I don’t have a lot of vivid Freudian type dreams – mostly my dreams are mashed up renditions of my daily banalities, against the backdrop of a spreadsheet, my day’s counsel to a client trifle on an endless loop. But when I do have symbolic dreams, they fall along a handful of themes: falling from a helicopter/chairlift; losing my teeth; finding new rooms to explore in a house; driving too fast and unable to stop; being presented with a physics exam having skipped every class. They’re pretty obvious. But then there’s the last theme category, which has only begun to plague me in the last few years: flippantly butchering small animals and then feeling deep singeing remorse.
There was the small piglet that I began to mindlessly carve with a kitchen knife until I saw the look of anguish in its eyes; and then I wrapped it up in my arms and tried in vain to undo whatever it was that I had done. Until I woke up. And then for weeks I still saw the crying piglet in my mind and ached. And then a few nights ago there was the little mouse that I glibly threw in the blender with strawberries and made into a smoothie; until my dream psyche caught the horror, hit rewind, and then the mouse was whole again. And still in my mind I’m cuddling the little mouse, trying to erase the butchery.
In looking for the symbolism, I can’t help looking first at the most literal – should I revert to the vegetarianism that for years gave me a more comfortable conscience when I approached my dinner? But for various reasons that’s not really an option and I don’t think that’s really what the dreams mean anyway. Though my burger tonight did make me a little sick at heart.
It is said that all the characters of our dreams are really parts of ourselves…I think there’s a brutality in adult life – a thoughtlessness that becomes necessary, as we move in relative autopilot. Perhaps it is this crass thoughtlessness that is inflicting such abuse on my tender sentimentality. Days upon days spent thinking-not-feeling, until feeling just gets kind of crusty and flakes away. But with a whimper.
Dennis says I talk in bullet points. Where did my poet go?
maybe this butchering of small animals is all about how violent and detrimentalit is to un/consciously fragment ourselves in order to survive corporate life. but i think that’s what you’re saying anyway. in any case, it seems like all of the butchered animals in your dreams are able to be saved by your comforting arms.
i think your poet is writing shock poetry in your dreams, friend. you’re still in there, and you just need some practice to get out of bullet point mode.
…we’re here to help, of course.
x
powerlessness…feeling a lack of control…
Me, I fail to save my loved ones from gruesome deaths night after night. It’s the worst if my life is full of anxiety or stress.
Rest easy.
I’ve had some of the same dreams as Heather, and then others. Remembering when I was in the hospital with a total hip replacement due to a bad fall where I tripped over my feet when trying to pull up my beloved dog’s diaper. I recalled that night, in the hospital, feeling that Becca was cold, shivering, and whinning to come in, with Heather’s dad leaving her outside because he didn’t want to clean up after her. It was 32 degrees according to the Weather Channel, a temperature that could actually kill a short haired pointer.
It turned it that the dream was more like a reality, as when I returned home from the hospital, I learned and observed that my husband actually did leave our dog outside and without the warm, funny looking coat or sweater I bought her. He thought she looked funny in it and didn’t feel a personal need for her to wear a warmer coat. After all, she was a dog.
Bruce made Becca a place to sleep on the screened in, unheated porch and also said she had a dog house. True. But the dog house wasn’t heated and it was 32 degrees outside.
I slowly got out of bed and wheeled my walker to the back door and let Becca into the house. This was reality, being wide awake. It wasn’t a dream it was real.
Sometimes our dreams are trying to tell us something that could be happening in our present of our worst fears. Perhaps, they are warnings that are acted out while we dream.