Nightmare Analysis

You have been warned. I haven’t been able to get this dream out of my mind, and so I’m going to post it here along with the feelings I think It represents in me. People who hate dreams—this is about dreams.

The Dream:

I went to visit my father at a house that felt like home. This house was not one I have actually lived in, and my father was actually absent in the dream. I simply was aware that I was visiting my “father” at “home.” We had come into possession of a litter of kittens, perhaps eight or so small and slightly fluffy kittens with white, tortoise-shell, and tabby coats. I planned to take two kittens when I returned from my father’s house, but did not know which kittens yet. I had a fondness for one tortoise-shell kitten though. I also planned to help my father find homes for the others, and to pay for them to be altered. While I was staying there I came home earlier than expected. I kept hearing strange cries. I went outside and realized it was some kind of muffled and distorted sound. It was then that I noticed a plastic wrapped box in the pond in our back yard. I had a sick feeling, a sort of horror, and on instinct I jumped into the pond. This pond, as things in dreams are want to do, was quickly becoming a lake. I had to dive in and swam back to the shore with a shoe box wrapped up in a plastic bag with rocks in it. The kittens were crying so loudly. I ran inside with them and managed to save them, but I could swear I could still hear crying. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t find the tortoise-shell kitten. I ran back outside but it was quiet. I went back into the water, only to find another shoe box. In this box, there were only drowned kittens. I pulled them out and lined them up on the shore, my mind still convinced I could save them. I looked at their drowned wet bodies until I thought I would die as well. In the box, someone had left a wad of cash.  I went inside and woke up.

The Analysis:

This isn’t a terrible metaphor for my life really. Things happen, and some things that happen are purely cruel. In saving what you can, you may only be saving what you happen to save. Sometimes the world drowns your kittens. What you love may die, and nothing will bring it back. But someone will probably pay you for this. And you do have some kittens left, after all. Besides, if you had known there were two boxes you’d have tried to save them all. Could you have done that? Perhaps you would have drowned also. And... you did take the money.

Still, I’m mourning my fucking kittens.