Dream of the Day

Okay, so this is my second post today, but I'm bored and waiting for various travel sites to hurry up and load already (so we can see about potential spring break ideas), and I thought it might be fun (i.e. another way to ease my crushing boredom at work) to include a Dream of the Day entry, for when I have good and/or confusing dreams. Or terrifying ones. Whatever.

As you all know, I have a frighteningly active subconscious, and I have very, very strange dreams. While my horror movie nightmares haven't been happening lately, I've been having a new type of dream, which I like to call the: Impending Doom Dream.

Delightful!

Basically, these dreams involve me running from/avoiding/going out of my way to get away from something bad that I can't seem to avoid. Last night I had two such dreams (in between waking up to get some water because my apartment is dry as all hell.) The first was:

Everybody Loves (or Hates) Chelsea

This dream doesn't actually make much sense, so bear with me. At least it's not the one about the unicorn and the monkey man. But there is a nuclear family at the center of the dream, and pesky assailants that want to kill me, so I figured I'd go with this description.

The dream began with a group of us (myself, Erin, Becca, and Jen) fleeing a group of unknown assailants. The only thing I know about them was that it was a rather large group of men my age, and they wanted to kill us. Charming! They were chasing us through the back streets (okay, woods) of my neighborhood from Hull, and we ran up a cement driveway, which revealed a big tree house of sorts. The tree house had housing in it, along with a restaurant, a drive in movie theater, and some other assorted shops. It was big, okay?

At that point, we suddenly jump ahead 3 years. I have no idea where my friends are (and in fact they never reappear during the dream) but I have acquired a husband (who I know to be attractive and like a buffer version of Milo from Heroes) who loves me very much. Oh, and we happen to have a 2.5 year old daughter.

My baby's daddy

We have a loving relationship and a loving family, and we enjoy eating McDonald's from the restaurant and watching drive in movies from our perch also in the restaurant. It would appear we run most of the, um, tree house activities. There are families all over the place, and it's quite a happening joint.

However.

After those blissful 3 years, the unknown group of assailants come back, and want to kill me, and also kill my daughter. My husband isn't going to be killed, which is highly unfair, but what can you do. So my daughter and I are hiding from the assailants as they come prowling around at night, and I have to remind her to be quiet, lest they come and slaughter the both of us. I immediately recognize it's a dream because in real life, I would've thrown the daughter as bait and made my escape.

Although what's odd about these nightmares/doom dreams is that I don't know I'm dreaming. Up until recently, I was always aware of the fact that I was dreaming. While I can still dictate what I do, and make choices about what happens in my dreams, I am no longer aware that I'm not actually awake. I was actually terrified for my daughter, and feeling an emotion I can only ascribe to "motherly love." Which isn't an emotion I'm programmed to have.

Once the assailants leave, things mostly go back to normal, although my husband and I decide it's no longer safe - we know the assailants will come back in a few weeks - and we need to move. We also decide to "give the daughter a little brother or sister."

Now, this last part I think comes from Criminal Minds, because we'd just watched an episode in which two characters had that exact conversation (minus the: people are coming to kill us! part.) Other than that, the rest is my own twisted mind.

The dream ends with us packing up to leave what is now our tropical tree house, and move somewhere safer. Yes, with the daughter.

Possible Interpretations:

Being Helpless/Vulnerable: Being or feeling helpless or vulnerable in a dream can represent: Actual feelings of helplessness somehow in your real life; Some aspect of your life where you feel vulnerable or like you could use some help; Losing, or a fear of losing, power or control somehow in your life; A focus on the unpredictable nature of life

Daughter: A dream that you have a child that you don't have in real life can represent a feeling of responsibility for something or someone in your life; a need to pay more attention to your needs or to take better care of yourself in some way

Family: Family often represent members of your real family, whether they look like themselves or not. A family you don't know may still represent your actual family, or they may represent another group you interact with in real life, such as a friends or co-workers.

Husband: A dream where someone is your significant other who is not in real life may represent your significant other and is portraying certain characteristics that you are noticing in them right now; Your subconscious mind may be exploring what it would be like to be closer to the person in the dream (not necessarily romantically), or perhaps you just like this person, think they're nice, find them interesting, or you've noticed qualities you admire in them.

OR

One, they could be past life dreams. Two, they could be your way of disguising the symbol. We speak in metaphors. I am so hungry, I could eat a horse. It doesn't mean you're going to actually eat one of those lovely creatures, it means you're very, very hungry. We dream in symbols. So the strangers are symbols of concepts, ideas that you want to deal with.

Mall-like Area: A mall, shopping center, or market can represent your life or several aspects of your life, with each store or area representing an activity, relationship, job or aspect of school, project, etc. Consider your feelings about the places in the shopping center and the dream events that happen there, and look for parallels with feelings and events in your real life

Menacing: A menacing person, figure, or animal - or a feeling of being threatened - in a dream can mean you're feeling threatened in real life somehow - either mentally, emotionally, or physically.

Threat/Attack: A threat in a dream, or a feeling of being threatened in a dream, can mean you're feeling threatened in real life somehow—either mentally, emotionally, or physically; Being attacked, beaten, or tortured can represent; A feeling or fear of persecution, hostility, aggression, criticism, etc. from by another person or by "people in general" - A situation where you feel or fear your boundaries being crossed or your integrity compromised by someone else

Tree House: A desire for or feeling that you have achieved: Privacy, Independence, freedom, or autonomy, Time or space to oneself, Exclusivity, or the ability to choose who can spend time with you and who can't; Can also represent living your life separated from or distanced from others physically, mentally, or emotionally—in other words, not engaging in the world and the process of living in the world.

Therefore:

I'm feeling the need to protect someone, or to protect (or better) my own life and my own situation; I feel I've achieved independence, freedom, and privacy, and the ability to choose who can spend time with me, and who can't. At the same time, there's a real life threat that's permeating my subconscious, and it's threatening that wellbeing and feeling of safety and accomplishment.

This is actually FREAKISHLY spot on, now that I've dissected it. In my real life, I've worked hard to get certain um, menacing/threatening entities out of my life, and now I have the freedom and privacy to have my life for myself, and decide whether or not I want to be around a particular person. At this VERY MOMENT however, a very real entity has come back into the fringes of my life, and even the idea of that entity impedes on my sense of security and privacy. Holy shit, people.

Now that I'm at once sufficiently freaked out, and yet very proud of my subconscious, we go onto dream number two, a little gem I like to call

Stop Taking Acid, And Put Away the Weapon

This dream, it is important to note, has a portion that is EXCEEDINGLY similar to a dream I had a few days ago. In that dream, I was with a bunch of people from high school (and I think college) whom I hated (and who hated me in return) and they were people I would still like to throttle because I'm an adult and totally get over my grudges. Anyway. I was trying to offer very real advice to a tricky situation we were having - and at that time we were in what I knew to be my old room at my grandfather's house - when a boy I'll call MO (a real person, although I never had any real contact with him and never really knew him, so idk wtf he was doing there) started chasing me around with a chainsaw. No one would help me, and he was getting awfully close. The dream continued with me going on an adventure with my new cat and squirrel friends, but that's another story entirely.

Anyway.

In the second dream, I was back at my grandfather's house, although this time I was in the living room (and it was the living room, it looked just like it did in real life, rather than it being a dream assumption/version) and again I was with a group of people I strongly dislike, although these people were girls that were older than me, so I never really had much interaction with them. There was another boy there (who, oddly enough, sort of ran around with the real MO) who I'll call JK. Again, I never had much interaction with him, save for the 7th grade in which I told him his girlfriend had the dick and did the fucking in the relationship. What can I say, I was precocious. At any rate, I hadn't spoken to him since that point, so I have no idea why he was there to begin with.

So, once again I'm trying to stress something very important to these people, and once again they're refusing to listen. It's like I keep trying to yell louder and louder, and it does nothing. At the end of this, rather than chasing me with a chainsaw, JK punches me in the eye and then destroys my science project.

Yeah.

So then I go to the bathroom so I don't lose my temper entirely and stick the jagged end of the project through JKs sternum, (and again, I'm in the actual downstairs bathroom of my grandfather's house) when JK and his actual ex-gf from high school walk in. I threaten to go through with the whole "sternum piercing" plan, when JK says he wants to "get it on" and mentions "daytime sex," and he wants to have a go at it in the bathroom. Which, by the way, was a half bath, so there's no way in hell the three of us could've fit in to begin with, so sex in any form would be quite awkward.

I seem to think this is a pretty good idea. Suddenly, however, we've gone through a secret passageway (and in real life, the house was super old and did have a shockingly high number of secret doors, passageways, and rooms) and we're in a basement that was previously unknown to me. We found a way to get in, it would seem, from the bathroom.

I see a cat walk by, who may or may not actually be a rat, who's stretched out and wearing an orange clown costume (??????) I wonder how the cat/rat sleeps with the costume on. JK eventually takes it off, and I'm sad to see it without the costume. And I realize it is a cat.

Then I'm somewhere ENTIRELY different - it's nighttime, and we're outside of a basketball court that's fenced in - there's only one basket, from what I can tell. All these cars are there, and it's a predominately black neighborhood, but people seem to keep changing from white to black and back again. My father is there to watch the game. JK announces his plan is to have "daytime sex" in the middle of the court, which the game is going on. I seem to realize this is a terrible plan, considering not only is it a very public place and my FATHER is there, but we'd definitely get stepped on. Ouch.

I run away. The cat is there, and I think my dad is, or at least he was, and then he is again. I don't know. I'm on the top of a hill, looking down at a valley full of houses. And then I wake up.

Possible Interpretations:

Basketball/Game: Play, social interaction, competition, dialog. Pay attention to the type of activity, the dynamics between you and/or the players, and how you feel about what's going on. A game can represent a real-life activity (past, expected future, imagined, etc.) or the dynamics of a real-life situation (such as the dynamics between you and your teammates on a project at work).

Cat: Independent, having strong ideas about how things should be, lithe and adaptable, mysterious. To dream of a cat usually means that these qualities are advantageous for you to have right now. Occasionally, a cat in a dream means that you'd benefit by having less of these qualities right now. A cat can also represent a person who you feel is showing these qualities. A cat in a dream can also represent an actual cat in your life; Sometimes a cat can represent your own inner child - meaning that you could benefit from more attention to your need for self-care, self-reward, and self-focus. A cat being in trouble, sick, or overlooked can mean you may be overlooking a responsibility for yourself or your life.

Father: Can represent your real-life father, an authority or caretaker figure (such as your employer), or your spiritual parent (God).

Grandfather's House: A house, apartment, flat, or any place of residence often represents you or your life, even if the dream residence not resemble your actual residence. The events in the dream residence may represent events in your life. A house can also represent security, comfort, protection, familiarity, or belonging.

Guy I Sort of Know: A person in a dream can represent that actual person, or the characteristics you attribute to that person. For example, if you dream about your friend who is always relaxed and easy-going, your friend might represent himself, or she might represent the idea of relaxing and not worrying.

For clues about what the person represents, consider what the person means or signifies to you in real life. Also consider their characteristics or qualities that stand out in the dream, what they're doing and how, and your emotional reaction to their presence.

Sex: Emotional intimacy (emotional trust and openness), interaction, or a feeling of closeness with someone; A replay of when you felt close to someone emotionally, mentally, or physically; Liking the person or wanting to know them better—and not necessarily romantically! If it is unwelcome, it can represent an intention or attempt at emotional intimacy in real life that you consider unwelcome from someone else (such as a stranger telling you their secrets) or a feeling that someone is trying to act too familiar (such as acting like they are your close friend when they aren't).

Therefore:

There are some relationship dynamics at work at the moment; possibly with my father, but most likely with another male figure in my life; since it's someone I vaguely know, yet there's a threatening feeling behind it, I need to figure out why they're acting too familiar; they want something from me that I have no desire to agree to (well, okay maybe the act itself was fine originally, but certainly not with that person and not in that capacity.) I'm feeling misplaced in my own home, that feeling of comfort is being threatened. I have to care for myself, although I'm feeling threatened and vulnerable.

SERIOUSLY I'm so glad I've been doing these dream analysis posts, because they explain so much!!!! This links eerily to the dream before it, in which a male entity is lurking in my life, threatening the now-stable and private (and selective) life that I currently have. There are also other factors at hand, but this is the most pressing.

I love you, Dream Dictionary.