Has anyone's kids had very vivid dreams? My DS now 6 used to dream about people. He would wake up screaming at 18 mos and then describe the "people" he would see in his dreams (think movie Sixth Sense). It used to give me the chills. He still recalls his dreams and can describe them very vividly. Now my DD2 is doing it. When I asked other moms if their kids do this, I got the "weirdo" looks from them. So I thought I would throw this out there to you guys. Is it a GT trait or a "weirdo" trait?

About once every two weeks Mr W wakes up screaming and sobbing uncontrollably. It takes a good hour to get him back to sleep. I am not sure what he is dreaming about, but he is very upset.

My DS7 had that to the point that he still will not sleep without nightlights. He vividly recalls faces and people that he saw when he was younger.

To be honest, I had the same issues as a child.

One of my daughters has a hard time going to sleep, it's almost like she cannot turn off her brain and relax. She has bad dreams and she's afraid of her closet being open when she sleeps. She also talks in her sleep, just recently when we were on vacation she was discribing the colors of a flame from hottest to coolest blue, yellow, orange and red, funny thing to be dreaming about.

My DS12 had night terrors a couple times per week when he was seven-eight. That was actually how we began the process for him to become a YS. I called Davidson to ask if there was any known correlation between night terrors and high IQ. Although she was not aware of a correlation, the consultant who took my call encouraged us to apply.

I had extremely vivid dreams when younger. Some were scary, but others where bizarre/funny. They were always colorful! I would often entertain my school friends at lunch with description of my most recent dream.

I do not know what DS would dream about, but I could not console him in his nightmares. The thing I discovered worked best was to bring him crying downstairs, put him in my lap, put his favourite video on (it was Fireman Sam)and just wait for him to wake up and then calm down. It generally took about two episodes and he wanted to go back to bed .

hkc - our dd 26 mos. has extremely vivid dreams and will sit up and act them out before fully waking. She talks in her sleep, too. (Her father is exactly the same way.)

As a kid I don't remember vivid dreams, but when I was pregnant I dreamed like the Sixth Sense, or, more accurately, like the tv show Medium. It. Was. Awful. I really felt like I was losing my mind and I was definitely losing sleep.

Funny, I always had to have the closet door shut, too. I thought I was the only one!

I may be off here...but my kids had "night terrors." I think they are not too unusual. I don't know if that's what you're talking about exactly, but here's a wiki entry for more info:

Wikipedia: Night Terrors

My DS6 had night terrors every night at 2-3. As he's gotten older he seems to be outgrowing them but he still has to have a nightlight and shows up at the side of my bed about twice a month.

Thanks guys. I am not referring to night terrors. My kids are full awake and can recall very vivid events/people often describing graphic features and details. I think it is hard because they are so little and have all these big descriptive words that they use. I have noticed that these events occur more often when it is too hot. My DS6 now still has very vivid nightmares but only when his anxiety gets the best of him. I wondered about correlation between giftedness and night dreams as delbows suggested.

I had these graphic vivd nightmares as well, as a child. I've read so much information about GT kids, etc it all runs together sometimes. I think I read that really visual spatial kids can have some really intense dreams simply because of their natural tendency to store information in a visual manner, as images. Also, some GT kids are extremely creative and imaginative and those things together may make for some really interesting dreams!

I'd guess that the anxiety you mentioned could also come out in the form of nightmares. Some think that dreams are the way the subconscious process info.....it follow that nightmares could be a person's way of processing troubles???

I don't mean your child is *troubled*, like, a problem that is nagging at them.

I had vivid nightmares when I was a child, especially if I read about certain subjects before bedtime (such as volcanoes, medical stuff, or stories with violence). Even as an adult, my dreams are still very vivid, albeit less nightmare-ish. I've found that monitoring movies, books, news... helps avoid them at night, as my youngest will get nightmares after hearing or watching something scary or sad (even at 14).