What drives a child's paranormal experience ?

Are children more open to the paranormal or is there a conventional psychological explanation ? It is often said that children are more sensitive to paranormal experiences, a concept that has been covered in numerous fictional stories, films and television shows. But is there really a correlation between youth and a likelihood to encounter something supernatural or are children simply more open to letting their fears get the better of them ? A new study has been conducted in an effort to determine if children who experience nighttime fears are more likely to be open to a belief in imaginary beings and monsters. 80 children aged between four and six were shown images of imaginary figures such as fairies and were then asked if it was possible to go and visit them in real life.
The results suggested that those children who had experienced fears at nighttime were more likely to believe that the characters were real than those who didn't - the level of confusion between fantasy and reality appeared to be measurably greater. Night terrors and bad dreams are common among young children, and a new study found that that some preschoolers who suffer from nighttime phobias have difficulty telling the difference between fantasy and reality.

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