How to understand dreams in which the dreamer is violently killed

Q: I was in a school parking lot with two other people. One male, One female. Suddenly a car comes speeding in the parking lot with a white rope and enters the school through the front doors. I tell my friends who are now layin back side down on the ground next to my car we need to go. I am tryin to start the car when an officer comes into my view. Suddenly there is a second unknown person with a gun looks like a black rifle and shoots me point blank. At that point i could feel my body fall and the two people i was with screaming and yelling. The unknown person picks me up and carries me to a car. At this point i can feel my whole body twitching and shaking. My head falls and i can see those two people outside of the car. My eyes start to roll back in my head and i am fighting it the whole time. Suddenly i am floating above the guy from the parking lot and someone else and the guy was telling the other person what happened. Then i woke up.

Asked by Sweetz

A:

First I should reassure you that dreams like these very rarely come true in a literal way, and it's not possible for another person to literally attack you in your dreams. Even though the dream was quite frightening and may have made you feel scared even after it was over, I don't think your dream literally means that you're going to be shot. However, dreams can be taken metaphorically to help understand your current feelings about some aspect of your waking life, which may in fact shape your future (making dreams seem prescient).

Was the school in your dream somewhere you go to school (or used to go?). In dreams, buildings often represent the dreamer's mind. Let's think about the significance of your mind's choice of a school to represent itself: schools are a place of growth and learning, but also a place of conformity, discipline, and insecurity.

Couple those aspects with the chaos and violence of the dream, and I would say the dream indicates some conflict that needs to be resolved among your peers. In the dream, your friends seemed oblivious to the danger but YOU were the one trying to get them to take notice. As in the dream, you must also be the agent of change in your waking life.

Note also that you were the one who was harmed, presumably for taking action and helping your friends. Isn't it a sad fact of life that the people who try to change things are the ones who often get hurt? Take this as a sign to proceed carefully once you've identified the issue in your waking life that this dream is trying to call attention to.

Violence in a dream, and even dreaming of one's own death, are not uncommon. They should be taken metaphorically and applied to more mundane issues in your life. I hope this helps!

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Dream of close family member drowning

Q: Dream of close family member sinking under water and I cant save her. Soes this mean anything about her not being safe around water?

Asked by Neesie

A: A dream like that can be very frightening!  I'm glad you sought out answers to its meaning.  It doesn't always have to be taken literally, unless there is something in your waking life that would lead you to think that she is unsafe around water.

I would look at the dream more metaphorically, as a sign that you feel you're unable to provide help or assistance to this family member to the full extent that you would like to.

Bare with me for this last part, it's somewhat strange:  often times the other characters in a dream really represent the different aspects of your own personality.  This would be especially true if the family member is a descendant of yours.  Think about what aspects of yourself this person represents.  Are they aspects of yourself you wish you could "drown"?  Alternatively, water is a symbol of the psyche, so perhaps these are qualities you wish you could internalize and make them part of you?

Hope this helps!  Feel free to post follow-up questions.

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Dream Interpretation vs Software Development

Q: Hey Joe, welcome to Askablogr! (My business partner has started keeping a dream journal, so I'll definitely send him your way). Does your dream work and your software development work interrelate?

Posted by Chris DeVore

A: Certainly!  The two areas are very similar.  They're both about recognizing patterns, getting to the heart of a problem, and communicating well with others using both symbols and plain English.

Also, I think they're similar in how quickly education in the field reaches a diminishing rate of return, and experience trumps degrees/pedagree.