4.5yo dd hallucinating with fever

[Enudely]

My dd was crying the other night in bed with a fever, and I went in and she was standing near her bed, crying and pointing at it saying "it's HUGE!". Her little eyes were so big and scared and she was sort of trembling and near hysterical. She thought her bed was really really big and that it had grown. Even after I had her back in bed and was laying there with her, she still thought her bed was huge.
Later in the night, she woke up screaming, terrified and was pointing at the ceiling (I admit, I was getting scared myself at this point). I finally got her to say that she was dreaming that there was a stage and there were some pants dancing by themselves. (?!) She was TERRIFIED. At first she was seeing it even with her eyes closed, but then it got to the point that every time she closed her eyes, she would see the "Scary dream". This was when I broke down and gave her Tylenol to bring down the fever. She slept fitfully the rest of the night.
This was freaky! Anyone else seen there little ones go through this? I hope it doesn't keep happening to the poor little sweetie!

[Mommyintraining2]

I haven't had that happen but I thought I'd send you hugs. It's hard being a mother and going through these things.

My five year old has been having scary dreams. We talk about them and I empathize with how scary they are. Then when he says he can't get them out of his head, we talk about how to make them funny. We "run with it" and add all kinds of silly things. Of course, the most important thing I do is to take him seriously. Then if he wants, we make them silly.

Also, I've had a lot of success with a luke-warm bath to get the temperature down. It also might break up the mood a little bit.

[CookAMH]

Poor girl! I don't usually medicate fevers but I would have in your case to ease her terror!! My heart would have been breaking for her. How is she now?

Be really careful about baths - they should feel warm to us but will feel cooler to their hot bodies. Be also careful about the fever shooting back up after the bath if it has cooled them too much, that can cause a seizure.

[4evermom]

My siblings and my dad (when he was a kid) got hallucinations with fevers pretty often. My mom was a bit freaked the first time until my dad told her it always happened to him. One funny story was when my youngest brother asked her why there were skulls flying around the ceiling. She told him it was because of his fever and said maybe they would go away if he sat up. They did briefly. Then he said, "Whoops, they're back!" Another time my sister saw all her friends, very small like mice, playing a game around the shower drain. My other brother saw characters from a book out the window. My mom was a bit concerned that time because he was big, at least 12, and she was worried he'd try to go outside and she wouldn't be able to stop him if necessary.

Anyway, hallucinations with fevers don't necessarily mean anything bad or indicate a particularly high fever or anything but I understand their being disturbing!

[meemee]

4 generations of us get high fever. a 104 is not big deal. i have v. v. rarely given dd any fever reducers. i remember i had to throw out bottles because they passed the date.

but I was the only one who had hallucinations. i've been alone and at home with an infant and had hallucinations. i just stayed in bed.

i recall my first hallucination when i was 4 or 5. my parents had a calendar of neon paintings and i completely freaked out about that when i was 4 or 5. i've had some after that but i cant remember them.

when my dd gets fever i dont do anything initially. but when it starts steadily crossing a 104 i give her cold water body washes. in fact dd asks for it because i guess she finds it soothing. esp on her temple, back and behind her knees. that is when she is super hot and needs some relief. just the fact that she asks i see as a sign of approaching breaking temperature.

i remember my mom telling me i didnt have hallucinations all the time. when my fever went upto 105.5 i didnt have any hallucinations. many times she said i woke up not even knowing i had hallucinated. when i had mastitis i think i hallucinated (not terrifying dreams but odd thoughts so even in my hallucinations i knew i was hallucinating) at a 103.

[karne]

Yes, my dd does this. I can always tell when a big fever is coming because she gets trembly, voice quivers, and and can hallucinate. I medicate high fevers. IMO, there is no reason not to. Actually, it's far better to get to the fever before I see the above reaction-it's incredibly distressing to my child and to me to see this, and I don't see any reason to put her in this position if it can be helped.

[Tjej]

You can google "alice in wonderland syndrome" and it talks about the bed being big-type stuff. My DD gets that, and my DH talks about it from his childhood.

Totally weird.

Tjej

[LaLaLaLa]

I remember this from my childhood, even when I wasn't feverish. I remember fairly often in my childhood having the feeling that my bed and I were shrinking way down, and that the door was suddenly getting really far away and such. It was really freaky; I sometimes had to get up and walk around in order to make it stop.

[sunnygir1]

I had nightmares, some of them recurring for years, hallucinations, and sleepwalking with fevers when I was a child. I don't know that my mama ever medicated my fevers, but I do remember her up in the night bathing my head, neck, and wrists.

I remember one time she told me she had to hold me down because I was so frantic and running around the house trying to save a mermaid from a man with a gun...she was afraid I was going to hurt myself. Upon recovering, I remembered the dream/hallucination, but none of the things that really happened, although I appeared to be awake.

[sparklett]

I just wanted to share... DS has never hallucinated but I have. I had severe food poisoning and had a crazy high fever....

.... and I was convinced that Richard Gere was painting my bedroom. Like 110% positive that he was in there painting.

We went to urgent care after that.

[DeerMother]

I started hallucinating with fevers when I was 16. I was home alone, got terribly ill, thought someone was trying to kidnap my cat. I went downstairs to get the butcher knife to protect kitty. My parents came home to find me sleeping grasping the giant knife across my chest.

So now if I am feverish, I let someone know so I can be supervised.

[Sierra]

I remember hallucinating once as a child during a fever. I don't have any clear memory of exactly what I was seeing, but it had to do with spiders.

I was probably around 7 or 8 at the time. It freaked my parents out, but the fever eventually died down, and the hallucinations ended.