Seeing Things

[Gaeliana]

My husband had asked my 3 year old daughter if she had bad dreams one night.
My daughter, who I will admit is a great fabricator of the truth in terms of real situations (i.e. lying about putting toys away or pulling the cats tail) but never anything like fairies fly in her window or goblins live in her books sort of stuff answered him quite seriously and seemingly distressed (wringing her hands):
Sometimes an alien sits on my pillow beside me.
My husband asked in response: "Do they hurt you or try to touch you?"
Her response: "Sometimes they try to cut me with knives"

This isn't the first seemingly morbid tale our daughter has told us. We park in an underground parkade next to an suv that doesn't ever move (windows left open, kind of decrepid, graphiti'd, junk inside, etc). Anyways, my daughter told us going to the car: "I don't like that red car mommy"
I answered: "Why not?"
She said: "Because there's a dead person in there."
When we reassured her that there was nobody in the car because the windows are open and the seats are empty she remained quite strongly objected to the vehicle: "I don't like that car"

She's only watched treehouse tv and no stories or programs about cutting people or dead people and she doesn't sit in the livingroom watching adult programs that we might watch so I'm not sure where this is coming from but if someone could let me know what I should do or if I should even do anything that would be great. A lot of articles talk about the benefits of imaginary friends but these aliens and dead people don't seem like security blanket figures...

[monkeybusiness]

She's an intuitive person.  Some of us can see things others can't.  At a younger age, kids are more perceptive.  Why she's pointing out the morbid things might be because they stick out more than the benevolent.  My mother, myself and my son are like this.  You can accept it as normal or take steps to figure out more.  I don't know what to tell you.  

[megochick101]

This may come out like I'm joking but i'm completely serious. Maybe your daughter is really seeing these things(not an alien per se but something that to her is best described as an alien figure). That doesn't sound very pleasant but when i was 5 years old i remember seeing an old lady occasionally at our house and she used to talk to me and used to play with me(with me and my toys not any kind of sexual thing) my mom got really worried when i told her this and looked into the history of the house and the tenant before the last one had been an old woman who had died there and i immediately pointed her out saying that "that's the lady who plays with me" It really freaked my mom out, but i did truthfully see her and really interacted with her. But after moving out of there i never really had another instance like that.

So maybe your daughter is just really intuitive to i'll call them spirits. Please take me seriously i know it sounds crazy but i'm being honest. That's actually the first time i've ever mentioned this before but your child words about the dead person and the blood in the walls and the alien made me remember my situation when i was young.

But what really worries me about your daughters situation is the morbidity. The aliens are trying to hurt her, there's a dead body in a car and there's blood in the walls. All these instances are negative or bad things and I would be a little worried about that so i would recommend having her evaluated by a psychologist for these imaginary things for the morbidity of them especially and it couldn't hurt anything to get her checked out.

[Gaeliana]

My husband reminded me about an incident at our last home where our daughter told him that she didn't want to stay in her bedroom because there was 'blood in the walls' this was just under a year ago?

[038745]

The first thing I would do is to give your child a way of making herself feel secure.  Children often find that the scary things they imagine in their room dissapear when mommy or daddy show up.  Although this is a good thing since you can protect your child from being afraid you need to offer her a solution that will empower her.  I suggest doing the water bottle thing.  Fill a spray bottle (walmart $1) with scented water or water and glitter.  Make sure to involve the child in mixing the water and pouring the water into her special spray bottle.  Explain to the child that the special mix inside of the bottle is monster spray or something similar.  walk her around the house and let her spray the front door or the closet and then make a big deal about how no monsters can get into the closet because she has sprayed it.  Children will naturally imagine things, and as they become older they become more aware of good and evil.  fear is a natural thing to feel when exploring the differences in good and bad for yourself. It is natural first of all that she is testing your reaction to lying.  The next time she tells you she sees a dead person ask her to point out the dead person.  Do not reprimand your child for having an imagination but try saying something like "mommy doesnt see what you are seeing.  can you explain it to me?  You must be really special to see something that mommy cant see"  It is also natural that your child is gaging your reaction towards morbid behavior.  Your child is most likely using the  morbid behavior to get your attention.  In order to stop the behavior you need to empower your daughter to deal with it on her own, encourage her to imagine things that counteract the morbid things she is describing, and do not EVER punish the child for describing something unsettling.  Although for most children this behavior is merely and outburst for attention that can be dealt with by reinforcing self reliability and encouraging the child to pursue other things... for some children things can escalate to something worse if the child is punished or reprimanded for being curious.  I hope that this helped.