Yes, Jonathan has CAH. My kids rarely have bad dreams. Most everything the see that might cause the type of anxiety that leads to nightmares, I'm there and talk with them. My wife worries about some of the things they watch on TV, but I make sure they know clearly what is make believe and what is real. We watched Titanic Sunday night, and talked about what was happeneing. I was really expecting to be woken up with one of them having bad dreams, but they seemed to take it in stride. I've never noticed Ginny being jumpy about anything, but then she's only 2.

My theory about dreams is that they are our mind's way of sorting out the things that don't make sense. Linda was having a reoccuring dream that bothered her, and I figured out the source. When I explained what I thought was causing it, she thought it was interesting, then was surprised that she never had that dream again. The problem was sorted out in her conscious mind, so her subconscious didn't need to work on it. Nightmares come from serious conflicts. One of Jonathan's earliest was that Linda and I told him to go away, as if we didn't want him anymore. The source was confusion over the phrase "Go away." We would tell him that when we needed him to leave the room, etc. and his little mind couldn't grasp the differing meanings. We talked about it and he never had that dream again.

The last time was a few weeks ago. He had some kind of dream about monsters or something. He came into the bedroom crying. I asked him if there was anything stronger than Jesus. He said no. I asked him if Jesus lived in his heart. He said, yes. I asked him why would Jesus let something hurt him, if He lived in his heart. He gave a big grin. We prayed and he went back to bed and slept like a log.

Bad dreams have a source. Sometimes they're simple, sometimes they're very complex. If you can find the source, address it and the nightmares will go away. With kids, it's almost always a perception of lack of security. That can comes from an absent parent, a divorce, a preoccupied parent, the realization that a parent isn't in complete control or fear generated by abusive authority figures (incompetent social workers)