of pain.

What strong and vivid negative events have happened to me in the last 3-4 months?

Once you understand the source, the dream will stop repeating. This is 100% proven.

I worry about her very often

Ah, you have a daughter. That’s wonderful.

I have one child, we live together. I worry about her very often.

One possible interpretation of the dream is that it’s a message to you about an excessive fixation on your daughter and her well-being. Your worries about her already exceed what might be considered healthy proportions. But what else is there in your life? What fills it—activities/work? hobbies? social interactions? relationships? personal growth, etc.?

This is bad. Your fear is too strong not because your daughter is in danger, but because there is something weak and vulnerable inside you that needs to be strengthened, made more resilient and mature. Moreover, there is something that triggered these dreams. The fear has been there for a long time, but the dreams themselves only appeared recently. There is likely something else at play.

In any case, the first thing you should do is detach yourself from your daughter and focus on yourself. Right now, there is a high chance you will perceive yourself through her—and that is not good for anyone: neither for her nor for you.

Hello. I understand how difficult your current state may be. Dreams related to the loss of loved ones are one of the most intense emotional stresses a person can experience, as they feel absolutely real to our psyche during sleep.

Waking up from your own scream indicates a high level of emotional tension. Let’s try to analyze this situation from a professional perspective to reduce your anxiety.

Why do such dreams occur?
It’s important to understand that sleep is not a prediction or intuition—it’s your subconscious working to process accumulated emotions.

Death in a dream often symbolizes not a physical loss but a fear of losing control, your child growing up, or the end of an important life stage.

If in real life you’re used to being strong, suppressing stress, or facing uncertainty, your psyche may "dump" this accumulated fear through such intense scenarios to release emotions.

A dream about falling from a tree may reflect your natural desire to protect your child from the dangers of the world, which, when you’re tired, takes on such frightening forms.

Self-help techniques right now
To cope with residual fear and fall asleep calmly, try the following steps:

1. Grounding technique (5-4-3-2-1)
Look around and name:

5 objects you see.
4 sounds you hear.
3 tactile sensations (texture of clothing, cold floor).
2 smells.
1 taste (you can take a sip of water).
This will bring your brain back from the dream space to the safe reality of "here and now."

2. Rationalizing fear
Remind yourself: "This was a nightmare—a product of my exhausted brain. My child is alive, safe. My scream was my body’s way of releasing tension."

3. Changing the ending (Rescripting technique)
If the dream’s plot still lingers in your mind, try consciously rewriting it. Imagine that when your child was falling, there was a safety net beneath the tree, or they simply caught a branch and safely climbed down. Picture the moment where you hug them, and they’re unharmed. This will help your brain "close" the frightening gestalt.

Recommendations for the near future
Try not to read the news or watch heavy films today or tomorrow. Your nervous system needs peace.

A warm shower or bath will help relieve the muscle tension that inevitably forms after a strong fright.

Think of this dream as a "glitch in a computer." It was scary, but it has no power over reality.

If such states recur or your anxiety doesn’t subside within a few days, it may be worth discussing this in personal therapy to find the true source of accumulated stress.

How do you feel now, as you read these words? Has your breathing become a little steadier?