I am on a sort of vacation with my mom, and my two brothers. We are staying at a house but i am angry with my family and i want to leave. I keep telling my mom that i am going to run away and never come back but i do not get much of a reaction out of her from that. I then tell her i am going to kill myself. I go and grab a knife from the kitchen and start to saw at my wrists. The knife however will not cut me. I am extreamly distraught and all of a sudden i am in a SUV with a man who is driving and my youngest brother. My brother is 20 in real life but in this dream he is about 12. I did not want to be in the car with them so i decide to jump out and threaten to do so many times before i actually do. As i jump out of the car i am thrown under it and it runs me over. It ran over my legs and upper body and the metal from the bumper hit my face and "ripped" it. As i was lying still semi under the car a Lexus pulls up. There is an eldery man and women who get out and i can hear them talking. She is saying how they tried to swerve to avoid the boy who was thrown out of the SUV but couldnt and hit him. I remember thinking who was this boy this women hit. And what about me, i am lying injured under the vehicle? I call her over and try to talk to her through my blood filled mouth. I ask her what happened and she tells me that the boy in the passenger seat of this SUV was thrown out of the car because the driver tried to swearve to avoid hitting me after i jumped out of the car and the boy was dead. I immediately started sobbing uncontrollably because that kid was my brother and it was all my fault because i jumped out of the car.

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Katerine,
After reading this dream and looking back over your other posted dreams, I have a couple of questions I would like to ask before I give an interpretation.

Are there any past traumatic experiences that may fit in with your dream? It may or may not have to do with family members {as stated in the dream}.

Is there an experience from 8 years ago that may be important to understanding this dream?

Do you feel someone, a male, is controlling your life?

Answers to these questions will help me determine if the people in your dream are metaphors are actual relationships. with someone your age one of the most difficult tasks in understand dreams is whether the dream is addressing present ego concerns or if the dream is addressing deeper issues from past experiences.

Gerard

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 56 Murfreesboro, Tn.

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Hello Gerard-

In response to your questions i cannot recall any tramatic experience in my past. Honestly the only tramatic thing that I can think of happening 8 years ago would be my dog of 13 years dying. My family life is overall good with the exception of my father. My parents have been married 33 years and i am very close to both my brothers and my mother but me and my father have always had a strained relationship. He is very critical of everything i do even now as a grown women i have a very hard time even having a small conversation with him. It does sadden me but oh well. He is like this though with my brothers as well. I would not say he is controlling my life though. I have a wonderful relationship with my boyfriend as well.

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Katherine,
Thanks for the additional information. It helps clarify Original questions I might have in approaching your dream. Is it more about recent personal waking events, especially those with strong emotional overtones, or something deeper involving more complex emotional issues? Or both? Of course dreams are about the emotions {the effect on the total psyche and your psychology}. And as discussed previously your age can be a major factor in how I should look at your dream.

I do believe there could be an association between the man driving the SUV and your father. His critical type personality {which you graciously provided} could fit the man 'driving' the SUV, which is metaphor for 'driving' you. It {he} doesn't have to the main 'drive' in your life but he has influenced it. And perhaps how you deal with personality types in your waking life now.
Automobiles, like houses, are almost always symbolic of the dreamer. And the fact your youngest brother is in the same SUV {he endures the same attitude from your father as you do}gives to that possibility. One reason for this inclusion of your father {as the man driving the SUV} may be how you deal with such personalities in your waking life associations.

Is your boyfriend anything like your father. Or is he the complete opposite? The additional info you provided in your follow-up post gives yet another clue to your personality, which for me provides insights to who you really are. The more that is known about the dreamer {and those in dreamer's life} the better the chance at getting to a correct interpretation to the dream. Dreams address personality issues because the personality is how we present ourselves in the real world. And all the conflicts that world holds.
{younger people have less emotional issues to deal with than older people because they have less experiences in life}

more about Dreams & Personality

I'll wait and take a better look at your dream in the morning. I usually have a better intuitive sense earlier in the day and I want to utilize my best tools in understanding your dream. Dreams of younger people and adults, and you really fall in-between, often take extra attention.

Gerard

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Whoops. I forgot to add the link to Dreams & Personality

Gerard

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Katherine,
The language in dreams is most always symbolic. That is the images in dreams, for instance a house, would be symbolic of some aspect of your psyche. The house is you. But there are dreams, and very common, involving close personal relationships that provide a literal view of those relationships. For instance in your dream there is language about your mother and your brother. While dreams seldom spell out in definite terms what the value of those relationships are {those values are usually still cloaked in metaphorical language} they do point to the relationship {mother and brother}. Of course we also have to consider that the use of your mother and brother could also be metaphorical {your mom symbolizing your higher feminine self, your brother an immature masculine aspect, as examples}. The task is to identify which is most prominent for your dream, which is it that the dream is trying to address.

I get the impression that the dream is primarily addressing close family relationships. As I stated yesterday the man driving the SUV could very well be your father. He is in some way controlling {driving} your life. That is a natural fact, you grew up with those influences he exerts in your life. The fact that your younger brother is also in the same SUV gives me cause to believe that the dream is addressing father relationship. You and your brother have endured the same experiences {your father's strained relationship}.

Although you state he is not controlling your life, in reality the influences from those years of experience do leave their mark. He does have some control whether you realize or not. These are probably unconscious controlling agents, something that dreams do address as a matter of balancing the psyche.

In your dream you are trying to escape this man and the SUV. The SUV is a metaphor for the direction that your life has taken. It is possible that you are trying to escape those fatherly influences, your unconscious possessing traits that in some way still control your adult life. Your younger brother, having the same influences, is used for some reason to expand the influence of your father. Why your younger brother is used and not another older brother probably lies within the relationship itself. You identify more with your younger brother than the others. There may be some experience you and your younger brother share that has meaning, and thus utilized in the dream.

In the dream your injured {father's attitude} and lying under the vehicle. Anything under something often symbolizes something that is 'lying' within the unconscious. You may not be aware of the influences. This is where the elderly man and woman, representing the wisdom from your higher unconscious self, play the role of informing the conscious mind of the unconscious contents.

As for what the exact meaning of the dream may be, that is something you will have to discern for yourself. I suggest you go back and look at the father relationship, with a focus on your younger brother, and see what that might lead to. It would probably be something the two of you shared.

I asked in my last post about the personality type of your boyfriend. That may enter into the equation. The undesired influence of your father most likely plays a role in the personality typing of those you get involved with romantically. This may in itself be part of what the dream is addressing.

Let me know your impressions of my interpretation, and the results of your own investigations into the relationships with your brother and father. This requires you to give thought to the whole process but it is a part of understanding the personal aspect of dreams. As i stated originally, I can only understand the perimeters of a personal dream. Only you can provide the details.

Gerard

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This does make sense. My younger brother and i have always been close, but over the last 2 years he has been in college and also just joined the Marines (approx. 3 months ago) He has always been as me and my other brother would say my father's "favorite". He however does indure most of my father's critism because he is not out on his own and still lives in their house and since recent months was still dependant on my parents. Also, you are correct about the relationships i get into. The men i have been seriously involved with in the past are complete opposites from my father. I have endured critism from my father on the men i have choosen to have relationships with as well and he is mostly cold to them when having to be around them. Overall since i have been out on my own (6 years) i have felt a great disconnection to my family.

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Katherine,
I believe we are getting to the central theme of the dream, the disconnect from your family. I have broken the dream down and compared to what I believe are good possibilities to your waking life. IT is a bit long so I hope you will bear with me.

The dream starts out with your admonishment of your family {some more critical than others in reality}.
We are staying at a house but i am angry with my family and i want to leave.
The house is you and the anger the disconnect you feel. Your younger brother is in the dream because the two of you are close, and both have at some time in your lives taken the brunt of your dad's criticisms, your brother more recently.

And I believe also the dream is addressing the attitudinal personal traits of your dad upon your psyche, your preference in men with opposite personalities than your he. You begin to address the unconscious motivations, the deeper unconscious influences that are often not realized by the conscious mind {or is recognized}.

Trying to cut your wrists may be addressing a desire/need to remove unwanted aspects in your life. Wrists can symbolize flexibility in thinking, and along with the desire to remove the influences of your father, you have different approaches to living your life. But you can not completely separate yourself from your family {the symbolism of the dull knife}.

If we look at the numbers in your dream we may gain even more insights to the dream. The reason I asked about experiences 8 years ago was because of the difference in your younger brother's age {2} now, compared to his age in the dream at 12. Numbers most often are not picked at random in dreams, they too most often have a purpose. You have been on your own for 6 years, and your brother has been at college. That may have something to do with the equation.

I think we can assume the man driving the SUV is your day. And then too there may be masculine qualities you possess {finally being on your own, going your own direction, jumping out of the SUV or old self} that the dream is addressing in a minor way. Your desire to be on your own has probably been something you have wished for on many occasions {so i decide to jump out and threaten to do so many times before i actually do}.

The car running over you would be the SUV your dad is driving. He is running over you again verbally. The word 'ripped' may have some special meaning since you phrased it. If you compare it to some of the emotions that rip away at you, you may find a fit.

The elderly man and woman part is less clear in its intent. That along with the swerving to miss the boy {may be associated with your brother, which can also be associated as being you, since both of you share the same experiences with your father}. It is your brother who is being 'hit' at the present, having to face your father's anger.

You are injured from the conflicts with your father while growing up. Those things remain with us through life. The goal is to confront them and put them in their proper place. You can't change the past or forget it, but you can find ways of overcoming them. You have already started that process by choosing men opposite your father's personality. The problem in the past may have been you were unable to express this and get away from it {blood represent energy and the mouth as your ability to express}.

Death in dreams seldom has to do with a real death. It often means changing something. The boy who is dead may be your brother going through his changes in life, from home to college to the Marines {there could be a connection to your brother going into the Marines and your concern for his safety... thus the terminology of dead}.

The last part of the dream is interesting. Is there something you blame yourself for concerning your brother? {because that kid was my brother and it was all my fault because i jumped out of the car}. Perhaps you believe if you were still at home your dad would direct his anger at you and not your brother.

---

Dreams have so many ways of transfiguring symbols to express emotion energies that it can be difficult to ever get to the real meaning in some dreams. But working with the dream along using the dreamer's input, I believe almost all dreams can be interpreted satisfactorily. Jung said one sure way to determine if there is a correct interpretation is if it fits the dreamer's life. Dreams are about the dreamer's life. Not someone elses life but only the dreamer. Family members are merely the relationships in that life and can have literal associations. Most other symbols are symbolic, but always reflective of the dreamer's life.
I do appreciate your responses to my questions and your clarifications. The Dream Forum is a place to learn about dreams and going through the process, from the first post to a final resolution, helps us all gain new insights to dreams. And because you have taken the time to analyze your dreams, you are in effect analyzing yourself. The whole intent of Jung's approach to dreams and an important aspect of his Individuation Process. At 27 you have a head start to having an advantage on those mid-life and later life issues that you will have to confront... if you will pay attention to your dreams and your own personal psychology.

If you can take the time to comment on my impressions that would be of great benefit in finally understanding your dream. You have been great in your willingness to participate and share your dreams and experiences. For me interpreting dreams are their most fun when the dreamer willingly participates in the process and a proper interpretation is determined from the dream.

Gerard

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Oh gerald i wanted to tell you that i had a dream the other night about my father. In my dream my father is critizing all aspects of my life and actually insulting me horribly. He was sitting in the chair he always sits in at their home. I sat there letting him "bash" me verbally and when he was finished i confronted him and told him how i felt about his constant critism and not being accepting of who i am, etc. Essentially i let it all out, the things i wish i could say to him in real life, but don't. He seemed to accept what i had to say and appologized and let me tell you when i woke up i had this feeling of calm and comfort like i finally got everything off my chest. Almost as if it sort of healed something inside me even though it was all just a dream....

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Katherine,
I'll give your last response more attention later today. Time is short this morning {I had hoped to have more of it} and to give my impressions without being able to give my full attention would not be fair to you. Thanks for your patience.

Gerard

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