When a child wakes up crying from a nightmare, how to guide the child to calm down?

At around 22:00 the night before yesterday, I was planning to sit on the sofa and watch TV for a while to rest. Suddenly my son\’s cry came over, and I heard him say in the room, \”I want to call grandma! Woohoo, I want to find grandma!\” I wondered for a while (it has been a long time since I woke up crying in the middle of my sleep to find someone. Is it because I had so much fun playing at my grandma’s house for two days last weekend that I suddenly missed her?) While I was thinking this, my son’s crying and shouting got a little louder: Mom! I need to call grandma! Wow, I pushed the door and walked in. Without turning on the light, I went directly to the bed, hugged my son, and asked him: Why did he suddenly think of grandma? Do you miss grandma? The son said: No, I want to find grandma! I need to call grandma! I was even more puzzled… Why did I have to tell grandma at this time… Why didn\’t you tell me today? After thinking about it, I still answered my son: \”Mom, go to the living room to get your mobile phone. You sit there for a while and wait for me to come in with my mobile phone.\” My son grabbed me and added: Mom, I also want tissues. I touched my son\’s head and told him: OK, mommy, take the phone and then the tissues. When I returned to the room, my son seemed to have calmed down a bit. After I dialed the phone, I waited for a long time but no one answered. I thought: My mother is already asleep. It would be bad if she wakes me up. But if I don’t call at this time, what’s going on in my mind? The problem is hard to know. Alas, all I had to do was wait until my mom answered the phone. After about 7 or 8 rings, the phone finally picked up. I handed the phone to my son and let him talk to his grandma. \”Grandma…\” As soon as the boy finished the first two words, he started sobbing again. My mother was so frightened that she didn\’t know what to do on the other end of the phone (what happened this late at night? Children have never been like this before). I was stunned for a moment, thinking: I fell asleep at 21:30, and suddenly this happened just after 22:00, and I kept clamoring to call my grandma. After the call, I cried without saying a word. Within half an hour, I was in the bedroom. What happened there? I patted my son\’s shoulder gently and told him to speak slowly and not to rush. \”Grandma, I just had a dream, and I cried. I want to find grandma.\” For a while, it seemed that I couldn\’t explain clearly. On the other end of the phone, my mother thought that the child was just dreaming and that the child was missing her, so she suddenly said that she wanted to call her. She comforted the child for a few words, and then told the child that she would be on vacation in two days. Grandma came to see him. After hanging up the phone, my son was still twitching. Seeing that I couldn\’t leave the room right away in this situation, I asked my son: \”Mom, do you want to stay with you for a while?\” \”Yeah, okay mom. Please stay with me for a while. I\’m a little scared.\” \”That\’s okay. Mom will stay with you for a while. If you are scared, you can tell mom quietly.\” Then, the son continued intermittently. He talked about the nightmare he had (however, I still felt puzzled, could I have a dream just half an hour after falling asleep? But I didn’t think about this issue carefully at the time. I wanted to calm the child down first and let him sleep peacefully.) The son said : Snow White is greenThe hair was stained with red paint and could not be washed clean. I asked him: Are you unhappy because Snow White\’s hair is dirty? The son said the same sentence again with similar meaning: Snow White’s hair was a mess, filled with green and red paint. I ask again: Are you afraid of the red and green paint in Snow White’s hair? The son shook his head: No. A monster put paint on Snow White\’s hair, so Snow White\’s hair is dirty and she is no longer beautiful. It’s Snow White from Frozen. I continued to ask: Where did the monster come from? Why didn’t I see the monster? My son pointed to the chandelier on the ceiling and said: There, the monster is there, mom. Twinkle and twinkle. I looked up at the chandelier and found that there was a house opposite the window. There was strong light reflected in the house, and the chandelier happened to be transparent, so it looked like it was flickering a little bit. It just so happens that the boy has a better imagination. When he was a child, he was frightened because he looked at a chandelier and thought it was a monster. So, I stood up and closed the curtains tightly, and then asked my son: Now do you see any monsters on the chandelier? \”Huh? The monster is gone, Mom!\” \”Now, do you still feel scared?\” I asked. \”But Mom, Snow White\’s hair is dirty, what should I do?\” \”Mom thinks, even if Snow White\’s hair is dyed with green and red paint, Snow White is still Snow White, she is still very beautiful. She\’s beautiful and kind. So monsters can\’t hurt her, right?\” \”Well… but grandma can wash the paint clean, so I got scared and cried, so I called grandma. .” After hearing this, I finally understood what my son’s dream was about. The most critical aspects of this dream that frightened and saddened his son were: the scene from the monster cartoon \”Frozen\” imagined by the chandelier reappeared in his dream or imagination, and he told the story of the Snow Queen. Become Snow White. Snow White’s hair is stained by paint. Will Snow White not be beautiful? Only grandma at home knows how to wash off the paint on her hair, so she needs to find her immediately so that Snow White can wash her hair clean. I can become beautiful again. I don’t think it matters whether this is a dream imagined by my son or a real dream. After all, a 5-year-old child is still at an age where imagination is rich and reality and dreams cannot be completely distinguished. His logic has nothing to do with it. Children are inherently quick-thinking, let alone when they are scared. After dealing with the most critical areas where children were afraid and evasive, my son\’s mood gradually calmed down. I promised him that after the furniture in the guest room arrived, I could invite grandma to stay for two days. In addition, next week\’s weekend also happens to be the May Day holiday. Then the boy started to laugh through tears, and told me again the dream he had just had, but this time when describing it, he obviously no longer resisted it, but told it as a story. Let\’s go back and forth until he has finished what he wants to say.Later, I decided to finish: \”Okay, today\’s dream has become a story. What you said is really good! But it\’s time to go to bed now. Can you sleep alone?\” \”Well. Yes. Mom, You go out. Goog night!\” \”Yeah. Have a sweet dream.\” When I returned to the living room and sat on the sofa, I breathed a sigh of relief. I looked up at the wall clock and saw that the time was 22:40. I originally planned to watch TV, but now I had no energy left, so I simply packed up and went to bed. That night, I slept so soundly that I felt like I didn’t remember any of my dreams, except my son’s dream. So I decided to write it down to provide examples for dream interpretation research and children\’s psychological analysis.