Unsweet dreams

When I was pregnant, I read that unborn babies start to have dreams somewhere around Week 24 of pregnancy. I asked my doctor if that was true, and she confirmed it.

"What could they possibly dream about?" I asked her. It's not like they've had any experiences.

Apparently, they dream about digestion sounds and music and other noises they hear through the amniotic fluid. Granted, all those sounds would be muffled, but they would still be enough stimuli to prompt the brain into dreams.

So Biscuit has been dreaming since before he even arrived.

Sometimes at night, we hear him saying words or short sentences through the baby monitor. We can usually get a pretty good handle on what he's dreaming about. But until last night, he's never remembered what he's dreamed about. Or if he did remember, he wasn't able to put it into words.

About 3 a.m., this scream (actually, scream isn't really a strong enough word to describe the noise Biscuit made, but let's just go with scream) came through the baby monitor.

Jeff and I were so startled, we both jumped straight out of bed. I started yelling Biscuit's name as Jeff ran up the stairs. Jeff quickly took down the baby gate at Biscuit's bedroom door and walked over to Biscuit's bed. Biscuit was too scared and wouldn't even reach for Jeff.

"Turn your light on," Jeff said pretty loudly, trying to get Biscuit to listen to what he was saying. "Turn your light on!"

Biscuit was yelling and crying at the same time as he tried to tell Jeff that there were snakes all over his bed, and one of the snakes was biting his arm. Jeff was having a hard time convincing Biscuit that the snakes weren't real.

Jeff finally brought Biscuit downstairs and put him in bed with us. It took us a little while to calm Biscuit down, but pretty soon, he and Jeff were both sound asleep. I, on the other hand, was not! My heart was still pounding. I just kept staring at Biscuit, like if I looked at him hard enough, I could delete all the bad dreams from his head.

To this point, Biscuit has never been able to recall a nightmare or even a good dream the morning after it happens. And I was hoping that would be the case with this awful snake thing.

But it wasn't. When Biscuit woke up, I asked him if he slept well.

"I slept well, Mom," he said. "Except those snakes were on my bed, and that one was biting me."

We got him ready and took him to daycare as usual. His teachers said he had a good day, and everything seems fine. 

The curious part of me would like to know if he still remembers the dream, but the protective Mama part of me hopes it's completely gone from his little head.

I want sweet dreams for my baby. And I hope that's what he has tonight.