It was just over two years ago that I detailed Beau’s battle with bad dreams. When I published that blog post, he was having scary dreams at a pretty frequent rate. Each time he would have one, our son would refuse to go back to sleep because he “didn’t want to go back to it.” Like many of us, the moment Beau would shut his eyes he would find himself right back in the middle of the nightmare.

Beau is usually a happy kid…at least when he isn;t having nightmares.

Over the past 25 months Beau has continued to have bad dreams but nothing as frequent as when he was a 4-year-old. However, Sid and I have learned something about his bad dreams: they are usually directly related to what he watches.

If Beau watches something scary or graphic, there is a good chance it will show up in his sleep later that night. A perfect example wasn’t even Beau’s fault and became a good lesson for Sid and me…

One night several months ago, Sid and I were watching a true crime show. This particular episode centered around a person who was burned to death in a campfire out in the woods. We didn’t really think Beau was paying attention because even though he was in the same room with us he was fixated on a tablet (or so we thought). In the middle of the following night, Beau ran into our room freaked out and exclaimed to us that he had a nightmare about someone who was murdered in a fire. That dream didn’t just give Beau a wake up call.

Anyway, after several instances of this, it actually happened again on Thursday night. Beau once again raced into our room after experiencing a bad dream. As I usually do, I asked him to talk out his nightmare with me. This one had to do with an animal many of us don’t like: snakes.

He told me that his dream started with him in our bedroom when a big snake appeared on the floor. After dodging it in the space of our room, he totally evacuated and ran to Sloan’s room. Unfortunately the snake followed and bit his sister. Trust me, Beau didn’t take any delight in this. He was petrified!

I immediately knew how the bad dream was planted in his unconscious mind. It wasn’t from the movies “Anaconda” or “Snakes On A Plane.” It wasn’t from a visit to the zoo or a horror story he watched on YouTube.

Rather, it came directly from our nightly reading…

I knew the book “About Reptiles” is what gave Beau a bad dream about snakes.

On Tuesday night, Beau and I read a book titled “About Reptiles.” It taught us about lizards, frogs, toads, alligators, crocodiles, and—of course—snakes. In fact, the book probably covered the slithery limbless reptiles more than any other creature. As you can imagine, our 6-year-old had a lot of questions about snakes—especially the poisonous ones.

“About Reptiles” included multiple spreads within the book about snakes…including venomous ones.

Never did I think that reading the book would result in a nightmare for Beau. With that said, I am not beating myself up too badly. I read the book to Beau with good, educational intentions. However, it did drive home the fact that anything Beau consumes during the day could plant a seed for a bad dream during the night. Don’t Blink.