Mental disorders and frequent nightmares in children, is it related?

In 1900, Sigmund Freud published “The Interpretation of Dreams” a work that would turn out to be revolutionary. In it, Freud proposed the theory that dreams are an unconscious representation of our fears, anxieties and our desires. Since then, those interested in understanding human behavior have delved into his theory in hopes of finding a link between dream symbolism and mental health.

A nightmare is a dream that produces feelings of fear, terror, anguish, or anxiety during REM sleep or rapid eye movement phase. Nightmares frequently occur in the latter part of the night and often awaken the sleeper, who is likely to remember the content of the dream, or at least the feelings it provoked.

Most nightmares are a normal reaction to stress, and some doctors think they help people cope with traumatic events in life . On the other hand, if you have nightmares regularly, it is when it becomes a disorder because it can affect the social, occupational and other important areas of the person’s functioning. When daily life is affected is when you can say that you have a nightmare disorder, sleep anxiety disorder or “repeated nightmares”, which is a term that refers to when you have a series of nightmares with a recurring theme.

Although nightmares don’t make many distinctions between the sexes, they seem to be more common in girls than boys . They begin to suffer them before the age of 10 and are considered normal unless they interfere with sleep, their development or with their psychosocial development. They can continue into adulthood and be related to factors such as suffering great stress, anxiety or some type of trauma, for example, after a traffic accident. Nightmares can also exist alongside other mental disorders.

SLEEP PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN

Sleeping is an essential activity for the growth and development of children. The structure and patterns of sleep change a lot throughout childhood. Mild and occasional nightmares are normal and part of childhood development, and do not need any type of treatment as long as they do not turn into a disorder that has a negative impact on the quality of life of the child.

Lack of sleep in children can lead to learning difficulties and developmental challenges. Behavioral, memory and attention problems can affect a child’s school performance, even physical problems such as obesity have been linked to lack of sleep. Sleeping difficulties in childhood can also predict a number of future problems such as depression and anxiety, drug use, obesity in adulthood, and pervasive sleep disorders.

Pediatricians ask patients a series of questions to determine whether problems fall into one or more of the five sleep-related categories:

• • Difficulty falling asleep

• • Excessive daytime sleepiness

• • Awakenings during the night

• • Regularity and duration of sleep

• To snore

Probably the most common sleep disorder in children is behavioral insomnia, which is due to a lack or inconsistency in setting limits , that is, they refuse to go to bed. In babies it usually occurs when they wake up and are unable to go back to sleep without the help of parents .

Parasomnias

The parasomnias are sleep disorders that are usually seen in children . They are discrete behavioral episodes that occur at any time during the sleep process, causing a disruption but generally do not affect the overall quality of sleep as insomnia does , for example. However, parasomnias can lead to great parental distress.

Parasomnias include nightmares , night terrors , sleepwalking, the act of talking during sleep, confused awakenings, urinating on the bed, gnashing of teeth, excessive or unusual movements, and sleep paralysis. It is known that the vast majority of children suffer from at least one of these disorders before the age of 6 , but they decrease markedly when they reach school age. However, many parasomnias can reach adulthood or appear only during adulthood .

WHY PAY ATTENTION TO CHILDREN’S NIGHTMARES?

Nightmares in children are normal and are usually caused by some previous event, such as having seen a movie that has disturbed them or suffering from some type of anxiety . However, pay attention because children who have nightmares are often at higher risk of developing psychotic symptoms in the future .

The link between parasomins such as sleepwalking , nightmares and night terrors, or when the child wakes up screaming but does not remember the reason, has been studied during childhood and then had psychotic experiences in adolescence. Psychotic experiences can be things like a child hearing someone call them when they are not, becoming paranoid, or thinking that people around them want to hurt them. Children who experience these symptoms do not always have or develop a mental illness or disorder, many times those experiences mean nothing. But if the symptoms are severe, then they can be precursors to psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Studies carried out in the United Kingdom have determined that the risk of developing mental disorders during adolescence or during adulthood is around 10%, so the relationship between sleep disorders in childhood and subsequent mental disorders when the child grows up is not clearly determined.

There is a consensus in the opinion that nightmares are a perfectly normal phenomenon and parents should not be alarmed if their children suffer from them . It is only necessary to think that the child needs treatment if the nightmares are so persistent that they affect their daily life , school performance or their relationships with other people.