Inflicting Pain on Self

Here is the newest weird dream: It appears between the asterisks.

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The weirdest part about this dream was that I was an elephant. But I was an elephant with only two legs and I don't remember having a trunk. Also I was sitting at a table, crying in frustration because of something I had done that was incredibly stupid. But I can't remember what I did.

Now I'm not the elephant. I'm watching the elephant take both of its paws and slam them into the floor. The elephant is really mad at himself and he keeps slamming them, and slamming them, and slamming them until they are bruised and bloody, and pieces of flesh are hanging from the paws.

All I can think is how sad I feel for the elephant and how sorry I am for him, because I know what it's like to feel that frustration. I hurt myself too when I'm mad at myself for things I can't control.

***

I feel sadness after reading this dream. In dreams we often substitute animals or other people for ourselves. This dreamer obviously already instinctively knew the elephant was himself, because by admitting in the last paragraph that the dreamer hurts himself when he's frustrated, he is also admitting he is the elephant in the dream.

What I found interesting about this dream was how the dreamer removed himself from being the elephant to watching the elephant when the elephant started inflicting pain on himself. It reminded me of abuse victims who hover above their bodies while being abused – kind of like having an out-of-body experience.

Maybe this dreamer has a hard time dealing with pain and often separates himself from situations in his own life. He might have difficulty dealing with his problems directly, and instead, deals with frustration by hurting himself.


Also, I can't help but wonder if the reference to not having a trunk is somewhat sexual in nature, but it's just a guess and I don't know what that means.


Not knowing the dreamer's feelings about elephants, I would have to surmise that he has some affection for the animals and maybe some compassion for them too. In saying that I think he also has some affection and compassion for himself. Hopefully the dreamer will learn new coping skills when he again feels frustrated over things he can't control.

Another thing that comes to mind is that, "Elephants never forget." Maybe the dream is trying to tell the dreamer to remember something important. However, the cruelty in which the pain is delivered BY the dreamer TO the dreamer is definitely overkill and unnecessary.


Disclaimer: I am not a dream analyst. I am merely offering my unprofessional opinions.

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Baby In Danger

The following dream skips a part, something I've discovered is common in my own dreams, so I am relating it as it was written. My own comments about the dream are written at the end. The dream is written between the ***.

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I don't know where I was, but I think I was at the home of somebody I either knew or was visiting. A man walked into the kitchen. I could see him clearly from my position in what was probably the living room, but I didn't recognize him. He was carrying a baby.

He placed the baby on one of the shelves in the kitchen. I sat on the couch and stared in disbelief at what I was seeing. The ceilings were high, too high for me to reach. I was in a state of shock, unable to move my eyes from the baby, and I was so afraid that if I moved even one inch, the baby would fall off the shelf.

Part of the dream is missing here, but I remember him then taking the baby and placing it on a higher shelf and, before I could get up and run into the kitchen, almost in slow motion, the baby fell backward onto the floor.

Suddenly my ex-husband is around and I'm screaming and crying at the other guy for being so irresponsible and stupid, asking how he even came up with the asinine idea of putting a baby on the shelf in the first place.

I couldn't tell if the baby was alive or dead, because I could no longer see the baby, but now I'm in a room filled with people and I'm still very emotional about the baby falling backward off the shelf. I relate the incident to the group of people standing around me. Everybody is so sad. It's like we're all in mourning (for the baby? – I don't know).

In the midst of telling my emotional story, my daughter, who is completely ignoring the gravity of the situation, flips her hair back and announces, "And I just got highlights put into my hair."

I am appalled by her insensitivity and when I get in the car with my mother, who is driving, I tell her how concerned I am that my daughter is an alcoholic just like my ex. Suddenly I realize that my daughter is in the back seat. I had forgotten she was there. I turn around to look at her and she is sobbing, because she knows she's an alcoholic too.

I reach back to her and place my hand on her leg to comfort her and to tell her how much I love her, because I can see she is in so much pain. I think the dream ended there.

***

Let's start with the car and work backward. The position in a car is important. The dreamer was not in the driver's seat; therefore she was awarding control of the situation to her own mother, with whom she felt comfortable releasing her emotions about her daughter's behavior.

At the gathering, the daughter seems oblivious to the emotions of the people in the room. Her "flippant" attitude, which the mother attributes to drinking, is probably due to her daughter's inability to realize the focus of the conversation is not about her.

OR maybe the focus of the conversation WAS about her: the baby in the dream may represent the dreamer's daughter, because even though the original man in the dream was the one who placed the baby on the shelf, the fact that the ex showed up indicates that maybe the ex was the one who endangered the dreamer's daughter by putting her in a position where she was going to get hurt. After all, if his drinking endangered her or if the dreamer is blaming him for his daughter's drinking, the man in the beginning of the dream may represent him.

The dream could also indicate that the dreamer felt the ex placed the baby in too lofty a position and the dreamer thought that the daughter felt an obligation to live up to expectations that were "too high."

Interesting to note – the dreamer starts out relating the dream in past tense and then switches to present tense. I don't know why that's relevant; I just thought I would point it out.

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Dream Snippets – The End – Is It Coming After All?

Sometimes we can't remember the whole dream, so we remember only portions. But even those portions can offer a small glimpse into our lives. Here is a snippet of a dream from one dreamer.

"As I lie in bed, I’m listening to my husband move about the kitchen getting ready for work, as he normally does each day.  I hear a bowl being placed on the counter top and the jingle of silverware in the drawer. I also hear a radio announcing today’s news.

The bedroom begins to glow with a light that is too bright to look at.  I put the covers over my head, but cannot dim this increasingly blaringly (sic) bright light. I hear the news reporter say, 'Today is the last day.  It will strike momentarily.'  I blindly find my way to the kitchen where my husband is reading the newspaper, evidently unaffected by the light. I ask him if what I just heard was true – 'Is the world ending?'  He says he doesn’t know; he wasn’t listening. I respond with 'But please look at the light, there’s something coming right at us!  Oh my God, it is the end!'  To which he responds, 'Maybe so.'"

This dream is kind of scary, mostly because of the predictions concerning December 21, 2012 and an asteroid hitting the Earth at some point in the future, or soon. Maybe the dreamer feared the hype. Maybe the dream was precognitive. Who knows?

I too have had dreams about the end of the world. Intellectually I know that the "end of the world" might actually be the end of MY world – my own demise, in other words. But maybe, if numerous people are dreaming about the end of the world, the end actually is coming. Or maybe we all dream about the end of the world, because one day we all will die. One day, the end of the world will come – for us.

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