A fever is often accompanied by anxious dreams in children

There is a flu wave affecting many countries. This causes many people to suffer from muscle pain, colds, and hots. Besides coughing a lot, they also have a snotty nose.

Fever is one of the hallmarks of the flu. It is defined as a body temperature of 38 degrees or higher. Intense fever dreams can result from that. These dreams are a bit more intense and incoherent than normal dreams. The intensity of their dreams is especially important to monitor for young children.

When you are feverish, you sleep less because your deep sleep phase is shorter. This results in a relatively long REM sleep phase. REM sleep is characterized by rapid eye movement and a lot of brain activity. When you are awakened after REM sleep, you often remember your dreams well. You may feel confused after that phase for as long as fifteen minutes.

How does this work? Your brain controls your fever. This is where you make endocrine 1, which causes fever. Body temperature is raised as a result. Bacteria are less likely to function well at a higher body temperature. As a result, fever contributes to a healthy immune system. Additionally, those inflammatory substances also lead to intense dreams. As your sleep is disrupted by a fever, your dreams will be more intense.

Having these “fever dreams” is especially frightening for children. Adults know that they are only dreams, but for children, it is often different. Therefore, it is important to monitor children with high fevers when they are just waking up. However, the reverse is also true: if a child has only a slight increase, but wakes up anxious because of a bad dream, this indicates that the body temperature has suddenly risen. When that happens, you should take the body temperature as soon as possible, for example with an Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer that’s easy to use and very accurate.