How often do we encourage children to talk with us about their dreams? We listen eagerly to their playtime adventures, information about their friends and events which take place at school yet when it comes to their nighttime companions, dreams, we may feel that these are less valuable.

Children are very much at home with the dream world. Much of the fiction in children's books and films such as The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter are what I call, Dreamscapes, dreamlike places and journeys in which the characters easily travel in time and space. Often the journey takes place between two worlds, similar to the dreamstate during sleep and the waking state as we know it by day.

Dreams come to all of us from the unconscious, that part of ourselves which houses and synthesizes all kinds of information tucked away from our conscious memory. The unconscious is also the wondrous birthplace of creativity.

Parents can encourage their children to engage in an active and respectful relationship with their dreams to balance and build a bridge between the unconscious world of fantasy and imagination and the conscious world of form, structure and realization.

Dreams can be a wonderful resource for creativity, inspiration and problem solving. Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, found the answer to the completion of his invention in a vivid dream. Albert Einstein once said that his scientific career was based upon a dream that he had in his adolescence. Writers, musicians, artists and politicians have turned to their dreams for artistic material for their creations and inner guidance.

The most important advice a parent can receive regarding their children and dreams is to be open and to listen. It is not necessary to teach children how to interpret their dreams. The language of dreams evolves as a child's own language is shaped. A child's dreams can provide a parent with some understanding and insight about how a child is feeling about herself and about other aspects of her life. The dream often dramatically reflects what we think and feel inside which may not be expressed outwardly to others or to oneself.

Although the morning is often the busiest time of the day for a family, it is the best time for vivid dream recall. Talking about dreams at breakfast has been beneficial to some families. Upon waking, encourage your children to talk about their dreams. Later on, drawing or writing down some feeling, idea or association to the previous night's dream can be both fun and rewarding for a child.

By being attentive to their children's dreamtelling, parents can assist a child in developing and sustaining a sense of comfort with their inner world. Too often, a child learns early to put aside his fantasies and they become devalued. It is important to remember that the inner world not only contains the dream but is also the source of creativity and imagination.