Dear Claire,
I had a dream, actually, a nightmare, that bothered me so much that I woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Although I haven’t had it again, I still think about it, and it still bothers me. In the dream, my wife and teenage son were dismembering a body on the island counter in the kitchen. I was walking down the hallway, about twenty feet away from them, looking into the entrance of the kitchen. I just stumbled upon them doing this, and I was totally shocked. I thought to myself, “What the @#%& are you doing?” I was very conflicted, and I thought about how I didn’t want to get them in trouble, because I love them, but this was really, really wrong. I didn’t know whose body it was; it was basically just a torso with the arms and legs already cut off, and my wife and son were hovering over it with bloody knives in their bloody hands. As I stood back from it all, shocked and trying to figure out what to do, my wife noticed me through the doorway and gave me this look from across the room of “Don’t just stand there! Help!” Then she got angry and said, “Come in here and help!” I said, “No, I’m not coming in to help with that! You guys are totally on your own! You already got me in trouble by just watching you!” Then, I woke up, sweating. It was a very short dream, but very, very disturbing because it was so real and so wrong. What do you think it means?
For most of us, what is described above is probably one of the most horrifying and repulsive acts that we could ever conceive of—and this dreamer, as evidenced by his shock and refusal to take part in the bloody deed, obviously feels the same. When contacted, he was emphatic about the fact that his wife and son were both extremely kind and gentle people. However, in his dream, he sees his wife and son at the center of this grossly wicked activity—their guilt being symbolized by their “bloody hands”. All of this leads me to question what his wife and son could possibly be involved in, in his conscious world, which could translate into something so harsh and repugnant in his subconscious world? What disturbed his waking mind so dramatically that it would cause such a violent and unnatural manifestation in his dreaming mind? Most likely, the answer is that this dreamer feels that his wife and son are involved in some type of activity or system of belief that is extremely “wrong” to him—or that is in direct opposition to his own way of thinking/being/believing—and their wanting him to share in it is causing him great angst. However, because they are his family and he loves them, he feels that he must try to dismiss this emotional conflict—in his waking world—and suppress his upset over the matter.
After being questioned, the dreamer was able to immediately identify something that had greatly disturbed him. It was a political issue in which his wife and son were in favor of, but one which he felt was in such far opposition to his own core beliefs and values that it was to the point of being “unnatural”—and threatening to take apart a belief system which he was a die-hard supporter of (no pun intended). He even stated that, “Yes, it was very, very disturbing to see them taking it (this belief system) apart—‘dismembering’ it with their beliefs—and wanting me to join them and agree.” Those ghastly and lingering images and feelings from his nightmare were, most likely, a symbolic reflection of the emotional distress which he was experiencing—but trying to suppress—because he felt agreement between the family could never be reached. In short, his brain sent this monstrous version of what he was feeling into his dreaming world in order to get his attention and force him to work out, and release, the buried conflict that was affecting his emotional health and well-being. It would probably be advisable for him to avoid any further political discussions until this process is completed—perhaps longer.
