You come home from work, you do household chores. By the end of the day, the strength is running out, and you just want to sleep and relax. You fall asleep. But, after some time, you realize that there is no proper rest because of a terrible dream that causes tension and anxiety.

Each of us once or repeatedly faced with this phenomenon. So why do you have nightmares?

Nightmares: good or bad?

Dreams that frighten a person are considered nightmares. According to scientists, this is a product of the activity of our brain, which is strenuously struggling with negative emotions, stress or conflicts.

In their opinion, periodically seeing nightmares can even be useful, since they neutralize the unpleasant sensations that have accumulated in real life.

It’s hard for us to believe, but “viewing” a terrible dream should lead to a psychological “reset”, defuse the mind, distract from the experiences that we encounter during the day.

What are their benefits to humans?

1. Accompanying a turning point in life (a dream associated with overcoming obstacles, obstacles; victory in a dream; solving a difficult / unrealistic task - indicate your inner strength and convince you of your ability to solve a problem). Such dreams symbolically represent your transition to another stage in development, confirm personal growth.
2. unloading nervous system, a splash of negative emotions (resentment, anger, irritation, dissatisfaction) after parting, loss loved one, changing working conditions. “Viewing” nightmares (according to experts) in this case helps to achieve emotional balance, to come to a balance of positive and negative emotions.
3. An indication of a real problem that we, for some reason, do not notice or do not attach importance to. Nightmares become a kind of "warning", a motive for focusing on one or another side of your life.

Negative aspects of "nightmare" dreams

Along with this, it is difficult for an ordinary person to accept the benefit of a nightmare. Bad dreams can cause you to wake up early and then cause insomnia.

They are remembered for a long time and bring into our lives anxiety in front of the unknown and inexplicable. If the nightmares are repeated regularly, they become a source of sleep deprivation, bad mood and well-being, manifested in the daytime.

What are the causes of nightmares?

Terrible dreams are faced by people of different ages, nationalities and religions, from different social strata, regardless of their status and financial condition. All of them periodically (and some often) have nightmares.

And, it would seem, what can be common between them? Modern experts have identified a number of generalized causes of the occurrence of "terrifying" dreams:

Childhood

Very often, children who have a high threshold of emotional sensitivity dream of horrors.

The reasons for the appearance of frightening dreams in childhood there may be frequent quarrels of parents (including at night), the absence of friends or even a negative attitude of peers towards the child, physical punishment, deceit. All this leads to the formation of emotional trauma.

Overwork (physical fatigue / severe psychological stress)

A person constantly mentally "returns" to a particular unresolved situation, including during sleep. Or when forced to experience a lot of stressful situations during the day.

The risk group in this area includes people of such professions as doctors, employees of various rescue services, law enforcement agencies.

stress/depression

Stressful conditions also quite often cause recurring nightmares. Psychologists define this as a direct relationship between such psychological states and frightening dreams.

The brain of a person who is under stress or depression does not rest even in a dream - the subconscious mind continues to search for a “way out” from the vicious circle of circumstances.

A strong emotional shock can turn into nightmares: if you have become a participant in an accident, an accident, a witness to violence or bullying, then most likely you will encounter a “continuation of these horrors” during a night's rest.

There is also a well-established concept of "post-traumatic stress disorder", which experts most often observe in people who have returned from war zones.

For especially impressionable individuals, nightmares can even appear from watching thrillers, action films or horror films before bed.

Also, unpleasant repetitive actions (unloved work, regular communication with unpleasant people) can become the cause of stress or depression, and, consequently, terrible dreams.

Health problems

The causes of nightmares can be not only the psychological state of a person, but also poor health, discovered or not yet manifested diseases of the internal organs.

The likelihood of nightmares in such cases is high if a person suffers from headaches, body temperature rises, overexcitation, neurosis, or oxygen starvation occurs. Breathing disorders during snoring - can also lead to the appearance of "terrible pictures".

Binge eating

One of the most common causes of nightmares, and perhaps one of the most easily eliminated, is overeating. If you overeat before going to bed, then most likely you will get - disruption of the organs, overexcitation - and, as a result, terrible dreams.

So, you are very likely to “asking for” bad dreams if you eat fatty or spicy food before going to bed - such food raises body temperature, speeds up metabolism and 100% prevents you from fully resting.

Poor sleep conditions

External stimuli: bright light, flicker, loud sounds, music, lack of air - turn into dreams in an exaggerated form, including those with "nightmare" content.

One of the possible causes of negative plots in dreams can even be the wrong placement / location of the bed! It is worth rearranging the bed or just lying on another bed, nightmares can recede.

Creative person

It is believed that creative people have nightmares more often than others, since they are more sensitive to the outside world and deeply experience what is happening.

Sometimes people of "creativity" are able to predict in a dream the onset of the negative consequences of any actions in reality. Terrible dreams in such cases act as a kind of warning.

Bad habits and medication

People who have abused alcohol (with a hangover or after a binge), drugs (God forbid!) or products containing an increased proportion of caffeine “attract” negative dreams to themselves, because they are in extreme agitation, the body does not rest and does not relax, “bringing » these substances.

The beginning of taking medications (or, conversely, the completion) can cause nightmarish visions in a dream (especially if these drugs are hypnotic, sedatives or antidepressants).

The "secret" side of personality

And at the end of the list, I would like to say that nightmares sometimes become a “shadow” of a person - something that he cannot accept in himself, and in life he hides behind restraint, upbringing (for example, aggressive feelings, or insecurity).

What to do if nightmares come regularly?

Prevent bad dreams and reduce their impact on the physical and emotional condition the following recommendations will help:

Sleep and nutrition

1. Every night try to fall asleep before 22:00.
2. Eat 3-4 hours before bed. Refuse the evening use of nuts, legumes, meat.

Healthy lifestyle and relaxation

1. Before going to bed, do something nice for yourself: take a bath, drink warm chamomile tea or milk with honey.
2. Walking in the fresh air, airing the room or sleeping with an open window help to get rid of unpleasant dreams.
3. Moderate sports and physical activity will help relieve stress, discharge, reduce anxiety.

1. Application of painting therapy - with drawing separate parts nightmare and adding bright colors to the “picture”, introducing positive elements (sun, smiles, etc.)
2. The use of some elements from yoga (for example, breathing exercises to calm music).

Finding and solving problems while awake

1. Finding a way out of difficult situations, finding internal or external resources to get out of stress.
2. Discussing nightmares with loved ones and relatives - an outside perspective can help identify / solve the problem.
3. Strengthening self-esteem.
4. If you are in the middle of a nightmare, "reprogram" yourself for a positive dream outcome.

If the nightmares recur even after taking the above measures, the best solution would be to seek the help of a doctor.

Whatever the reasons for your having nightmares, we wish you a speedy resolution of them, sweet dreams and good rest during the night and day!

A feeling of horror and stiffness of the body, a feeling of suffocation, auditory and visual hallucinations ... Some call it a waking nightmare, and in medicine this phenomenon is known as sleep paralysis - a strange, but absolutely harmless phenomenon.

Imagine: you are fast asleep, but suddenly you wake up. Your eyes are open and you see something or someone in front of you. This creature sits in front of you and presses on your chest or wants to strangle you. You try to scream, but you can't make a sound. You try to move, but your body won't obey you. It seems to you that the creature is pressing on you more and more, but ... you are absolutely helpless.

Such a frightening state is not fiction or a figment of fantasy. This condition is known medically as sleep paralysis. According to statistics, at least half of the people have experienced this at least once in their lives.

Sleep paralysis lasts from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. And, in fact, it can appear both before falling asleep and after waking up. This condition is the opposite when muscle paralysis does not occur during sleep. Sleep paralysis is accompanied by auditory and visual hallucinations, a feeling of weightlessness, difficulty in breathing, the inability to move (but the movement of the eyes is preserved), and many other frightening sensations.

In many cultures of all times, this condition had its own similar explanation. For example, in Japan they say that during paralysis, the giant demon Kanashibari puts his foot on the chest of a sleeping person. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that at this time a hungry demon Incubus visits a person. In Scandinavia, Mara is a cursed woman who comes to a sleeping person and sits on his chest. In Turkey it is Jinn, in Greece it is Mora.

In official medicine, the study of sleep paralysis began in the 19th century. Dr. Mitchell was the first doctor to see patients with this condition and try to find the cause of it. According to his research, sleep paralysis occurs when a person regains consciousness, but, while still in a dream, cannot move.

Further research into this phenomenon led scientists to discover the mysteries hidden in our brains. Nowadays it is known that the cause of sleep paralysis is the intersection of REM sleep and the awakening phase. During the normal cycle of REM sleep, you dream, during this time many sensory stimuli are involved, but the brain is completely immersed in sleep. In this phase, certain neurotransmitters are released, due to which your muscles are actually “paralyzed”, and you cannot move. In medicine, this is called muscle atony. Muscle atony prevents sudden movements in sleep and awakening from them.

Where does this failure occur, which causes the onset of frightening sleep paralysis? At first, you are in REM sleep. You see a dream, the muscles are paralyzed due to muscle atony. But the brain does not sleep. He is conscious. Therefore, it seems to you that you see something or feel its presence. Also, muscle atony removes conscious control over breathing. Breathing quickens, becomes fast and shallow: a person inhales more carbon dioxide, which causes congestion in the airways. The wakefulness of the brain, combined with terror and fright, creates a need for oxygen. But your body is in REM sleep, and your attempts to inhale some air are futile due to muscle atony.

This lack of air is perceived by the brain as suffocation or pressure on the chest. In other words, during sleep paralysis, the brain wakes up, but the body does not, and the paralysis persists for some time. In some cases, this state is accompanied by a feeling that it is still possible to move a finger, but the transition from thought to movement takes a very long time. But as soon as this succeeds, everything disappears in an instant.

If the phenomenon of sleep paralysis recurs frequently, it may indicate a sleep disorder, but for most people this condition may occur no more than once in a lifetime.

What else is known about this strange phenomenon? Sleep paralysis occurs more often while sleeping on your back. If you sleep on your right side, chances are you won't experience it.

You can get out of sleep paralysis different ways: move your tongue thumb hands or, conversely, completely relax the muscles.

The main thing to remember is that sleep paralysis is not dangerous and will go away on its own.

This may seem like the start of another X-Files series, but it's happening in reality. A person wakes up in the middle of the night and feels the presence of some strange people in the corner of the room. He cannot see them, but he clearly hears their speech. They agree to kill. But instead of jumping out of bed and running away, the person feels like his body is completely paralyzed. He is horrified to realize that his minutes in this world are numbered. Strange strangers approach the bed and stand at the head of the bed. The man closes his eyes, but immediately feels a vile spit in his face. Maybe this is a dream?

"Nightmare"

As part of a scientific project on sleep paralysis, scientists are investigating a condition where a person who wakes up at night is unable to move, while experiencing nightmarish hallucinations. In October 2015, the documentary Nightmare was released in the UK. The film completely recreates 8 stories real people who told about their nocturnal hallucinations. Despite the fact that the phenomenon is quite common, scientists still do not conduct large-scale studies of sleep paralysis. In fact, it is a shame for all of science to move so slowly and reluctantly towards unraveling the mystery.

Hallucinations and Risk Factors

Sleep paralysis most often occurs either at the beginning of the night, at the same time as falling asleep, or at the end of the night, just before waking up. Such hallucinations are usually divided into three categories. The first category makes you feel the presence of a stranger in the room, the second is a feeling of strong pressure on the chest or suffocation, and the third makes you feel your own body flying over the bed. The third category of illusory experiences is usually isolated and does not overlap with the first two.

In fact, this phenomenon is more common than it might seem at first glance. There was a recent study in the UK in which almost 30% of respondents said they had experienced at least one episode of sleep paralysis in their lifetime. 8% of 862 respondents reported more frequent hallucinations. This indicator echoes a sample of 30 studies from other countries. So, on average, 10% of respondents experience this condition.

One of the symptoms of a sleep disorder

In medicine, there is the term "narcolepsy", which characterizes a disease of the nervous system associated with a sleep disorder. In this state, the brain is unable to regulate the normal sleep-wake cycle. The condition we have described is one of the main symptoms of narcolepsy. It can also be caused by a number of other mental illnesses, or by stress that patients experience in the post-traumatic period.

Unfortunately, many people experience this condition for no apparent reason, without suffering psychiatric or neurological diseases. However, stressful situations, painful experiences, heavy thoughts and poor sleep quality can have a certain influence on the occurrence of such situations. So, people working in shifts or on a rotational basis, having sleep cycle disorders, more often indicated sleep paralysis.

What is the role of genetics?

In order to detect a genetic predisposition to sleep paralysis, scientists compared the incidence of sleep paralysis in identical twins. They share almost 100% of their genes with their brothers or sisters, while fraternal twins share only 50% of their genes with their other half. It turned out that the genetic relationship of this manifestation does exist. Scientists have suggested that sleep paralysis is caused by a change in a specific gene involved in the regulation of sleep and wake cycles. However, these assumptions have not yet been confirmed, and scientists still have a long and painstaking work in this direction.

Why are people immobilized?

As you know, sleep has three stages. During the REM phase of sleep, the human brain has increased activity. At this time, rapid eye movement occurs, and colorful and realistic dreams invade the human mind. In addition to the brain and heart, only the eyeballs and the respiratory system are involved in the work. But all the muscles of the body are temporarily completely paralyzed. Waking up during REM sleep automatically puts the muscles back into action. However, with sleep disorders or a malfunction in the genetic code, atony continues after waking up. This state does not last long, and most people take a minute to fully recover.

Recording brain activity

Sleep paralysis is a unique state of consciousness. Scientists were able to track and record the brain activity of the experiment participant during sleep paralysis and compare these results with the records made during REM sleep. It turned out that the records were identical.

How to treat this condition?

Unfortunately, to date, no effective therapeutic measures have been found to eliminate sleep paralysis. There just wasn't enough work done. In severe cases, doctors prescribe antidepressants to patients, in other cases they advise to improve the quality of sleep. These measures are likely to only help reduce the frequency of episodes.

Despite the fact that such a manifestation looks terrible, people need to realize that this is only a temporary and completely harmless event. It's like a nightmare, only a little more realistic. If researchers finally get down to business and find an effective medicine, then in the future people will completely get rid of terrible hallucinations.

Once a week, about a million healthy and quite prosperous people are disturbed by nightmares. Scenes of violence, catastrophes, fires, frightening monsters, falling from a height, escaping from persecution, etc. Waking up in a cold sweat with a "ticking" heart and after - a feeling of relief from the fact that this is just a dream, just a dream ... thank God.

Something like this has happened to everyone at least once.

Where is it from? And why is such devilry born in the brain during the desired rest? What do nightmares mean? Is it worth trying to forget them as soon as possible? To believe or not to the interpretation of dreams in modern dream books?

The head of the outpatient department N1 of the City Center for Borderline Conditions and Psychotherapy, Olga Gennadievna Prokopyeva, helped to figure everything out.

You have problems!

Dreams are a sphere of interest not only for mystics and esotericists, but also for professional psychotherapists. Medicine has accumulated some experience in "decoding" dreams. A big breakthrough in this was made by the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who considered the dream to be a dramatic depiction of the emotional and creative essence of a person.

During sleep, the body and mind relax. Consciousness rests, but the subconscious does not sleep for a minute. This is what writes the script of our dreams. In a dream, the worries and desires of a person do not disappear. On the contrary, they are trying to make themselves known louder.

Why do healthy people have nightmares? Stress and overwork, as well as a passion for horror films, mystical literature, may well lead to disturbing dreams. But more often the cause of a nightmare is a long-term psychological problem hidden from the human mind.

A dream is always the work of the unconscious (subconscious), which, through symbols and images, is trying to “open our eyes” to something meaningful. Indeed, in life, a person often displaces many of his problems into the subconscious. At the same time, he may consider that there is practically no negativity in his life. But when everything is really normal, nightmares do not occur. They may appear due to:

• post-traumatic stress disorder (often found in former "Afghans");
• neurasthenia - a disorder of the nervous system associated with prolonged overwork and exhaustion of the body;
• severe mental illness (reactive psychosis, schizophrenia);
• somatic diseases: atherosclerosis, arterial hypertension, diabetes and etc.

A nightmare comes to a healthy person in order to make it possible to deal with annoying events in his life. And it would be a mistake to immediately erase it from memory. Of course, the nightmare is depressing. Nevertheless, he is the key to the door behind which the solution to the problem.

A bad dream is that “guide” that leads us along and says: “I will show you your problems. If you solve them, I will disappear. No, I'll come back." In other words, the nightmare - the work of the subconscious - wants to prompt us to do something, to pay attention to our true needs.

For lady and gentleman

Terrible dreams also appear in those who are used to restraining their "uncivilized" emotions. Parents in childhood taught: it is indecent to openly show aggression, anger, resentment, discontent. But sometimes external peace is very difficult. Constant restraint does not allow you to "let off steam" - to pour out irritation.

However, it doesn't go away. Accumulates, grows, overwhelms the subconscious. It is not surprising that explosions, fires, train wrecks, etc. begin to dream. In this case, we can say that the nightmare was for the good, because at the physical level there was a release from some part of negative emotions. The subconscious transformed them into an aggressive image, the person "worked out" the negative in a dream - which means that the stone is off the shoulders. But if his behavior is still too enslaved, the nightmare will come again.

For mental health, it is important to find a way to release feelings of discontent, rage and anger. Effectively "reset" them at the physical level, doing boxing, wushu, aerobics, fitness, etc.

Wake up and sing

Feelings after a nightmare are always painful. You have just experienced fear (perhaps bordering on horror), trembling, or, on the contrary, are in a stupor. Not only is the heart pounding, breathing is quickened - someone even has a jump in blood pressure. How to calm down after waking up? Try to quickly feel the reality, that it was just a dream and nothing threatens you.

It is important to switch your attention and relax in any way.

First- Fix your breathing. Breathe calmly and deeply, paying attention to the long exhalation. It helps relieve tension and relax muscles.

Second step: drink a glass of cool water. This will calm you down even more.

Third: look around to find yourself "at ease" again. If it's already morning, turn on music that evokes pleasant associations, sing something, and then be sure to take a shower - the water will wash away energy negative.

Do you believe in dream books?

Often in popular print and online publications you can read a curious interpretation of the meaning of "typical" nightmares. Here for example:

Dream: Your teeth are falling out.

Meaning: In fact, you feel that there is something in your appearance that prevents you from communicating with others.

Dream: You are stuck in a quagmire and cannot move.

Meaning: In life, you don't decide much on your own. Something prevents you from expressing your true feelings.

Dream: You are trapped or locked up.

Meaning: In some ways, you experience a feeling of limitation, you cannot act on your own.

Dream: Falling from a great height.

Meaning: It is a feeling of lack of support and intense anxiety. You need to be more calm and confident.

Do you believe it? In my opinion, such an interpretation should not be taken seriously. It is too simplistic - it is possible that in one case out of ten this will be the correct interpretation. However, in order to actually determine what a dream means, you need to see a person, know a lot about him - his emotional state, the situation in which he is, etc. So the above interpretation can only serve as an approximate diagram.

For the same reason, one should not trust too much the currently replicated dream books. After all, each symbol and image in a dream can have many meanings. For example, someone saw a mountain in a dream.
First option: it can be considered as a person's self-esteem - how high this mountain is, how it looks, whether grass grows on it, etc.
Second option when a woman sees a dream: this is a symbol of her relationship with men.
Third- emotional communication with the father.

Finally, let's take this example: a person has a dream in which a limb is cut off. Printout meaning: You are being ignored and mistreated. Maybe you are right. But do not forget that, for example, hands are a symbol of relationships, affection, trust, feeding, etc. Therefore, the solution to sleep may be one of the problems that the symbol indicates.

Therefore, the approach to "decoding" is only individual. There can be no categorical and unambiguous. But in any case, if the nightmares are repeated, their analysis does not give a result, and it is impossible to cope with the problem, contact a psychotherapist.

Baby, don't be afraid!

When your child has a bad dream, he talks about it under great impression, never dismiss these revelations. Help him sort out the nightmare, be sure to come up with a scary story a happy ending.

Children always admire some superheroes of fairy tales, cartoons. So talk to the kid: “That terrible monster that you saw in a dream will definitely help you defeat Batman, Spider-Man (another favorite positive character). You will definitely defeat it, it will turn into a small animal and run away. There is nothing more to fear!”

The child, trusting you, will perceive it sincerely and joyfully. But if the nightmares recur, it is worth contacting child psychologist.

Alla Martinkevich, nterfax.by

Cinderella's nightmare

Source: Zakharov AI "Day and night fears in children." - St. Petersburg: Soyuz Publishing House, 2004

CS can be duplicated, repeated, sometimes acquire an obsessive character. In children, this is not stretched out over many years, as in adults; for several weeks, or even months, the child may be in an incomprehensible tension for adults before going to bed. What he doesn’t invent in order not to go to bed on time, he takes additional security measures - closer to his parents, the light after falling asleep should be on, it’s best to open the door halfway, just in case. Yes, and the dream itself becomes restless - it’s not clear what it says, it screams, it can fall off the bed, it runs to the toilet or to its parents, sometimes it can even wet itself ...

Calming conversations before bed don't always help. TV is categorically contraindicated, as well as quarrels of parents, from which internal tension and anxiety arise even more. If the child is excited, anxious before going to sleep, sad, sad, then the CS follow more and more often, with frightening inevitability, like an obsession.

The most unpleasant thing is waiting for the CS, when it is becoming more and more difficult to put the children to bed on time, parents are also nervous; here it is not far from nervous breakdowns, punishments; There are enough threats, but nothing cardinal, positive is happening.

Retribution in the morning - lethargy, capriciousness, a feeling of "brokenness", causeless stubbornness and negativism in the afternoon. There are more and more quarrels and irritations in relations with children. They no longer have calm, normal health, good spirits and self-confidence. In the evening, everything is repeated with increasing emotional losses and tension. And so from day to day, from night to night.

When do you often dream of repeated CS? There is no doubt that there is a genetic basis for this phenomenon. If one of the parents experienced this in childhood, then the likelihood of recurring CS in children will be more significant. If both parents are predisposed to abundant sleep in general, CS in particular, and even more so to their repetitions, then there is no need to wait once again for an exception to this rule. Impressionability, developed long-term or emotional memory and, as already noted, some self-doubt, albeit in the form of excessive dependence on parents, are also necessary, not to mention an increased level of anxiety and fears.

A high frequency of CS is relatively more often observed in children who have undergone psychological trauma, emotional shock, shocks, the trace of which manifests itself not so much during the day as at night. Nightmares can be distinguished as frequent repetitions, of the same type in meaning, or intrusive CS.

We will demonstrate frequent repetitions of the CS in a 5-year-old girl (as in other cited cases, the survey was carried out for two weeks): “The dinosaur broke our house”, “Lost in the forest”, “Dragon”, “Koshchei”, “The wolf was chasing me ". Already by this minimum of the COP, one can assume how difficult it is for a girl to live in a family.

What then to say about other CSs, say, a boy of 5 years old: "The car got stuck", "The window was broken", "All the windows flew out in the house", "Felled out of the window", "The wolf ran after me", "The wheels were blown away" , "Robots", "The car got stuck in the mud", "They threw a stone into the window", "The glasses rang". Something unpleasant almost always happens in a dream, and the window does not protect, but rings, collapses, and danger cannot be avoided either within the walls of the house or outside it. Doom, hopelessness are also visible from the tragic ending: "I fell out of the window."

It wasn’t too bad before in his family, but the relationship between the parents became more and more strained, and, indeed, 3 months after these dreams, the parents separated, and the boy was given to his grandmother. So he fell out of the family, at home, lost a sense of his own value, and at the same time the meaning of life.

We add that he was right-brained, artistically gifted, impressionable, with a developed imagination. So he dreamed of all sorts of misfortunes at night. As if he was a parapsychologist or a psychic. So it is, it is at the age of 5 that children discover extrasensory abilities, which in most cases "will sink into oblivion" at the age of 6. Why so - there are no explanations. Let's make a hypothesis.

At the age of 5, the age-related activity of the left hemisphere is activated. If until the age of 5, right hemisphere is more or less characteristic of all children, then from the age of 6, left hemisphere and right hemisphere begin to differentiate more clearly.

Left-hemisphere "with might and main" read, consider, speak in adult phrases, their rationalism, a tendency to think abstractly, theoretically, are already visible. Right hemispheres act more, play, discover creative, artistic abilities. Early intellectual learning is an overwhelming burden for them, although they can amaze adults with their heuristic abilities.

And the fact that from the age of 5 in right hemisphere (unlike mixed right hemisphere-left hemisphere) children, the activity of the left hemisphere not only does not increase, but decreases more and more with subsequent age, just leads to a compensatory increase in the activity of the right hemisphere with its subconscious, intuitive perception. "Flash" of his activity and allows you to "see through" - accurately determine the colors in the envelope or anticipate further developments in the family.

And now let's think, remember, observe - how children start to be afraid for no reason, feel sad or eat poorly. Didn’t they perceive before us a real threat to their existence, and hence to the existence of the family, and shouldn’t we listen to their inner voice in a timely manner, if only we love children and want to keep the family as the most sacred in our life.

Often repeated dreams of the same type include the CS of a 5-year-old boy: "The little man could not get out of the cone", "The car crashed", "Baba Yaga and the Serpent Gorynych fought", "Barmaley", "Home Alone", " A ghost was chasing me." The first dream reproduces his very difficult birth, after three stimulations and other obstetric measures. Often left alone at home, when parents disappear without any explanation, no one knows where. Here, in the imagination, monsters appear, quarreling, like parents, among themselves.

Another 5-year-old boy, also right-brained and with a number of fears exceeding the age norm, has even worse dreams: "Baba Yaga ate a little man", "Wolf wanted to eat", "Baba Yaga", "Wolf", "Angry dog". Eat, bite, destroy - all this reflects the constant threats from the adults in the family who do not think about their behavior.

What good things another 5-year-old boy sees in life, we will understand from his dreams of the same type in terms of surprises and aggression: “The trolleybus wires burned”, “The car ran out of gas”, “The car crashed”, “The dog was chasing”, “Aliens beat” , "Aliens shot at the skeleton", "The car was collecting garbage and wanted to pick me up." He is constantly punished, scolded, and in the family, often drunk or indifferent, like aliens, to his needs, concerns, and interests, his parents do not put him in anything.

Kindness would be nice for the parents of a 4-year-old girl who constantly dreams: "Baba Yaga is evil", "Koschei almost killed", "Koschei wanted to eat a kitten", "Baba Yaga ate", "Evil doll", "Evil aunt", "Terrible jacket", "Angry bird". And all this at the age of 4 - when the need for parents' love is so great, here - sheer anger, hatred, and even once the girl almost lost her life, becoming seriously ill. In the family, everyone speaks in a raised voice, gets annoyed, insults each other. What kind of love, understanding, elementary decency and kindness are there.

Obsessive CS more often haunt children after 10 years old - let us recall at least chilling falls into a well, an abyss from the top floor. Horror lives for a long time in the subconscious part of the psyche, growing with each subsequent similar dream. And the more the child thinks about the nightmare experienced in a dream, expects it, the more often, by contrast, he visits him. The regularity established in neurosology (the doctrine of neuroses) works - obsessive thoughts, fears, movements are fed (feeded) by a contrasting attitude towards themselves.

For example, the more a person thinks about good people or bad deeds, or vice versa, the more strongly this is fixed as a dominant obsession. It is the same with obsessive CSs - the more one thinks about them with the hope of their disappearance, that is, a positive attitude develops, the more forcefully and dramatically they appear, come to life at night. This also applies to obsessive movements-rituals: the more you want to stop turning the switch on and off a certain number of times before going to bed, the more you want to do it.

Therefore, we, like many other doctors, do not recommend in this way to deal with obsessive tics, stereotypically repetitive twitching of the muscles of the eyelids, face, torso. Meanwhile, and now, illiterate healers can get "practical" advice: stand in front of a mirror and restrain the outward expression of nervous tics. Indeed, it is possible to restrain, only then everything resumes with greater force.

Contrast is not the only condition for the appearance of CS. In the physiology of higher nervous activity, the phase states of the functional activity of the brain have long been described: equalizing, paradoxical, and ultraparadoxical phases. They are clearly visible during falling asleep and the onset of a hypnotic state close to it.

In the equalizing phase, all external noises, as it were, balance out, decrease in their intensity. In the paradoxical phase, something begins to be perceived even more strongly than usual: some sounds, voices, as if snatched from the general range of external stimuli and noise. Here, the thought can strike our imagination, which in ordinary life we ​​do not attach importance to, and the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bdanger, albeit unreal at the moment, but expected in a dream. In the ultra-paradoxical phase, everything happens the other way around - sour, bitter becomes sweet, the scoundrel turns into a hero, evil triumphs, becomes a synonym for good, and the latter becomes a prejudice, a disadvantage or simply superfluous, unnecessary, obsolete.

Physiologists have not talked about this, but we are deeply convinced of the chronic, permanent, permanent presence of such phases in some people, whether in certain activities, human interactions or politics. Elementary examples are stubbornness and negativism. In pathological or morbid stubbornness, in contrast to psychologically motivated, a paradoxical phase is clearly traced. Parents usually say in this case: you have to raise your voice more and more, shout, punish with zero or the opposite result.

Negativism - when instead of "stop" the child goes, instead of the order to sit down, he gets up, that is, he does not stop what is condemned, forbidden, but strives to implement it at all costs. And this does not always indicate the "bad" or "harmful" nature of the child. Usually, such a model of "harmfulness" is presented by parents themselves, lazily or furiously quarreling, constantly blaming each other, and at the same time the children, of mistakes, shortcomings, vices, delusions, bias.

A normal brain, even a child's, cannot react to such harm for a long time without harming itself. That is why a protective reflex reaction is triggered, when at first only strong threats from parents (reinforced by punishment, deprivation of satisfaction of needs in significant areas) are heard and cause a response. Then the leveling phase turns into a paradoxical one. Then painful stubbornness arises - the child "does not hear", continues to behave as if nothing had happened or "digs", sleeps on the go instead of active actions. The ultra-paradoxical phase speaks of a perversion of nervous activity - the appearance of reverse, or mirror, negatively focused reflections, when doing badly is considered good and vice versa, as well as instead of agreeing to prefer confrontation, conflict and hostility.

So in a dream: instead of positive characters, heroes, negative, nasty, terrible images appear, which, without a twinge of conscience, do their dirty work. No wonder the phase of dreams in a night's sleep is called paradoxical sleep, when the slightest stimuli cause inadequately strong reactions, which, in our opinion, turn into a CS in an ultraparadoxical phase. Example: parents are not always so bad, but it is in the CS that they appear as complete images ... I almost said scoundrels, but let's get better - monsters like Baba Yaga and Koshchei.

Let us note that when the children feel very bad and it does not last a day or a month, say, their parents abandoned them long ago, they are cruel to the end, then the emotional sphere of such unfortunate people will be so damaged that it will not even be able to produce dreams, there cannot be positive ones in nature, and negative ones, perhaps, like flashes of suffering so often endured that they leave indifferent.

Any misfortune can increase sensitivity, but if it follows one after another, then the feelings will be dulled so much that the response to other sufferings, including those around them, will disappear. Moreover, instead of fear of negative, fairy tale characters there is an identification with them in a dream, where there is scope for strength, aggression and evil. This is already one of the symptoms, moreover the earliest, of an unfavorable mental transformation into an aggressively destructive or psychopathic personality.

Our thoughts about intrusive thoughts and fears in general and the CS in particular, it is necessary to support them with anxious and suspicious character traits of children. Their prerequisite is clearly genetic, and the parents themselves show the corresponding example.

With anxiety in children, intolerance increases, and even the fear of the resumption of CS, attracted by contrast. With suspiciousness, the danger is exaggerated, it is expected where it cannot be. In combination with a developed imagination, the ability to fantasize, anxiety and suspiciousness are nutritious psychic soil for the CS.

Why do the same dreams keep repeating? To do this, you need to have a developed long-term or emotional memory in order to "carefully" store traces of past traumatic experiences, albeit processed by the imagination. The inflexibility of thinking is also evident - it would be possible in the daytime, before the appearance of the CS, to develop a more adequate attitude towards the traumatic events underlying them. But just this is not given, and not only due to age, but precisely because of insufficient flexibility or plasticity of nervous processes in the terminology of physiologists.

As a result, the affects inherent in age, the images freeze, turn into icy, monumental structures, formations, like the skeleton of the dominant of fear. The fear itself causes a focus of excitation in the right hemisphere, fenced off in the form of compensatory inhibition from the mental, analytical and critical activity of the left hemisphere. As a result, children are even more afraid of CS, instead of rationally approaching their content, searching for alternatives and switching to other, more meaningful life goals. And an adult here needs the help of a specialist, then what can we say about children.

Of course, if during the day, under the influence of random or psychologically directed events, the traumatic circumstances of a child’s life disappear or he himself is taught by an experienced teacher, psychologist, doctor to look at his dreams in a different way, the easier it is to neutralize their traumatic sound with the psychotherapeutic method developed by us to overcome fears. Then the CS will "de-energize" by itself - they will lose their negative impact on the child's psyche or completely cease to exist.

Let's talk about obsessive CS in a boy of only three years. In the evening he cannot sleep peacefully, tosses and turns at night, sometimes throws off the covers, in the morning he is not himself, is capricious, cries a little and his mother stopped letting her go to work. Some morning neurosis. In kindergarten, it gradually thaws, but the closer to the evening, the more excited, worried, panicked.

His mother is a very capable woman, she studies endlessly, is full of ambitious plans, by her nature is left-brained, of a rational-thinking plan. As an emancipated woman, she met with men, settled on one thing, decided to give birth without registering a marriage (which, like a craze, unfortunately arose for children), but the trouble happened - the pregnancy died.

After 6 months, she unexpectedly became pregnant again, but decided to keep the child, even if he violated her more important life plans; True, she only wanted to see a girl, but she didn’t even want to think about a boy. And it is no coincidence that twice without special reasons there was a threat of miscarriage - the “burden” that arose in this way affected.

Let's take a closer look at the mother. Despite her outstanding intellectual and business abilities, she is prone to unrest, anxiety, and doubts about the correctness of her actions. Like her mother - the grandmother who lives with them - she loved to threaten her son with all sorts of punishments, which he has so far learned as the ultimate truth. And although the mother, like her grandmother, was extremely impatient and inconsistent in her demands, she often got annoyed, angry and physically punished the future man, he could not calm down at home. The atmosphere there was unfavorable for the development of children in general and our hero in particular.

Between mother and grandmother, tensions, omissions, and resentments that had been going on since childhood continued. And the grandmother herself once broke up with her husband and turned all her indomitable energy on her daughter, who, from her point of view, cannot properly raise children. There was no father in the family, as already noted, after conception he simply became unnecessary, his wife immediately rejected him, forgot, began to hate him.

Since the mother is an outwardly attractive woman (and this is more than often found in neuroses in children), one can guess that she was more sympathetic to herself than to her son. She was quickly found by a younger man who wanted to immediately set her on the path of truth, to re-educate her. None of this, except for conflicts, worked out, and now both spouses were waiting for the approaching date of the divorce. In such a life drama, the "happy childhood of the boy" proceeded.

But if only this. In childhood, it seemed to her mother (that is, she had no imagination and suspiciousness from the very beginning) that monsters live under the bed, only striving to bite. Her husband - stepfather - albeit not a father, but the boy spent more than two years in his presence - also in childhood was not a brave dozen and at 7-10 years old he was afraid of the dark before going to bed and monsters materializing from it. Maybe that's why he became a policeman, in reality opposing such prototypes from people's lives.

As soon as the hero of our story was born, he was immediately transferred to the infectious diseases hospital without a mother for a whole month in order to clarify what was happening to him, why the chair was like that, why he often screamed, or even twisted his legs. And technocratically oriented doctors were unaware that the whole thing was a nervous breakdown acquired in utero. The mother at that time was nervous, did not want a child, and at the same time she was afraid that he would never be again.

The mother's anxiety, irritation, discontent and depressed state of mind were reflected in her hormonal state, transmitted to the fetus through the circulatory network. The tense state of the mother contributed to the hypertonicity of the muscles, including the muscles of the uterus, which caused the threat of premature expulsion of the fetus. While they were sorting out what was happening, mother and son were separated for a whole month. Such mental deprivation will then come back to haunt the CS. In the meantime, other misfortunes have sufficed.

Despite the neuro-somatic weakness (and he suffered from laryngotracheitis, and there were countless doctors), his mother tried to send him to a nursery as soon as possible - in the second year of life, and this is a very unfavorable age for ending emotional contact with his mother. The child is still too dependent on the mother, does not need any communication with peers, and if he is emotionally sensitive and attached to the mother, then an emotional disorder of varying duration will always occur. And so it happened.

Constant tears followed, a scream, sleep was disturbed, that is, the already existing signs of nervousness intensified. He could not be sent to a nursery not only because of nervousness and increased vulnerability, but also because of the traumatic experience of separation from his mother in the first month of life. There are such terms in allergology: sensitization (increased sensitivity of the body to the action of any harmful factors) and idiosyncratic reactions arising against its background (edema, urticaria, allergic cough, suffocation). As the latter, the boy experienced an affective (reactive) state during repeated, more traumatic separation from his mother.

We started talking to the boy. He is three years old, but he understands everything and answers: his head hurts during the day (from tension), in the morning his stomach worries. Later we guessed that the latter was after an extremely restless sleep and the presence of a CS in it. In the navel area there is a projection of the solar plexus - the most powerful vegetative formation that innervates the internal organs. We know how the head hurts from unrest and tension, the heart beats, the activity of the gastrointestinal tract is upset. For children, the latter is typical just in the form of nerve spasms - pain in the abdomen. Especially in the morning, when you need to go to an unloved kindergarten, eat semolina and sleep as much as you should during the day, and at the same time make a friendly face not to all friendly peers.

To our clarifying questions, the boy explained that at home all adults are strict, they receive most of the comments and prohibitions from their mother, she often worries. Grandmother constantly scolds, she also punishes with a strap, grandfather screams and even once hoarse from it. As you can see, each of the adults has his own "specialization" in the so-called education. We add that the grandfather who appeared out of nowhere does not live in the family, but appears in it like a "flying Dutchman". Nevertheless, he is closer, dearer to the boy than the more formally behaving stepfather.

They began to find out what fears the boy is subject to. It was then that he said that he was most afraid of the Serpent Gorynych, and at night - that he would be carried away. Who exactly, now it was not difficult to guess. During the time of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, this was exactly what happened. And the Serpent Gorynych just flaunted on the banners, more simply - the Dragon. Men were killed (and the boy does not have a father), women were captured, and the children were treated differently, depending on age. In our case, most likely, he would not have survived either. Not without reason, after the appearance of the Serpent Gorynych in his collective unconscious, he began, which is completely not typical for his age, to say with sadness that mom and dad (stepfather) will become old (we continue: they will die, they will not be). Usually understanding or awareness of the end of life comes at 5 years old, but not at 3 years old.

Intellectual abilities in this case are undeniable. But the imagination is even more developed, obviously of an artistic plan. No wonder he, unlike the left hemisphere mother, is completely right hemisphere. And the right-brained have naturally developed intuition and emotional memory even for long-term traumatic events.

As there is a novel and a film "Gone with the Wind", so we could call our story "Dragon Away". The boy is afraid not only of the Dragon as a symbol of evil, aggression and death, but mainly that he will be left alone, without a mother, or even disappear without having time to properly be born. In an imaginary game of family, he takes the role of a mother - after all, the closest adult to him, not a grandmother who methodically beats with a strap, not a grandfather who disappears forever, and even more so a stepfather, more than a strict one, with whom his mother is now divorcing.

It was not yet possible to use drawings to reduce the severity of fears due to their young age and extremely imperfect graphic capabilities. Usually drawing fears is carried out from the age of five. There was a game - the most effective method of overcoming fears. Only it needs to be well directed, directed so that it has a therapeutic effect.

The mother was first asked what games the child prefers, how he behaves in them, then he was given the opportunity to play independently without the mother and with her. In almost all the few games at home, the boy strove to play the role of protecting others from any external danger. He defended himself the worst. This was evident at the reception. Then the ability to imitate, characteristic of the age of 2-4 years, was used. The boy became an attacker, that is, he symbolized an external danger, and the author, in the role of a defender, showed how to repel it. After the role reversal, the boy was already more confident.

Now it was possible to proceed to the main thing - desensitization (the reverse process of sensitization) of the fear of separation, the embodiment of which, like the fear of death, was the Dragon.

The boy was offered to either portray himself, that is, a fearful inhabitant of a conditionally built village of several houses, or become a Dragon for a while (according to the principle - "get into the skin of a wolf"). The preference was given to the last option, which is important for increasing one's own confidence. Mother, stepfather and doctor in the role of villagers peacefully engaged in various activities (a group of students, psychologists and graduate students additionally participated in the game): -someone cooked porridge, someone was engaged in cleaning, read morality or punished children.

Suddenly, some unpleasant whistling, hooting was heard, thunder rumbled (all this was reproduced in the next room with an ordinary whistle, pipe, drum). At first, the inhabitants were alarmed, then calmed down, especially since one of them persistently convinced everyone that there were no reasons for danger and panic. However, the warning signals became more frequent and stronger, and some residents began to express serious concern. In general, everything was in motion, excited, seething.

The light dimmed (most of the lamps were turned off), the roar behind the door intensified, suddenly it opened and the Dragon flew into the room, that is, the village, a boy in a mask appropriate for this occasion. Panic began, everyone escaped as best they could, not thinking about resistance and helping loved ones. Of all those present, the dragon captured only his mother and stepfather.

The next game action was already with a rearrangement of roles: the boy was a warrior - the protector of the inhabitants, and the doctor portrayed the Dragon. The latter, as you guessed, was defeated by the defender, all the inhabitants breathed a sigh of relief, began to live normally, work, raise children.

For the first time in several years, the boy fell asleep immediately, the night was surprisingly calm, and soon he began to let his mother go to work without a tremor of the soul.

In this example, we see how very difficult it was to comprehend the psychological meaning of the obsessive CS and its conditionality due to the unfavorable life history of the boy. Without this comprehension it was impossible to help him, as, indeed, with the rest, daytime, fears. The question arises: could it not have been easier to give sleeping pills, tranquilizers (tazepam, nozepam, radedorm), and he would have slept, as they say, without hind legs. Unfortunately, this is often the case. Why "Unfortunately"? Yes, because the problem of the CS would not be solved in a psychological way, but would be artificially crushed, slowed down, driven into a dead end. During the day, for sure, there would be an increase in fears, and the example of swallowing pills for any disorder (and in adolescence, "wheels" - psychotropic drugs) would be obvious.

Another older boy, 7 years old, repeatedly has the same dream, which was drawn at our request. A very strange, at first glance, dream: the Dinosaur, standing on its hind limbs, is trying to get to the cradle suspended in the upper corner of the room. The boy is hiding in the cradle. It is not known when the Dinosaur grabs the cradle, but, feeling that there is not much left before his goal, the boy wakes up in horror and rushes to his parents, or rather, to his father, who, unlike his mother, is able to calm and caress.

The mother herself is in neurotic state, and all her attention, love, care are directed to her younger brother. The latter just appeared at the most inopportune time for the elder - at 3 years old. When the eldest turned 4, the youngest began to walk, and his mother only took care of him. But it is at 4 years, as we have repeatedly noted, that there is a peak emotional development children and love for a parent of the opposite sex. The hindering factor for this is precisely the appearance of a more successful, healthy and younger brother or sister. So it happened here too.

Moreover, the relationship between the mother and the elder was getting worse and worse, and from the age of 5, when he objected to the attacks more and more reasonably, the mother began to threaten that she would give him back to her grandmother, that is, completely deprive her of love and contact with herself. It already happened, when he was one year old, he was taken to distant lands to his grandmother, where he stayed for up to two years. It is in the year that children are noticeably attached to their mother and painfully perceive not only separation, but also the appearance of new unfamiliar adults, especially older women, who are so contrastingly unlike a younger and more direct mother.

Now the mother is experiencing her attitude towards her son at the age of 5, considering him unfair. But the deed has already been done, a crack has appeared in relations with his son. Here the father would have to help, take care of his son, influence, set an example. But the father, as always, is busy. Not very contact and sociable by nature, he entrusted everything to his wife, which sometimes happens to be the greatest mistake of fathers, especially at the age in question.

Let's see what other misfortunes befell the boy and whether there will be too many of them for one, still such a short life. His parents did not expect him at all and were not ready for the appearance of children at that time. Enough worries and so. Besides, the father would have preferred, for that matter, the appearance of a girl rather than a boy.

During pregnancy, the mother was in a state of constant tension and anxiety, which, as we know, is not in vain. The boy was born weak, he could not even scream, intestinal dysbacteriosis was immediately discovered. At 9 months old, he experienced a burn with boiling water, which happens to parents who are not very tuned in to careful care for a child who was not really expected. As soon as he got to his feet, he was taken - where, you know.

It was there, at my grandmother's, that the night terrors began - screams in a dream; all together - the anxiety experienced in the womb; burn, acutely experienced separation from the mother, fear at the sight of the "new mother".

Upon his return, he was sent to a nursery and another grandmother, thus he experienced a double emotional blow. Night fears only intensified, in the morning I could not say anything intelligible, but I began to be terribly afraid of the Wolf during the day. We have already said more than once that the Wolf "loves" to inhabit the night space of children aged 2-4 years, and the horror experienced in front of him is akin to the subsequent developing fear of death. The wolf only emphasized the boy's defenselessness, his emotional vulnerability and anxiety, sharpened by separation from his mother, living with anxious grandmothers and the lack of contact with his father, who could "kill the Wolf".

But that's not all. At the age of 3, the baby underwent surgery under general anesthesia (a mask was put on) for phimosis (infringement of the foreskin). The emotional upheaval of unconsciousness in the impressionable boy further sharpened the already existing fear of death. And here is another dramatic event - the mother's sister committed suicide, and the parents and their son were at the funeral (before adolescence, it is better not to do this, even on the basis of the best intentions).

What is the result? Depressive attitude - lack of cheerfulness, a downcast look, a feeling of confusion and clearly not optimistic statements: "Why should I live like this", "No one needs me", "There will be nothing more in life at all." It means that he has experienced everything, does not believe in anything and is seized with a feeling of despair. Loss of the meaning of life - as psychologists would say. Yes, but only 7 years old. And if any diagnosis is made, then this is the most depressive neurosis. And in the evening he continues, as in 3-5 years, to be afraid of the dark, a closed room and the absence of adults.

Is it worth adding that his body's defenses, reactivity weakened to such an extent that various diseases fell endlessly, also not conducive to calmness and self-confidence.

So who is the Dinosaur in a dream and why is he getting close to the cradle? The dinosaur is the embodiment of danger and soullessness in the family that always exists for the boy, a further development of the threat to life presented earlier by the Wolf. The Dinosaur has an even larger mouth than the Wolf, which indicates an increase or intensification of the fear of death. The cradle is the symbol of life, the cradle, security, the womb, if you will. So he tries to hide in it, to hide (as in swaddling), to protect himself from the constantly arising external danger.

It’s as if they want to kidnap him, destroy him all the time, and there is an underlying, instinctively sharpened fear that the cradle, hanging, one might say, by a thread, will collapse, he will fall out of it or the Dinosaur will reach it one of the nights. That is why the presence of adults before going to bed, attention, kind words of parting words is required. But the boy does not have all this. So you have to flee at night and seek reassurance, think about it ... not from your mother, but from your father - emotionally more responsive, although not paying any serious attention to his son during the day.

A 4-year-old girl often has the same dream: "The snake bites my mother and me, and we die." The snake was drawn at our request. It was clear how black she was, terrible, wriggling, with a sting far protruding. When meeting with us, the girl stuttered badly and showed 26 fears out of 29, including before falling asleep, darkness, loneliness, a cramped room (where she slept), animals, especially snakes and dogs.

At night, from the age of 2, he wakes up and cries. Nothing intelligible, again, can not say. Apparently, she feels sorry for her mother and herself, and crying comes from fear in very sensitive and impressionable children.

For a long time, the mother could not conceive a child (there were operations on the appendages). But the expectation was rewarded, however, I had to be seriously worried because of the constantly pursuing threat of a miscarriage. The father would have preferred a boy, but this is so, more in theory. At 10 months old, the girl fell in the village and badly hurt her forehead (an increased convulsive readiness was detected on the EEG). At the age of 1.5, her grandfather was dying before her eyes, there was an appropriate atmosphere in the house.

It should be noted that both parents have high anxiety in general, and the father also has suspiciousness. Together with increased guardianship and anxiety on their part, this contributed to the growing fear of death in the girl, which often sounds in her statements.

At the age of 2, she was "lucky" again in the village - she and her grandmother were bitten by a dog, after which stuttering began. But even before that, she was already tense, excited, worried. Fright, screaming against the background of the already existing elements of convulsive activity caused a convulsive spasm of the vocal cords. Fear became fixed neurotically and, when it appeared in new, unexpected situations, it automatically turned on the spasm of the speech muscles and stuttering as their external manifestation. Let us add that the mother herself stuttered in childhood in similar circumstances.

If at the first consultation the girl, out of embarrassment, could not utter a single word, then after several play sessions, together with her parents and a group of assistants, to everyone's surprise, she began to speak almost without hesitation. A few months later disappeared on the EEG and traces of convulsive activity.

It means that fear held her tightly as the main source of tension and anxiety, and not the residual effects of a brain injury. Along with the passage of fears, as in the previous case, nightmares also disappeared. It was also necessary to raise the emotional tone of the girl, cheerfulness. Here the parents were at their best - they began to play more outdoor games at home, and with our help they themselves got rid of neurotic disorders.

Just don’t think that everything went so smoothly, flawlessly, that the girl suddenly stopped stuttering right away. No. There was a natural development of a slow, sometimes painful change in the attitude of parents towards their daughter. To be honest, they all tried: they indulged her whims, they brought various psychics, they paid visits to outstanding neuropathologists, and at times they used physical punishments in excess ...

Everything was there, but only modern scientific analysis, knowledge of the psychology of age development, neurosology and psychotherapy can understand the painful state of the girl in connection with the traumatic circumstances of her life, including before birth. You need to learn all this so as not to wave your hands and explain to parents who are gullible in such a situation that all this is from incoming forces, damage, the evil eye and other medieval fabrications.

The work of an experienced doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist can be compared with the work of a climber or rock climber high class. We walk freely flat surface, we experience tension when climbing a mountain and we can’t overcome an almost sheer wall at all. There seem to be some clues, but the hands break off, the legs hang in the air, and we are forced to abandon the idea. Thoughts come: isn't it easier to blow up this wall or smear your hands with sticky glue, but how then to tear them off? An experienced climber sees, feels, touches any roughness that he can cling to.

The main thing is to achieve balance, equilibrium, which is not given to most mere mortals, that is, to us. Training is necessary, but only capable person, albeit a disabled person from birth. So in practical psychology and psychotherapy, it is necessary to find any and at the same time significant, influencing events in the present. This is not taught at the medical institute, and psychologists, as always, do not have enough practice.

You need to learn in life, that is, to acquire your own experience of mistakes and achievements. An experienced specialist can teach because he sees, feels, touches all these invisible with a simple eye ledges used as a scientific, based on modern theory and practice, analysis. And help was developed by generations of psychotherapists, and not now fashionable charlatans, healers and shamans, who make people obedient robots - the executors of their unbridled desires and prejudices. A 6-year-old boy wakes up almost every night and runs to his parents. Not the first time it was possible to find out that he was "besieged" at night by ghosts, "tormented", "shaken". He is also "shaken" by nervous, unbalanced parents and grandmother, for whom there is not a single sphere of relations in the family where they would not conflict with each other, moreover, they directly have the ability to quarrel.

Mother generally flares up like a match, she is so nervous and excitable, and even anxious and suspicious to boot. The father is the same, minus the last two characteristics. But he is grouchy-meticulous, aggressively intolerant and jealously suspicious. Even by these characteristics, one can guess that he is far from being indifferent to alcohol. So it is, moreover, he categorically refused to go with his son to an appointment, which once again manifested his conflict and paranoid personality development (intolerance, intolerance, suspicion and jealousy).

As for physical punishment, my father was more than eager for them, and here was the only agreement, unanimity with the mother. The father himself was beaten in childhood by no less "sensitive" parents, and he clearly lost the ability to compassion, hardened, emotionally dulled. So hitting his son, and even hitting him methodically with a belt, is not a problem for him.

This “generational continuity” is observed by us as a pattern defined as follows: “If a parent in childhood experienced abuse in the form of frequent, systematic physical punishment, especially in the absence of love and emotional rejection of their individuality, then there is always a greater chance that he will experience less heartache, compassion for physical punishment of children and thus will use this type of punishment more often. "Pathology gives rise to pathology, or deviation causes deviation - which is in the case under consideration. Exceptions happen just like exceptions. They expected the child, but continued to quarrel as if nothing It happened. And the fact that he reacts in utero to an increased tone, irritation, screaming and swear words was unknown to them. But the threat of miscarriage was more than clearly manifested, and the only place where the expectant mother thought about the meaning of life was the antenatal department. The newborn screamed not immediately, but after the clap, thus obtaining the first experience of physical punishment.

In fact, he was weakened, all sluggish, inert, did not take the breast normally. The stress didn't go away. Nevertheless, he gradually regained his strength, but conflicts constantly arose at home, drunken showdowns, and in a year he was accidentally crushed by a heavily “loaded” grandmother, so until now he cannot stand drunk people and does not even enter the room where this happened . Remembers, therefore, up to the present.

His mother was already working when he was sent to kindergarten, to which he could not get used - he sat in the corner and played the same game. The teachers waved their hand at him: it doesn’t interfere, okay. In practice, he moved away from scandals at home, where he was afraid to show independence each time punished by irritated adults.

The restraint of emotions, the external expression of feelings just did not pass, which affected the intensification of the manifestations of diathesis. Usually, by the year these manifestations disappear, although individual symptoms can be observed up to 2-3 years, if parents abuse canned food, seasonings, broths, fried foods and the child drinks little water or it has a lot of harmful impurities (in St. total, water chlorination).

So, by the year, diathesis intensified, and now the child had a bloody mess on the folds of the arms from inflamed and combed crusts. As often happens, one of the parents, in this case, the mother, had the prerequisites for impaired metabolism, not without the participation of the nervous system.

During the conversation, an affirmative answer was received about the presence of a headache that has a shingles character, which is usually noted with neurasthenia. Survives the screams of parents, insults, physical punishment. In the game "Family" he chooses himself, and not the role of the father, as most of his peers do.

It detects 22 fears out of 29, that is, it is stuffed with fears, like gunpowder, ready to flare up at any moment. All these fears settle at night. Yes, even during the day he is afraid of a snow woman (an association with coldness and insensitivity to his mother and grandmother’s suffering), skeletons (the remains of Koshchei in the form of a symbol of paternal callousness, emotional avarice and aggressiveness), a vampire man (who, like adults in the family, deprived him of childhood and vitality) and ghosts (of his death).

As usual, at the beginning of the reception, we proposed to depict a family among other drawings. When they saw the drawing, they were even surprised, although they saw everything. On the left was his mother, then he depicted himself in a smaller figure, and on the right, in the third figure, a monster very similar to a ghost. He presented his mother, himself and the monster with only one color - red, and in the form of some kind of alien robots with square proportions and arms splayed like needles.

The most significant thing is that a monster is drawn in the place of the father. This is where the clue to his nightmarish obsessive dreams lies. Mother and grandmother, of course, are also good, but the main pathogenic link is undoubtedly the father, who loses every human image in a state of alcoholic intoxication. Being a source of constant fear in a boy, he appears in a dream as that monster that torments.

Game classes were prescribed to eliminate fears. The mother brought the father to the first of them, as they say, by the hand, but he defiantly sat down, without undressing, at the entrance and defiantly declared that he would not play, because he did not understand how his son's neurodermatitis could be treated in this way.

It was patiently explained to him, since he was at a consultation, that neurodermatitis is the last link in the chain nervous disorders my son, and he can gradually go away, as happens in most cases, if the nervous condition improves, fears are neutralized and sleep improves. And without the direct participation of parents, the process of treatment and strengthening of the nervous system cannot be considered reliable.

After hearing all this, the father, with a stubbornness worthy of best use, said angrily that no one played with him in childhood, but he grew up as a normal person. We did not enter into a debate with him on this issue and went to play with the boy and mother.

And now let's think about whether such a father has a normal psyche: he has absolutely no criticism of his state, as we see, deformed by childhood and alcohol. He recognizes violence as the norm, nightmares and fears - not worthy of attention, and he has no idea about compassion and willingness to help.

Do you think that the mother herself had the patience for four play sessions? Of course not. With difficulty, she came to only one more thing: it is always easier to quarrel than to restrain oneself, to look for points of understanding.

Once upon a time there was a boy of 5 years old, capable, gifted - almost absolute ear for music, composed any stories, just write it down. He woke up one day as if guilty or frightened - his parents did not understand. But all the nails on both hands were bitten clean, so that the blood from the affected areas of the skin still oozed. They understood or, rather, felt, felt that something was wrong, something had happened - their parents were musicians and they had no problem with intuitions as right-brained individuals.

However, all their attempts to find out what the bad thing happened were unsuccessful. Still, the boy was so tired after a fifteen-hour (!) working day (he studied, in addition to music, in two more than intellectual programs), that his only dream was to fall asleep, forget, just relax. This is exactly what did not work out - a tense brain did not give the opportunity to relax. All sorts of thoughts came into my head: what grade they would give tomorrow, what parents would say, whether they would scold, punish, what they would advise, etc., etc.

We had to play him for two hours in the literal sense of the word - to play, praise, cheer, and only when the right hemisphere became active and turned on, he told what he dreamed of at night. He was pecked by some huge bird, he could not even resist. The end, therefore, has come.

Several times such nightmares arose, and all with the same result. Six months after the first nightmare, when he once again woke up from horror, it seemed to him that someone was nearby, very scary. And there is a professional term for this - hypnagogic hallucinations, either a dream or reality, try to figure it out at night, and even far from adulthood.

It helped to understand the dream of deepening into the boy's family relationships. All the adults, there were five of them, pecked at the boy all the time. With one of the adults, he could speak more or less calmly. As soon as another approached and intervened in the conversation, everyone immediately, as if by magic, became excited, became uncontrollable, and it was impossible to make out who was right and who was wrong. Enough in the family and threats - to crack down, punish, deprive of something significant. All this accumulated, accumulated and once collapsed in a dream: they pecked, completely destroyed.

A 6-year-old boy has a haunting dream: he falls out of the upper window of an eleven-story building and flies down rapidly, or there is a fire in the apartment. Accordingly, from fear (fire) or horror (fall), he wets himself at night, or there is an involuntary excretion of feces, which he, without waking up, smears on the wall.

All episodic attempts of parents to see a doctor (sedatives), a psychic (passes overhead with a meaningful look) were unsuccessful. Still, the boy is unwanted, the family has an older brother who suits his parents. Pregnancy was accompanied by severe toxicosis with a high rise in blood pressure. The father abused alcohol before the birth of his son and after that he did not give up his pathological addictions. There were constant conflicts in the family on this basis and due to the mental imbalance of the parents.

Our boy was born in agony, was blue (asphyxia), brought on the 4th day, there were convulsive twitches of the chin, he could turn blue from crying (oxygen deficiency of the brain). In the future, he often got sick, there were no end of acute respiratory infections, sinusitis, adenoids, he could not stand the heat, stuffiness, he was easily swayed, a little bit sick.

He was not even a year old when his mother took him to the village to a deaf and not very intellectually advanced grandmother. Soon after his return, his mother hurried to send him to a nursery, where he sat in a corner, not communicating with anyone. There was a kind of Mowgli complex. When requests were refused, he fell to the floor, cried, tried to attract attention to himself, and even asked to be vilified in his arms. The more he so dramatically represented his feelings, the more his mother fought with him and punished him for stubbornness (in her understanding). The elder brother also added fuel to the fire. As a result, the fire of conflict always blazed in the family, in the house, as in a dream.

At the age of 4, the completely emotionally upset boy was again taken by his mother for "re-education" to the same grandmother. And more than a year later, upon his return, some notes of remorse woke up in his mother (but not in his father). And she brought the boy in for a consultation.

He drew a family on assignment, everything would be fine, but he only forgot himself (but not his brother). He switched off from the family, fell out, as he falls every night from the window in a dream. A boy by nature is gentle, emotionally sensitive, affectionate. Not without reason in the imaginary game "Family" chose the role of the mother. She still wants love, tender and affectionate feelings from her, she hopes, that means. As for the father, there are no reasons for optimism here yet: as he abused alcohol, he still abuses it, he does not care about his son, and the only method of "education" is physical punishment. Now it is clear why the boy is afraid of Koshchei, Baba Yaga (symbols of soullessness, cruelty and duality). Serpent Gorynych (symbol of fire, fire), devils, invisible (other world).

How can we help the boy? It is not easy, but they were able to do this only after a series of corrective conversations with their mother, playing on the upcoming difficulties at school. We persuaded my father to be treated for alcoholism and helped partly in this. Against such a positive family background, all the boy's nightly problems came to naught. Once the author gave a lecture on the reflection of the experiences of children in dreams, after which an 18-year-old student came up and told her story, hoping for help. She dreams many times, and mostly in autumn and winter, the same dream. She rides alone in the subway in complete darkness and cannot get to the final station in any way: the train either passes by, then returns to the wrong station and - again by.

A girl wakes up after night trips, clearly "not at ease", the tension grows, and the question hangs in the air - what is it? So mysterious, how painful a night's sleep led her to the ranks of future psychologists. We began to question her later, having given her homework beforehand: to talk with her mother, how things were with her pregnancy, childbirth and early development child.

The task, as you understand, was not accidental. Enclosed space (metro car), total darkness or gloom, loneliness clearly pointed to the triad of fears known to us. Normally, all these conditions are present in the fetus in the womb - the fetus is one (if not from twins, but they just do not have fears of loneliness), darkness is natural, and a closed space with a sufficient amount of amniotic fluid creates a sense of security. But that's normal. And if the mother is in a state of emotional stress, and the fetus receives an excess of hormones of anxiety, or there is the most threat of a miscarriage, or he cannot be born, experiences pain, suffocates, or even is born half-alive - what then?

We have already noted that if everything is bad, landslide, there is no oxygen for a sufficiently long time, there is an extensive hemorrhage, trauma, then there is no time for fears - to stay alive. And the range of neuropsychic consequences is the most extensive: from excessive motor activity (hyperactivity) and cerebrovascular disease (brain weakness, increased fatigue and distractibility), stuttering and hyperkinesis (twitching of large muscle groups) to epilepsy and mental retardation.

In our case, we are talking about more subtle matters, when there is a threat, temporary difficulties, and when the consequences are mainly emotional or psychological. What happened in this case?

When the mother was pregnant, grandfather died, not an hour or two, and after his death there was an atmosphere of mourning at home for a relatively long time. Mother was also at the funeral. Perhaps this explains why the daughter’s dream gives off such gloom and hopelessness - everything happens underground, in complete darkness, in a carriage that is associated with a coffin.

The course of childbirth was difficult, critical. The waters had already receded for a long time, but there were no real contractions. Such a long (over 12 hours) waterless period is the most dangerous. The walls of the uterus begin to shrink, compress the umbilical cord, and thus the nutrition of the fetus through the circulatory network common with the mother can be disrupted.

This was evidently the case here as well, since two drug stimulations did not produce any results. Then they started more active obstetric measures, but it wasn’t there - the fetus either moves forward a little, then goes back (remember - the subway car will either pass the stop or not reach it). I had to squeeze the fruit with more active measures, pressing, squeezing, grabbing. The girl who was born did not scream, like most newborns, it was clear how she weakened. The struggle for life in the face of death did not go unnoticed. They brought her to her mother only on the fourth day, but it was already too late: the mammary glands became inflamed (mastitis), and, having fed with difficulty twice, the mother ended up in the hospital for almost a month.

The daughter was transferred to artificial feeding And that's what my father did. Soon, staphylococcus aureus appeared - an infection, regurgitation, stool disorders arose, and the daughter, like her mother, was taken to the hospital, another, of course. So in obsession nightmare we see the reflection of the bitterness of separation from the mother (the train is running), and the hopeless darkness (the death of grandfather), and the impossibility of being born, and the fear of death, suffocation (the limited space of the car in which she is alone, the doors are tightly slammed, just as the the cervix of the uterus to release it into the world), and the childbirth procedure that is painful for her and the mother (when the train either misses or moves, and they can’t take her out of her mother’s womb).

As in previous cases, the primary matrix of instinctively mediated fear during childbirth is supplemented, reinforced and even reinforced by subsequent traumatic experiences of children, usually associated with maternal deprivation and accidents.

Deprivation, the loss of emotional contact with the mother creates an affect of anxiety - increased anxiety, including in relation to the onset of sleep with its nightmares. At night, a child (or an adult) is left alone in the company of monsters who are just waiting to immediately appear at closed eyes. There are no parents as protectors, and the feeling of defenselessness is always higher in the absence of security and the emotional separation of parents from children. Under these conditions, the feeling of self-confidence suffers, and without confidence there is only one thing left - to capitulate to the danger.

Accidents, whether it be a burn with boiling water, a serious illness, an operation or a fright, falls, being emotional upheavals, can draw fear out of a person’s reserve capabilities. In turn, abundant daytime fears, saturated with anxiety, are mirrored in a dream as their repeater, or they are concentrated in the monothematic of a phobia.

Such is the case with the girl about whom in question. She had not yet departed from the experience, as fate presented another "gift". A long-awaited brother appeared in the family, and she was immediately sent to a round-the-clock nursery, from where they were taken away for the weekend, and even then not always. The setting for the appearance of the boy was even before her birth, so she is in some way undesirable for her parents.

In general, she was left to herself and if she made an impression on others, then, first of all, with her sadness (dumbness) and some kind of loss. It was felt that she was still not full of vitality, although she had enough intelligence and a pleasant appearance.

At the age of 3 (what a memory!) She often had the same dream: “I am sitting alone in a wasteland, and next to it is a large empty house (state), and suddenly some male monster comes out of this house, grabs me, drags me and I wake up."

No, no, there is no sexual overtones or some kind of criminal episode. Three years have passed since her birth, and you remember how it happened. Then the wasteland is comparable to the open space after childbirth, the empty house resembles a government institution - a maternity hospital, not yet filled with her life and frightening, like the process of childbirth itself, with its empty eye sockets of windows. Well, the monster - the one who pulled into the room, dazzling after darkness and warm after the uterus, the one who caused pain? Yes, it was a male obstetrician, an experienced specialist, to whom she owes her life.

This dream clearly shows the retention in the emotional, subconscious memory of the stressful conditions of birth, reinforced by further traumatic life conditions. We could lose, to a certain extent react and neutralize the girl's early fears, but, given my authority as a teacher, we decided at first to limit ourselves to the method of psychotherapeutic use of suggestion in reality. A suggestive directive was given to come up after the lecture and talk about psychologically positive changes in the content of sleep.

A week later, the first report took place - the dream arose twice, but she was no longer alone in the car, but with a friend; in the second dream, the carriage was even filled with people. Thus, the question of total darkness automatically disappeared. A week later, the train began to stop at stops, and not pass them. Three weeks later, the content of the dream was as follows: "I went down to the subway and could not find among the list of unfamiliar stations, where for some reason even villages were indicated, my own. Then I climbed back onto the escalator and went out into the street." What do the unfamiliar stations, absurdly underlined by the villages, mean? This aching feeling of losing home, a stronghold of security and love, which she had in the first years of her life, when she was endlessly given to her grandmothers and placed early in a nursery.

The most significant thing in the last dreams is the possibility of reaching the surface, that is, the resolution of a crisis situation, which was the birth. In the future, such dreams were seen less and less often, more like fragments that did not cause much concern. From a participant, the girl became a spectator. Gradually, the fragments ceased to appear in a dream, after we lost the situation of childbirth in an allegorical way, together with our mother. "Obstetrician", as you might guess, was the author.

On this and other examples, we see the whole psychological complexity of the appearance of obsessive CSs, which, like phobias (obsessive fears during the day), are not immediately treatable and corrected, but are eliminated through the game, suggestion and drawing of fears.

In the above cases of obsessive CS, a number of common features or the factors that form this phenomenon:

1. Deviations during pregnancy and childbirth, creating the reality of toxicosis (at the birth of girls), the threat of miscarriage, malnutrition of the fetus, its blood supply, making birth difficult in a natural way (the presence in the CS of a closed space from which there is no way out).

2. Mental (maternal) deprivation in the first years of life as the basis for the weakening or loss of a sense of security (emotional insecurity).

3. Accidents, frights, illnesses and operations accompanied by the fear of death (in CS they can be embodied in monsters with their threat to life).

4. An unfavorable situation in the family (for boys, this is, first of all, the deprivation of the father's protection and communication with him) or anxious and suspicious traits of the mother's character.

5. Insufficient play activity of children, especially in communication with peers.

6. Sharpened impressionability and developed emotional or long-term memory.

7. An increased number of fears during the day as an indicator of poor security and self-doubt.

Most obsessive CSs are observed in neuroses, and at the same time they are most amnesic, that is, they are forgotten in the morning. There is an explanation for that.

With neurosis, the level of tension and anxiety increases, the biorhythm of sleep is disturbed - due to an increase in the phase of deep sleep and a decrease in superficial, REM sleep, where dreams actually occur. It is clear that the latter are becoming more and more anxious and tense.

With a long course of neurosis, an ever-increasing fatigue of the nervous system, sleep sometimes becomes so deep that children and adults literally "fall through" into it and do not remember anything in the morning. This is a protective inhibition of the brain, on the one hand, and on the other, it is evidence of its painful, functionally disturbed state, when additional efforts are required to somehow restore one's strength, albeit for a shorter night's rest. So the question of a smaller number of dreams in neuroses should not be understood unambiguously. Yes, when they report, they dream less, in fact, they go more and more into the "underground", like time bombs, otherwise they are not remembered in the morning.

But during the day there are more and more anxieties, fears, fears, worries. We see the reverse process in the recovery from neurosis, whether it be a natural process or the result of psychotherapy. True, the theme of dreams is already different and you can always find optimistic sprouts in them, and not just powerlessness and fear, as it was before. Consequently, one can guess the development of neurosis from the CS and judge from them about its reverse development.

Experienced fears can make themselves felt for some time, as was seen in the cases above, but they gradually fade away, provided there is no real neuropsychic overstrain, anxiety and fatigue in the present.

More often than boys, girls see repeated CS, which is not surprising, given their greater susceptibility to fears. In addition, girls begin to have such dreams earlier than boys, from the age of 5, and not from 6, and continue to see them for a longer time - from 12 to 13 years. By the way, 5 and 12 years of age coincide with periods of increasing neuropsychic stress in girls, that is, the repetition of the CS, as it were, signals, anticipates its age-related sharpening.

When analyzing the content of repeated dreams, Baba Yaga, Koschey and other evil spirits settle in them much more often in girls than in boys. Once again, this shows a more pronounced emotional-instinctive sensitivity in girls to the threat to life, embodied in the image of necrophilic monsters. As well as the fact that they “die” in their sleep earlier than boys, again from the age of 5.

An experienced doctor, psychologist, parent can guess about such terrible events taking place at night, if only by the growing anxiety and excitement of the child in the evening, when he is looking for any excuse to delay the time of departure to another world, which is what a dream filled with nightmares seems to be. The dream itself can no longer be calm, and the state of health in the morning can no longer be normal. We remember that Baba Yaga, Koschey and others like them most densely inhabit the daytime imagination of children at 3-5 years old, while in the CS they continue to do their dirty work until the end of preschool age, that is, up to 7 years. Thus, QEs are a kind of reservoir, or storehouse, of fears that often pop up in the mind after many years. Moreover, nightmares remain in the emotional memory longer than the strongest experiences during the day, unless the latter have had time to become the material of the CS.

Why is this happening? Yes, it's very simple - daytime experiences are easier to manipulate, they can be displaced, relegated to the background, replaced, etc. With involuntary, unconscious CS material, this is much more difficult, and sometimes impossible.

Of interest is the influence on the CS of such characteristics as mood instability, fears during speeches, new contacts and communication in general. Mood instability does not increase, but reduces the frequency of CS, especially in boys. To keep the CS in focus, a certain stability of emotions is needed, even some of their stagnation, which, in fact, is observed as a negatively acting emotional dominant of fears in a dream. Excessive mobility of emotions does not allow such a dominant to gain a foothold, and the dream itself acquires a chaotic, mosaic character.

The likelihood of CS will be higher with poor tolerance of expectation, uncertainty, fear of answers and public speaking. For all that, there is not always a conscious fear of failure or inconsistency with social norms, rules, standards of behavior. It is not difficult to guess the sense of responsibility developed in this case, sometimes reaching a more than keen sense of duty and obligation.

Even more than fears of answers and speeches, fears of contact and communication with strangers affect the CS, more broadly - fears of new, unknown situations. This mainly concerns girls, and not at all by accident. In the history of the human race, women had to protect their offspring from external threats, while men each time got food in practically new, not yet inhabited places.

The fears or fears that have accumulated over many millennia when a stranger appears make themselves felt, as we see, even now. If men were subject to fear of new situations, then the tribe would actually be doomed to starvation. Now food can be provided in other ways, so the fear of new situations is also found in men, but still much less often than in women.

Additionally, the negative relationship between CS and self-doubt that we discovered is more characteristic of girls, that is, the more they are anxious, suspicious and insecure, the less they see CS, but not dreams themselves as such.

Let's see how CS in parents affect their appearance in children. One in three mothers and one in five fathers also saw a CS repeatedly during their childhood. And here we can see the predominance of the fears underlying the CS in women in comparison with men, in other words, the mother's nightly fears are more easily transmitted to children than the father's fears. In the present, coincidences of CS in mothers and children are observed in 20 percent of cases, in fathers and children they are practically absent.

Both in childhood and now, the strongest relationship of CS is noted between mothers and daughters, emphasizing a kind of "connection of generations" in terms of genetic and socio-psychological transmission of fears in general and CS in particular. Therefore, if it is possible to find out the presence of CS in the mother in childhood and now, then the probability of their occurrence in daughters will be more than likely; in boys, such a relationship has the character of a trend. We can also talk about the latter in the presence of CS in fathers in childhood, when they are then inclined to transmit fears, first of all, to boys.

Therefore, a parent of the same sex, primarily a mother, is more capable of provoking the appearance of CS than a parent of the opposite sex. This is explained by the psychological mechanism of gender-role identification - identification with the role of a parent of the same type, the desire to imitate him, follow the behavior, character, habits. When creating such a psychological dependence, it is easier to induce (transfer) fears from an adult to a child, that is, psychological infection with fear.

The fact that this is more important than genetic predisposition is indicated by the following statistical experiment we conducted. The number of fears in parents in childhood and at present was counted in the presence and absence of CS in children. In the presence of CS in children, the number of fears in mothers and fathers in the present is higher than in childhood (P< 0,001). В случае преобладания генетических влияний было бы обратное соотношение. Данные эти говорят о неспособности родителей справиться с большей частью воображаемыми угрозами для жизни и благополучия, коими и являются страхи и тревоги. Подобный потенциал неиспользованных резервных возможностей противодействия страхам передается не по наследству, а путем непроизвольного обучения модели боязливого поведения со стороны родителей, как и тревогам и беспокойствам с их стороны, панике и отчаянию, чрезмерной драматизации происходящих событий, непереносимости ожидания, отказам от преодоления трудностей и уходам в себя.

It is precisely because of this that conflicts may appear in the family, when a relatively fearless and determined parent completely does not accept any anxiety, fears and fears on the part of the other parent. Conflicts, in turn, increase the anxiety of children, especially girls, and are most often reflected in their dreams. Let's give examples.

The mother turns to her 5-year-old daughter with the words: “Just don’t think of doing this”, “If you don’t stop, then I don’t know what I will make of you”, “I don’t need such daughters”, etc. The father echoes: “Just dare to disobey your mother”, “I will punish you so that you will remember for a long time”, etc.

Such threats often remain unclaimed and, accumulating, distort the night dreams of children, when it seems that someone is standing nearby, and something unpleasant, terrible is about to happen. Often, such forebodings cause a greater unpleasant aftertaste than what is happening in a nightmare itself, since any action already implies a reaction, in contrast to an indefinite expectation - obscurity and ever-increasing tension. Strictly speaking, anxiety before falling asleep is the expectation of terrible dreams, the specific content of which is not known to anyone.

It has already been noted, in terms of the transmission of fears from parents, the significance of the older preschool age, when children, primarily girls, learn through gender-role identification an anxious-fearful behavior on the part of a parent of the same type. It is easiest to assimilate, to get used to the model of behavior that is most pronounced. It is mothers who have the greatest anxiety and fears, and the daughter gradually begins to resemble her mother more and more in such behavior. In adolescence, an increase in the genetic influences of all the same reactions is added to this, and usually by the end adolescence we see the prevailing anxious, and even anxious and suspicious personality.

We emphasize that a high probability of genetic “warming up” of fears will be in case of similarity in appearance and character to a parent of the same sex. If the similarity is with the parent of the opposite sex, then the digestibility of fears will also take place, but to a lesser extent.

AT last case it is better to talk about another channel for the transmission of fears, including the CS. This channel works in an earlier period of children's lives, mainly up to 5 years. To a greater extent, it is characteristic of the relationship of children with parents of the opposite sex. It is here that the emotional, and not rational, as in identification, mechanism of attachment works.

Above, more than once, neurotic, anxiety-based attachment to parents has been noted. Neurotic attachment is always expressed to a restless, and even anxious and suspicious parent, overprotective, creating an unnatural dependence on oneself, mood and feelings. It is not difficult to guess that such a person is most often the mother, and boys are the most neurotically attached. Hence, there is a high probability that they will be infected with their mother's fears at the age of 3-5, while the most actively assimilate maternal fears are girls aged 5-7.

The above conclusions are not categorical, since at any age, but at a maximum of 1-3 years, another mechanism for the assimilation of fears is triggered - imitation of the specific behavior of parents. This process can be conscious and unconscious at the same time. In the latter case, instead of imitation, it is better to use the term "imitation". It manifests itself already in the first months of life - the baby's reciprocal smile, then the involuntary repetition of the adult's movements (like "patty", etc.). The involuntariness, or automaticity of repetition, makes us think about the connection of another psychological mechanism for the assimilation of fears by a child - suggestibility. Noticeable suggestibility as an involuntary susceptibility to the mental influence of other persons, in this case, parents, is a fairly unmistakable characteristic of the right hemispheric orientation of the personality.

Here is one step to the so-called prophetic dreams. To whom do they dream and what do they represent? There is only one talent here - right hemisphere, natural physiological features of brain activity, when everything is seen, it seems much deeper, more emotional, with great nuances, forebodings, experiences, up to shock, horror and tears.

And in a dream you can be an artist. However, you will not envy this role in the COP. There is only one role - a victim, an outcast, an "errand boy", a "scapegoat". Only adults can help if they notice in time problems in the children's night sleep, well-being or tension, anxiety, fear of sleep. Since we are talking about the CS, then "prophetic" dreams, with their dramatic outcomes of long-tormenting problems, can so shock the imagination of a trusting, suggestible and artistically gifted child that they will then have a powerful, but invisible to others, inspiring influence on his life and actions.

In the optimistic version, we hear: the finger of God showed me the way as a scientist, doctor, politician, seer or saint, an insight opened up, a shock from what I saw. Then inspiration came, discoveries flowed like a river, self-confidence appeared boundless. In the CS, the opposite is true: the experienced fear, horror, shock are so great and negative that they completely suppress the ability to new knowledge and confront danger, that is, they play the role of a demoralizing factor.

It is not at all necessary to think about what happened at night during the day, especially for children. But here the effect of cumulation is triggered - the accumulation of the negative aspects of dreams in their even stronger subsequent discharge, manifestation like lightning and thunder, since the psychological problems underlying the CS have not been resolved. Just as a word can kill or revive, so we say: sleep can both destroy the remnants of strength to resist in the face of danger, and activate the body's defenses; the last option - at a more mature age and free from destructive stresses.

Most of the CS in children whose mothers have a neuropsychiatric disorder in the form of neurosis. Neurosis itself means a critical accumulation of anxiety, anxiety, fear, tension, that is, negative emotions that, due to various reasons, are not able to be processed, neutralized, and even more so turn into positive emotions. But negative emotions dissipate, spread around, permeate the feelings of others. The girl's mother is the most sensitive to such impregnation when the effect of sex-role identification, which we have already described, is triggered.

In this regard, the most intense channel for the transmission of negative emotions in the form of fears will be the influence of the mother on the daughter. There are explanations here. Fears, in our definition, represent an affectively sharpened instinct for self-preservation, and, as we have seen, for a large number of fears it is more pronounced in women. So the fears transmitted to daughters by mothers have an instinctive basis, although they are mainly the result of direct interaction or communication in the family.

Most fears in neuroses; it is mothers with neurosis who are overly anxious and suspicious of any deviations in the mood and behavior of children, failures and difficulties in communicating and achieving some results, they are prone to dramatization and panic. They lack consistency, confidence in their actions and deeds, flexibility in dealing with children. It constantly seems to them that something will definitely happen to the child, he needs to be patronized all the time, accompanied in everything, always be there.

They think a lot and talk about the dangers, about what will happen if the child does not obey, does not obey, is left alone. It is easy to see in such a mother's attitude an involuntary suggestion - as if an instruction to remain only with her, close, close, so as not to experience unnecessary anxiety and fear. Thus, the child is obliged in everything to correspond to the fears and fears of the mother, who "binds" him to herself to such an extent that it is impossible to remain alone or be independent, active without feeling guilty, anxiety and fear.

But just at night, the child is left alone, suddenly deprived of the presence and support of the mother, and then the negative emotions accumulated in critical doses begin to spontaneously transform into chilling images of monsters and no less nightmarish scenarios.

So it seems that the good intention of the mother to take care of the child in everything turns into infecting the child with fears and forcing him into terrible dreams. In addition, through an artificially cultivated and affectively sharpened attachment to children, a neurotically upset mother is freed or at least alleviates her fear of loneliness - inseparability of feelings, especially in conflict with her husband, or when left alone after a divorce. In the latter case, she tries to patronize her daughters even more, giving them an additional portion of anxiety and fear.

With boys, the situation is more complicated, since the mother, who "couldn't cope" with one man, the boy's father, experiences the same problems of heterosexual communication with her son; twice as likely as girls to be scolded and punished physically. It is clear that in conditions of conflict with the mother, the boy is less susceptible to the assimilation of fears on her part. However, much depends on the age of the children and family conditions. If they are preschoolers, the grandmother lives in the family even more restless than the mother, then the probability of infection with fears and their penetration into sleep is very high.

Oddly enough, the presence of neurosis in fathers not only does not increase, unlike mothers, but even reduces the number of CS in children. Such a paradox is explained by the less firmness and intransigence of the fathers when they develop neurosis, as well as by the decrease in the total number of threats, physical punishments and aggression in general in this case. This does not mean that paternal neurosis "benefits" the children, and there are enough of their own costs in education, but the fact remains: with paternal neurosis, children have less CS.

How are CS related to the predominant activity of the cerebral hemispheres? It is known that the latter in normal, natural conditions complement each other, and much depends on the type of activity at the moment. With intensive intellectual activity, when you have to think a lot, analyze, compare, look for logical solutions to emerging problematic or educational situations, the left hemisphere works more actively, but taking into account age characteristics.

When guesswork, intuitive feeling, improvisation, creative freedom, ease, grasping the situation as a whole and its practical implementation are required - there is no competition for the right hemisphere.

Both hemispheres, due to their functional specialization, provide the whole range of human mental activity. It is clear that the "left", that is, to acquire specific activity, the left hemisphere will not immediately, but by certain age shifts: the appearance of speech, its complication, socialization - the assimilation of the norms and rules of society, teaching writing, counting and abstract concepts in the form of algebra, geometry , chemistry and partly physics.

In naturally left-brained children, this process proceeds faster and there are no problems with reading, mathematics and foreign languages ​​in the future. Right-brained people will have difficulties with all this with the existing left-brained education program. In children with a lack of dominance in the activity of one or another hemisphere, as if "bilateral ambidexters", according to our definition, everything turns out like everyone else - intellectual development does not outstrip or lag behind age criteria, and there are no particular difficulties at school for some reason. or discipline. When we calculated in percent the frequency of CS in children with left-hemispheric, right-hemispheric and complementary personality orientations, we were surprised at the clear predominance of CS in children with left-hemispheric orientation. So far, we've been pointing out all the time that right hemisphere rather than left hemisphere orientation promotes CS. The explanation here may be as follows.

Right hemispheric people tend to both dramatize unpleasant life events to a greater extent and displace them from consciousness when they remember feelings more, if I may say so, and not a specific outline of events, especially their causes and consequences. Left-hemispheric, on the contrary, remember the content of the CS well, it is easier for them to analyze them in detail without unnecessary emotions, sort them out, so that often only "horns and legs" remain from the CS.

Most importantly, the left hemisphere is not inclined to force dreams into the subconscious and are able to talk about them, as they say, without concealment, in plain text. Therefore, in this case, we state a more complete report of the CS in the left hemisphere, while most of the night material in the right hemisphere remains outside the frame of consciousness. As a result, the right hemispheres still see more CSs, but they cannot report on them in the same way as the left hemispheres. Fear also interferes with awareness (which is very important), and fear, as we know, is the prerogative of right hemisphere perception.

In terms of personality traits, the impact on the CS of children's emotionality and susceptibility, a large number of daytime fears has already been noted. Suggestibility, which can also be considered as a susceptibility to fears, contributes to CS only in boys. But in girls, such a character trait as openness has a greater influence on the CS. In turn, suggestibility and openness are a reflection of immediacy as a kind of wholeness of perception. This is the sign of right hemisphere.

A trusting, trusting and open child, of course, is more prone to CS, since they will just be a kind of filter, sifting through all the excess impressions, worries and anxieties of the day. If these children did not have so many dreams, and CS in particular, then sleep would be a dump of fears and fears, and so CS, cumulating, accumulating them, are periodic discharges of neuropsychic stress, like a thunderstorm with its lightning and peals thunder, but fresh air after.

Unfortunately, with neurosis, this effect is no longer there, the night's sleep is too filled with anxiety and fear and cannot, like a dirty filter, perform its functions.

When does the CS dream more - with reduced, adequate or overestimated self-esteem? Self-esteem as a perception of oneself correlates well with confidence. The connection here is direct - the greater the self-doubt, the lower the self-esteem. Uncertainty, in turn, is an affectively perceived inability to cope with most of the actual problems that arise.

Automatically more than often triggered "freeze frame". Impulse, desire, impulse are immediately blocked, interrupted, stopped. The "button" of the order to destroy desires works according to the socially set program "yes - no", "corresponds - does not correspond", and more often it is in the off mode, as if sinking. The experience of “no”, “I can’t”, “I won’t” accumulates and pulls like a heavy bag back to the return of old reactions and experiences.

This is a neurotic regression or the establishment of an earlier age model of behavior, when there was still no need for a rational explanation of the events and it was possible to do as you like without looking back at the circumstances and without showing excessive anxiety or suspiciousness.

Then the child begins to behave more lively, directly, requires more care, attention, care, and at times even loses already acquired self-service skills, begins to suck a finger, engage in masturbation or sway before going to bed. Similarly, it is possible to “fall into childhood” after strong mental shocks, when the fear of new unexpected situations reappears, unnecessary communication is eliminated, and the child is entirely dependent on loved ones, not being left alone for a minute.

Together with moving back in time, fears of loneliness, pain, noise, sudden impact, etc. are renewed, sucked in, like in a funnel. As a result, self-confidence decreases even more and Wolves, Barmaley and separation begin to dream again. Thus, unresolved problems migrate into the night during the day, "finding a solution" in the CS with their apotheosis of horror, despair and defenselessness. Consequently, with low self-esteem, "wait for trouble" - a return to the past age and the appearance of a CS against the background of growing self-doubt.

The lower the self-esteem, the more children are subject to a magical mood, which is the basis of superstition and prejudice. Magical mood - belief in unusual, mysterious, unpredictable phenomena like horoscopes, predictions, evil spirits, damage, evil eye, karma.

In children of primary and secondary school age, it is Queen of Spades and the Black Hand, poltergeist and ghosts, belief in a lucky and unlucky ticket, in misfortune from a black cat that crossed the road, etc. For older students, “encounters” with aliens, wonderful visions, phenomena, predictions and slander are mixed here. The magical attitude has now been elevated to the rank of a state cult, destroying all remnants of a critical, modern, scientific approach.

In connection with the magical cult, we are interested in its connection with the CS, the connection is not very obvious, but, nevertheless, quite real. The bridge to the CS will be, on the one hand, suggestibility, which is more pronounced in magically inclined persons; on the other hand, they are often unsure of themselves and, accordingly, have a low opinion of their abilities and capabilities.

Now, if we tie together suggestibility as an involuntary susceptibility to the perception of threat; self-doubt and low self-esteem as a lack of proper mental protection; magical mood as a conviction in the existence of occult forces - then confidence in the appearance of the QC will be more than reliable.

Another question: how do conflicts between parents and children affect the appearance of CSs in the latter? There are four options here: mother or father, conflicts with boys or girls. Most of all, the conflicts of fathers with daughters are reflected in the CS. Accidentally or not? No, not by chance. The psychological mechanism of emotional contrast is triggered - in the younger preschool age there is a vital need for the love of another type of parent. This is, as it were, the final stage of emotional development, when the emotions of love are directed not so much at oneself, but at the closest representative of the opposite sex, which is the parent. In girls, love for the father is more pronounced than the love of boys for the mother.

Need is need, and reality is reality. A mother who is in conflict with him can turn against the father, and the father himself is able to discredit his "loving" image by constant and more and more hopeless conflicts with his mother or because of his increasingly inappropriate behavior, be it rudeness, cruelty, inconsistency and aggressiveness. The latter is manifested by frequent physical punishments.

Sometimes one gets the impression that the father punishes not so much the daughter as the mother, even if not always right and adequately behaving with her daughter. The family situation is fueled by the father's jealousy of the one-sidedly closed union of mother and daughter. However, the mother herself clearly does not want to increase the emotional influence of the father on her daughter. As in the song - "hostile whirlwinds blow over us", so here jealousy permeates family relationships, creating a suffocating atmosphere of prejudice and fear.

Every step in it is a conflict, clarification of circumstances, proving one's advantages, an insult to the whole world. So gradually the daughter can move away from the father, who is increasingly losing his former attractiveness. In a number of cases, and this is exactly what will happen with the CS, the daughter emotionally "divorces" her father. The psychological removal of the father, alienation, the ever-increasing negativity in the perception of the daughter serve as a breeding ground for his transformation into the image of a monster - Koshchei, Barmaley, the Wolf, the Serpent Gorynych, the Dragon. The fear experienced in front of them is the fear of the father - a male negative force, or the unwillingness for the father to become so insensitive, cruel and aggressive, as it happens in a dream.

The best healer in this case will be the father himself, if he changes his anger for mercy, becomes warm, loving and does not quarrel with his mother in front of his daughter. The mother also needs attention as the primary source of conflict in the family. If she is sick with a neurosis, then she must first be treated, and only then find out the "truth". Or the nature of the mother is "not sugar", and with her prejudice, suspiciousness, intolerance and conflict, she creates constantly smoldering hotbeds of family tension. What does not happen until the end during the day, does not end in the family, finds its solution at night with children in the CS, where evil is already winning, someone must die, where there is no protection, rational approach and confidence in one's victory.

Do CSs perform any functions for the psyche? As we have seen - yes, and, moreover, the most diverse. Let us list some of them, based on the premise that CSs are not a negative experience of experiences that came from nowhere, but are quite consonant with the actual problems of being children.

1. CS - reflection and refraction of reality, including its mentally unconscious sides.

2. CS is a fruit of creative imagination, especially for right-brained, artistically gifted individuals.

3. CS - manifestations of alternative forms of behavior that are not allowed into consciousness or rejected for moral and ethical reasons (norms).

4. CS - reflection and at the same time anticipation of the traumatic experience of a protopathic or deep sense of danger. In other words, the CS is a psychophysiological mechanism for turning on existential anxiety as an individual-personal protective reaction of a person.

5. CS - an indicator of the readiness of characterological structures to reflect the danger to life and well-being of a person or, more broadly, to resist fears.

6. KS - an expression of mental discomfort, emotional stress or illness against the background of anxiety and fears, a depressive shade of mood, insecurity, defenselessness and low self-esteem.

7. CS - a way of reacting (breaking through) intolerable, critical or blocked mental stress. This is the "therapeutic value" of CS. At the same time, CS sharpen the general sensitivity to fears, causing a feeling of confusion and self-doubt, their ability to withstand danger. In this we see a decompensating and even demoralizing function of the CS.