Is anyone else’s child starting to have an imagination and thus getting nightmares? My son has incredible memory recall already, and is so great at communicating, but suddenly has been acting scared of random things.

We went to a petting zoo and he was really scared of the goats. Then had a maternity photoshoot and was scared of the horses nearby. Really any animal bigger than him. He’s been having nightmares about goats and tonight was talking about a “black monster” in the hallway while imitating it having an evil laugh. He talks about his dreams as well, not just nightmares. So not every nap/bedtime is nightmares, but it’s been about 4 times the last week which is concerning.

He likes to pretend to fall down or pretend to have a boo-boo. He wouldn’t let me or his dad sit him on a tree branch during my maternity photoshoot recently because he was scared? Wouldn’t ride the fake horse today at the carousel. Assuming one was because of heights, and the other because of heights/horse? He used to do totally fine with anything and everything though! He would pet animals, sit on tree branches, has been on a ton of carousels. This has all been a new development within the last 2 or so months.

I just am not sure how to encourage him to have an imagination, without feeding into any sort of scary delusions/dreams. I want him to feel protected and feel confident to try new things and know that I would never put him in a dangerous situation.

Sorry for such a long post! Just needed any sort of advice and to vent my sadness/frustration with it all. 😅