I’ve had 3 dreams about my 15 month old son, in the last 3 months...

1st - My deceased mother visits me to meet my son. She is holding him and says how “beautiful” he is, rocking him. She abruptly stops, looks at me with this odd look and asks me, “Can I take him?” I say,“No!” She says sternly, “Well you better keep your house clean then.”

2nd - I go to pick my son up at a sitters and I think I see him on the side of a street, far from the sitters. I slow down, my husband says, don’t be ridiculous, he’s too small to be out on his own! I go to the sitters & everyone is sleeping...they say they lost my son. I go back to the street where I saw him and when I go to pick him up, he is missing a finger, and is bruised up. When I do pick him up, I can see all that he has gone thru...playing with a knife, attacked by an animal, getting stuck in a thorny bush. Then my alarm goes off, so I never get to finish the dream.

3rd - I visit a children’s hospital. My son is playing with a child that is wearing a helmet. And when I come back, my son is wearing it. When I go to take it off, it is attached to his head and won’t come off. I decide to leave. A nurse stops me. She says I can’t take him, he has a helmet on...he belongs here. So I have no choice to reluctantly leave him behind. I see him thru the window of the door as I leave with the most saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.

Please help me with these upsetting dreams. I keep thinking that I’m worried about losing him, cause he’s the youngest (and last). But 3 dreams later, I am getting superstitious. I need a psychological explanation!

-Helena, Boscobel, WI, USA

Hi Helena -

Your dreams clearly reflect the strong concern you hold for the safety of your youngest child, in addition to normal doubts you have about your abilities as a mother. As is typical with dreams, they also point the way for you to resolve your problem.

Your first dream represents every mother’s deepest fear - that a child of hers might die. Your mother, who is deceased and therefore represents a type of ghost - or at least a representative of “the other side” - visits and asks if she can “take him” with her. You tell her “No!” Your mother’s response, however - that you had “better keep your house clean then” - I think can be interpreted in two ways. It may reflect the common tension that exists between mothers and daughters about domestic issues - i.e., how to “properly raise children, act in a marriage, keep a clean house, have dinner on the table,” etc. - in which case you may be worrying about whether you are a “good enough” parent for your son. The dream strongly suggests a fear that if you are not a “good enough” parent, the consequence will be that your child is taken away from you. I also think your mother’s words can be interpreted more literally. If you genuinely are tending to become superstitious, you may be beginning to believe that cleaning may hold some sort of “magical” powers - i.e., if you clean enough you will somehow prevent the death of your son. It sounds crazy, but the activity of cleaning actually gives us a sense of greater control over our environment. These types of fantasies are common when we hold a deep fear within us.

Your second dream seems to echo the “good enough” theme of the first dream. In this dream you have made a poor choice about the babysitter, who has fallen asleep and allowed your child to leave the house and crawl/stumble into various neighborhood misadventures. It is important to recognize that, in your real life, your boy is only fifteen months old, and at this age, in reality, he is a constant risk to himself. In this sense, you need to recognize that you are spending a significant amount of your day - every day - worrying about everything that is reflected in the dream. “Don’t fall down the stairs, don’t swallow the bottle cap, don’t play with the dog, avoid sharp objects,” etc. The dream is a bit graphic in its representation of your son - with the missing finger - but I think it also most likely reflects any of your common concerns about various things that could befall your child were he ever to be left unattended.

The third dream seems to have a different theme from the first two, and is the dream which I think holds clues for you how to solve your current dilemma. In this dream your son is at the hospital, and soon becomes one of the boys wearing a protective helmet over his head. It is significant that when you want to leave the hospital, you are unable to because the helmet has somehow become attached to your son’s head. As a result you are forced to leave the hospital without your son, and as you leave you see him standing there with very sad eyes.

That the dream takes place in a hospital is significant. This suggests again that you are worried about your son’s health. The helmet most likely is symbolic of your over-anxious desires right now - drives and needs - to protect your son. But as the dream points out - the over-protectiveness is not entirely healthy for your child. Your son is unable to leave the hospital while he is wearing the helmet. The implied metaphor, paradoxically, is that an overprotected child will not be able to survive out in the real world. You also are unable to remove the helmet - which suggests that you may be somewhat bewildered about your own drive to protect your son and that you “can’t stop” or gain control over it.

The dream also seems to comment on your own health. For you to leave the hospital - to get well - you have to leave your son - with his helment on - behind. Thus, for you both to “get well” and be healthy - you need to learn to balance your parental concerns with a deeper sense of trust and confidence that your boy is going to be OK - that nothing untoward is going to happen to him, and that he will grow to learn to make good decisions. You are going to have to loosen the helmet of protectiveness that you have placed onto your son. I too find it interesting that these concerns should arise now, with your third child, more than they would than with a first child, for example - when your parenting skills were much less sophisticated. I think you are accurate is assessing that you are worried about your last child because he is “the baby.” If you identify strongly with the role of motherhood, the last child growing often is traumatic as it represents the end of the mother/“baby” relationship.

You are an experienced mother and if I were you I would take some deep breaths and recognize that you have been through this before - and that you will do fine this time as well. Your dream is showing you, however, that you need to release your fear for your baby boy, as it is not healthy for either of you, ultimately. I see no reason at all for superstition, and encourage you to be openly suspicious of such thoughts and fantasies. Your child will not be “taken from you” if you don’t live up to your mother’s expectations, nor will “cleaning” magically protect him from harm. If you do feel the urge or compulsion to clean, recognize that cleaning is just a substitute for worrying about your child, and that you need to deal with the real issue at hand. He’s your baby boy, and he is always going to be special in that regard, just as each of your children is special in his or her own ways. But as your dream shows, you have to let him grow - for both his health and yours.