Sunday, February 03, 2013

In another installment of "Daniel says the darndest things," he called me into his room tonight to tell me that he was having the same bad dream he's had for several nights. It stems from a book we read at Halloween, where a school bus gets stuck on the tracks and the kids die. Later, a couple gets stuck on the tracks, and the ghosts of the kids push them off and save them (yes, this was a kid's book full of goofy, otherwise innocuous ghost stories, and no, I did not expect this storyline when I started reading it).

I told him to try to think of something different to dream.

"But the dream computer in my head keeps playing that one," he said.

Thinking I had a clever way to get him to deal with this, I likened it to his Leap Pad.

"OK," I said. "You know when you're done with a game on your Leap Pad, you pull out the cartridge and put in something else, right? Well, just pull out the cartridge with the bad dream on it, and put in something different, like one about our fun sledding trip today."

"Dad," he said, "My dream computer doesn't have a place for a cartridge. It's my b-, b-, b-" (he's saying this to give me a clue to the answer).  "You know."

"I have no idea what you're trying to say, Daniel," I said.

"My brain, Dad," he said. "That's where dreams come from."

Chastened, I wished him luck and left him to his dreams.