Wouldn’t you agree that an important part of development is learning to distinguish between what is real and not real?

No, I’m not sure I would agree with that. Or at least, I am not going to accept it as a given without proof in its ultimate utility. See:

This also makes me wonder about dreams. To an individual who had never before experienced an analog form or or something that represented something else, what would they make of their dreams? For the modern mind, there is a distinction made between “real” and “unreal.” What happens during waking life is (more or less) real and what happens during dream life is not. Where exactly did we get this idea of “real” from though? To the primitive mind, was there such a thing as the real vs. the unreal?

Perhaps real/unreal is a concept that arises as a result of representational/analog forms. It could be image or it could be language, or it could be somehow a deeper structure than that. I’m toying here with the simplest possible definition of real as: something you’ve experienced. By this criteria, a dream is as real as something that happens while you’re awake. Something “unreal” then is something which you haven’t experienced.

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/07/08/representation-reality/

I’m not actually even sure anymore that you can prove to me that anything really is unreal… All you can “prove” is that something can’t be seen or can’t be heard. But you can’t even “prove” that. All you can do is say that you yourself (or your instruments) can’t see or hear whatever it is, and then I have to take your word for it. And if my experience differs from yours (ie, I can see and hear something) then we’re at an impasse. Culturally, we have deferred this impasse to recognize the experience of “experts” over ourselves to tell us what’s real and what’s not. Or at least what’s important and what’s not. And I’m really uncertain this is a healthy situation to be in.

Just keep in mind that, before a certain age, kids take things literally.

Well I think the subconscious mind continues to do this throughout life actually…

Hence why I’m generally opposed to the practice of teaching religion to youth.

I actually think that’s the best time to do it because we do openly take these things literally as kids, and I tend to think more and more that the claims of religion really are literally true!

There aren’t levels.

There are realms.

when a kid comes to you crying from a bad dream, how can you turn around their emotional state without discrediting the reality which they experienced?

The first thing we do is try to lighten the fear factor by ridiculing or putting the ‘bad guys’ in a silly light, or changing an element into something silly. (example: a ninja-star throwing bad guy flings daisies) Then, we try to uncover thye source of the anxiety that caused the dream, which helps him or her to understand why the dream is occurring. My kids know why they have bad dreams, and now have a means of defusing them as well as the ability to identify the causes of the dream.

Imagine that your child has two boxes for everything they experience. One is labelled “Real” and the other “Not Real”. Which box are you going to put dreams in? Or, are you going to leave it on the floor?

A normal child can’t be expected to comprehend the subtlety of various levels of reality, so you’ll need to dumb it down for them. At the end of the day, it might be that the best approach really is to divide their experience into “real” and “not real”. If they come to you later with a trembling desire to discuss The Great Chain of Being, then you will know it is time. But before then, I think they’ll only get hopelessly muddled.

I caught that movie when it first came on tv, so its been a while, but I thought “dreamcatcher” referred to the fifth friend, the mentally handicapped guy, the one who ended up saving the world in the end…man, for the life of me I just can’t remember the character’s name…oh well…anyway, thats my thinking.

Ronin

But daughter 2.0 is only 10 months old and I am not sure how I will proceed but suffice to say it will be with extreme caution.

So far the only experiment I have decided to try that is mostly harmless is one I saw Budd Hopkins do on young children in families where the family claims UFO abduction experiences have occurred.

Basically Budd videotaped a pre-school aged child who was given 5 or 6 16×20inch images that were hand drawn in the same artistic style. The images were essentially headshots of various generic and pop culture people - a sales clerk, a police officer, spiderman, a woman, a young man, a fireman, a grandmother AND a typical Grey alien. During a filmed play session the cards were handed to the child stacked together with the alien image three or four deep in the stack and the child was asked to make up a story about each image. He had never seen the cards prior to this play session.

The results were terrifying.

Obviously, the child could have been influenced by the cultural depiction of aliens however, my child doesn’t watch TV and I can minimize or even completely eliminate such influence on her until I do the experiment. I can hardly wait…

that reminds me…when i watched the movie “Dreamcatcher,” i don’t remember actually seeing any dreamcatchers. what did that title have to do with that movie? however, i did see a tiny dreamcatcher hanging off someone’s rearview mirror, tangled around some breast-flashing beads. there’s a message in there somewhere.

As to nightmares, give the child a dreamcatcher and tell him/her that whenever a nightmare happens just “imagine” the dreamcatcher in a dream. The dream catcher will protect you and give you powers. This has the upside of easily teaching the child about lucid dreaming, as well as giving a good “in” to Native American beliefs and culture.

As you can see, I’ve thought about this myself. I think having kids would be great…if, that is, I ever have kids…

Be Good,

Ronin