ries if they wish. Other activities you can do with your children include making dream pillows with special coverings or scents, a dream quilt, and other objects or gifts from dream symbols. Dreamwork can be a fun way of helping your children sharpen their writing or artistic skills, and serves as a creative and educational alternative to television. Let their enthusiasm for particular projects be your guide.
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Some children who change their dreams in waking fantasy may also spontaneously do so while they're asleepa process called lucid dreaming, which we described in chapter 2. When the dreamer knows she is "just dreaming," she may be able to continue participating in the dream, actively confronting characters and directing actions. Take Samantha, the five-year-old who had the desert dream described earlier in this chapter that had brought up her feelings of loss. Shortly afterward, she excitedly reported a lucid dream to her parents.
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 | | Dying and Flying
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| | I think I am dying, but then I realize I am only dreaming, and that I'm not actually going to die. I decide to try something else. I think really hard, and I start flying. It feels wonderful.
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As she described her dream, Samantha clenched her fist and closed her eyes tightly to illustrate how hard she was thinking in the dream. She explained that she was able to change her dream when she realized that she was "just dreaming." You can help your children become lucid dreamersa useful and enjoyable skill to have as both children and adultsby letting them know that it is possible to change their dreams while they are dreaming. Just knowing that it can happen can help make it happen.
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