The Untold Connection between Nightmares and Delusional Disorders

“Mom! Can I sleep with you?” This is the most often asked question by a six to eight year old child. Many parents initially give in to their child’s request as they feel the child needs more time to understand the importance of sleeping alone. But one among ten mothers may try to find the real reason of their child’s fear. Most commonly children have fear of dark. Some frequently get nightmares where they visualize green eyed monsters or a giant dragon that is running behind them to gobble them up in one go. Some do not like loneliness. When the first and third reasons are somewhat acceptable and does not associate any medical symptom with itself, the second condition of regular fretful nightmares needs a serious watch. Here are some common patterns that can develop into a serious mental block in the future years of the child.

• Repeating patterns in nightmare

If the child is frequently seeing the same dream sequence, it definitely means some serious trouble in the brewing. The parent needs to observe the child’s behavioral pattern, the books he reads, the TV programmes that he watches and the friends he moves out with. If the reason for the nightmare is resultant of either of the above reasons, the child is just affected on the periphery. Unfortunately, if the child has a constrained and depressed mind set and is highly sensitive by nature, it is a must for the parent to connect to a child psychiatrist for further help.

• Delusional disorders

Delusions definition is simple. It is another variant of schizophrenia where the affected person hears voices that are inaudible to others. With delusion the person firmly believes the unreal exists and remains confused. Some common types of delusional disorders that will reflect in early child hood are through hallucinations and frequent terrors in the form of nightmares. Hence if these dream patterns continues above the age of 12, the child needs psychotic treatments to channelize their thoughts and get back to normalcy.

• How to help the child?

The children are parent’s treasure. Rather than forcing them to sleep alone and overcome the fear themselves as they have become “of age”, parents must step into the child’s shoes and find out what is disturbing them. Parents must help their child to understand what is real and what is non-existent and indulge the child into real world sports or games that makes the children grow physically and mentally strong.

Do Mentally Unstable Cause Violence out of Their Will?

Mental instability of a person is most unfortunate for him as well as his family. When a subject is diagnosed with mental in stable condition like madness, delusions, psychic disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia etc, in most prevalent cases he will be lonely supported only by his family or close friends. He is seen as a tormentor by the neighbors in general. But statistics has a different say in this regards. It has been observed in a survey that mentally unstable people experience more violence and wrath of people in comparison to the violence they inflict on them. Astonishing is it not? Unfortunately this is true.

• Reasons behind the Violence

A mentally unstable person bears the brunt of brutal violence as he does not know how to react. When he tries to voice his defense, people hardly take him seriously and this irritates them further. As a result they try to harm the ones who caused physical or mental assault upon them. In some other scenarios where the subject suffers from delusion he tends to see things which others do not see and he also hears sounds which others cannot hear. When people blame or make fun of him for his erratic actions these people tend to get violent. Thus the ultimate reason for a mentally unstable person to get harmful is the unaccountable physical and mental torture that has been inflicted upon them.

• Prevention of Unstability

Preventing a severely mentally unstable person to cause violence is easy. All one needs to do is to keep them indoor or admit them to an asylum where he can be taken care of under medical supervision. But people with bipolar disorders, delusional disorders, depression or schizophrenia will look very natural and normal in general circumstances. These people should realize their self and their state of mind and preempt themselves with anti-depressant so that they can still be counted safe.

Mental health and violence are interconnected as violence is defined as a result of mental aggressiveness. A healthy person too can turn violent when his mind stops to guide him in the right path. There are numerous societies and non-profitable organization networks who work seamlessly to explain common people about the mental makeup of such pitiable souls so that the world can perceive their goodness and help these people live a better life to enjoy the bounties of nature.