Rewriting a Bad Dream

By Maxine Hyndman

My husband and I were asked to babysit our granddaughters, who are eight and five years old, so my daughter and her husband could have a weekend to themselves. We arrived that evening to a wave of love and joy from the girls as they anticipated spending time alone with us. We were also looking forward to it.

The next day, after we all saw their parents off at the train station, we took the girls ice skating. It was one of the best times we’ve had together with them as their grandparents, and it was great for me to find I hadn’t forgotten how to ice skate! It was one of the things I had enjoyed most about wintertime life in Canada, but since I now live in Italy, it’s not something I get to do very often.

That night we did the girls’ nighttime routine of washing up, brushing their teeth, and hanging out in their room. Then we turned the lights off and cued up the HU Song to softly play throughout the night.

The next morning, I went downstairs to prepare breakfast for the girls. Zoe, who is five, came down first, and we hung out a bit in the kitchen together. She is usually chatty, but this morning I noticed she was silent and sad. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me she’d had a bad dream. When I asked her if she wouldn’t mind sharing, at first she said no, it was too bad to talk about. I assured her that nothing she dreamt about could be that bad and asked her if she wouldn’t mind whispering it to me. She agreed to that. So I sat close and leaned in so she could tell me.

She began by asking, “What is daddy?”

I said, “He’s a guy.”

“Right!” she said. “That is what I was in my dream. There I was in kindergarten as a boy, me and my friend. We were both boys, and the others were laughing at us, at me.”

I told her I completely understood, and asked her if she remembered that she has the power to change her dreams.

“Really?” she asked.

“Of course you can!” I told her. “Here is how you do it. Close your eyes and imagine you are in the dream again, but this time you make it go the way you want it to go. Imagine instead of being a boy, you are Zoe and the kids are all giving you great applause, smiling, and are happy for you. Can you see it? Can you imagine it?”

We did it together, and she said she could see it and she felt better after.

Knowing she loves clothes, I then asked her if she changes her clothes every day. She said, “Of course.”

I explained to her that Soul, the part of us that never dies, changes bodies each lifetime like we change clothes. Sometimes we come into life as boys and sometimes as girls.

“Your dream was showing you a time when you were a boy. Nothing to be scared of.” She said, “OK” and was happy again.

A few days later, my daughter told me Zoe recounted the dream and our chat to her without the fear, but just as a simple story.

For me, this was an exciting experience of being a channel for God’s love to a Soul I thought I knew everything about. But there is always more to learn!

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Try the spiritual exercise Reversing a Bad Dream if you would like to help your child or grandchild rewrite a dream.