🔮 Symbolic Approach
Lares, dybbuks, kodama, the ghost children of kabuki: what has not been given rites returns. This is not the soul of a real child accusing you. It is often an unborn potential (project, grief, your younger self) that never had a funeral. Speaking to it makes you an amateur psychopomp. Chasing it away with light is refusing grief.
🛋️ Psychoanalysis (Freud & Jung)
Inner child, lost pregnancy, siblings, parental guilt. Winnicott: ghost in the nursery (parents' past haunts the present). If you have lost a child, the dream may be grief work—not a literal visit. Distinguish the symbol from true sorrow.
🧠 Neuroscience
Child's face plus Uncanny (transparency). A movie, a photo, a guest room. House noises merge into child's footsteps. Attachment strongly activates this script.
💡 Practical Advice
Make a gesture of grief or care: a put-away photo, a candle, a note, a hug to someone alive. If the sorrow of a real loss is crushing you, seek human support. The dream ghost wants a rite, not a debate about the afterlife.
