Man, sometimes kids’ dreams just throw you for a loop, right? You hear them talking about stuff, and you’re like, “Where in the heck did that even come from?” Well, I got started on this whole thing because my nephew, little Timmy, he started having these wild dreams. Not just monsters under the bed, you know? He’s telling his mom, my sister, about being in a bright light, floating, and then these “tall, skinny guys” are poking him. Alien abduction stuff. And he’s, what, six? My sister was freaked out. She started thinking, “Is he watching too many movies? Is something wrong?”
I heard about it, and my brain just started spinning. I’ve always been kinda into what makes people tick, especially what goes on in our heads when we’re sleeping. My sister was ready to take him to a shrink, but I said, “Hold on a minute, let me just poke around a bit first.” Not like I’m a doctor or anything, just a curious old bloke who reads too much. So, I started digging. My initial thought was, “Okay, kids absorb everything.” TV, stories, playground chatter. Maybe it was just that. But Timmy ain’t exactly glued to sci-fi flicks, and his friends are mostly into Roblox and Minecraft, not X-Files.
So, I started looking into dream stuff. Like, what do dreams even mean? I’d read some bits and pieces about this Jung fella before, way back. He had some wild ideas about everyone kinda carrying around these same basic stories in their heads, like old myths and heroes and villains. Not learned, but just kinda there from when humans first started walking around. I figured, if anyone could make sense of something as bizarre as a kid dreaming about aliens, it might be someone who thinks beyond just daily events. I wasn’t looking for therapy; I was just looking for a way for my sister to maybe understand it a bit better and not panic.
My “research,” if you wanna call it that, wasn’t exactly scientific. I wasn’t in a lab coat, you know? I pulled out some old books I had lying around, dusted off a few PDFs I’d saved ages ago, and just started reading. I typed things into search bars like, “scary dreams kids meaning” and “why kids dream of being taken.” It was mostly parents panicking, therapists talking about trauma, or just weird theories. But then I started adding “Jung” to my searches. That’s when things started to click a little differently for me. I began to piece together some bits that felt… less literal, more symbolic.
What I started realizing was, maybe these “aliens” weren’t aliens at all in Timmy’s head. What if they were just the shape his young mind gave to something else he was dealing with? Something big and unknown. Think about it. When you’re a little kid, everything is huge, right? The world is massive, adults are huge, rules are overwhelming. You’re small. And sometimes, you feel like you’re not in control. Someone’s always telling you what to do, where to go, what to eat. You get moved around a lot, literally picked up and put down. You go to new places, meet new people, deal with new schools. It’s a lot of change. A lot of feeling like you’re being “taken” or “examined” by powers bigger than you.
I started thinking about these “tall, skinny guys.” Jung talked about these universal images, these archetypes, that pop up in dreams and stories across all cultures. They aren’t always good or bad, just powerful. What if these “aliens” were just a modern, sci-fi version of the old “giants” or “gods” or “spirits” that take people away in ancient myths? These figures that represent the unknown, the overwhelming forces of life, the things that initiate change. For Timmy, maybe it was the feeling of starting a new grade at school, or a new set of rules at home, or just the general feeling of growing up and facing things he couldn’t grasp yet. He was being “abducted” by growing up, by change, by the sheer bigness of the world.
The “examination” part, that was interesting too. In those old stories, heroes often have to go through some sort of trial or test. They get looked over, they’re found wanting, or they’re given new powers. For a kid, maybe that “examination” is his mind trying to make sense of what’s inside him, what he’s capable of, what he’s learning. It’s like his unconscious is giving him a mental check-up, figuring out what parts of him are ready for the next big thing, and what parts are still a bit scared or tiny.
So, I went back to my sister. I didn’t hit her with any fancy words. I just told her, “Look, maybe it’s not about little green men. Maybe it’s about Timmy feeling small in a big world, and his brain is just trying to process all the changes and new things happening to him.” I explained that these “aliens” could be like a picture in his head for all the powerful, unknown stuff he’s facing as he grows up. The feeling of being ‘taken’ could be about feeling like things are out of his control, which happens a lot to kids. And the ‘poking and prodding’? Maybe his brain’s way of trying to understand himself, or making sense of new challenges.
I told her, “Don’t try to explain away his dream. Just listen to him. Ask him how he feels in the dream, what it’s like. Let him draw pictures of the aliens if he wants. Just acknowledge that it’s a big, scary dream, but remind him he’s safe when he wakes up.” The goal wasn’t to “solve” the dream but to help Timmy and his mom understand it as part of his journey of growing up, facing unknowns, and finding his place. It turned out to be less about actual aliens and more about the universal human experience of confronting the big, mysterious parts of life, especially for a little guy.
