I have extremely vivid dreams, every night. They are almost always so realistic that often times, I'll have conversations in my dreams and be talking to someone in real life and I can't remember if the reference is from an ACTUAL conversation or one I had in a dream. I also have recurring symbols and events. I know I should pay more attention to them, but I'm so used to having crazy dreams that I almost just ignore it most of the time. I will sort of purposely forget. The one thing that is extremely frustrating is that my dreams are never lucid. I can never control what happens, what I say or do and I don't realize in my dreams that they are, in fact, not real.
I have had the same event happen in my dreams the past two weeks, pretty much every night, and I'm trying to figure out what it's tied to. Last night I dreamed that I was supposed to be pet-sitting Kopi (my roommates cat) and I had forgotten to feed her for a week. I would never EVER forget to take care of a pet in real life, but in my dream all I can realize is that I was supposed to feed her and now it's been over a week and she's just listless and ill. I try to get her to drink water and she won't; I try to force her to eat, and no dice. I just sit there crying, feeling guilty, holding this animal thinking, "I killed it! I starved it to death! How could I do this?"
It's not the same dream each time. It's with other people's pets. I realize that I was supposed to be taking care of this animal and now it's too late. It's the same sequence of events but different players and it never ends well. Thank goodness I haven't had the dream with a baby yet because that is a HUGE recurring symbol in my dreams. That's for another blog, but I've had bizarre dreams with babies doing the strangest things since I was like sixteen years old. If you like dream analysis you would have a field day with me.
So, what the heck is going on with me that every night I go to sleep and I'm inadvertently killing all of my friends pets? The funny thing is that I am a huge animal lover and pet spoiler! It's the reason I don't have a pet out here because I am not home enough and wouldn't want to put a pet through a 25 hour plane ride when I go home. Yet, in my dreams, I'm too busy and distracted to feed someones pet to the point of them starving to death! It's awful!
Any ideas?
As Jim Philips of Real Radio 104.1 would say, "It's clearly a case of penis envy."
ReplyDeleteWell, let me think. Maybe you're aware that I too have immensely entertaining dreams, detailed down to the gray wrapping around a mystery #3 value meal on a Carl's Jr. drive-thru menu board that I rode past on a ski lift. I generally see no revelatory truth in interpreting dreams, but it does lend an opportunity to analyze life from a new perspective.
My thought is that it likely has nothing to do with pets. You're a long way (and long time) from home right now, and perhaps the experience of getting sick has yielded a kind of reverse maternal guilt instinct. That is to say, in a way you feel helpless to attend to a being in your care during your dreams in the same manner that your mother no doubt felt regarding you. Knowing you, you felt as bad that you weren't closer to your mom so she could take care of you as she felt for the reverse. That motherly bond is potentially powerful enough yet subtle enough to be seeping into your subconscious.
But then, what do I know? :)
Much love to you.
The cat dream represents your feelings of helplessness in the face of emotional loss. You can't control something that has or is slipping away and that's represented by a defenseless little cat.
ReplyDeleteOr not.
Erin....Just thinking about you!
ReplyDeleteVisiting this site makes us feel a little bit more connected, but we still miss you:)