This week's "This American Life" reminded me of two dreams that I had a few months ago. I normally do not remember dreams for longer than a week, but these were not ordinary dreams. What freaked me out even more was that they occurred in succession of one another.
While I do not recall what I was doing in my dream, I seemed to have suddenly come to an awareness that there was a black cat standing at my leg. This is not out of the norm, as a black cat just like the one in my dream visits the house every day for food (an opportunistic bastard, if you ask me, but that's for another blog post). However, in my dream, the black cat latched on to my leg with its claws, which made me swat at it to get the damn thing off my leg. Much to my detriment, this made the cat more agitated and it started EATING me. As in, chew a piece of flesh from my thigh, and go in for another chew because the first one was apparently so delicious. At this point, I panicked so much that it launched me out of sleep. Heavy breathing, eyes wide open, and ready to go look for that black cat and have a little teriyaki sauce with it.
As if that dream alone was not enough to make me paranoid for a few days, I had another dream the following night.
Again, I do not recall the details preceding the part where I do remember so vividly. All I know is that I noticed a spiral-shaped pattern on my finger underneath the skin. I tried to pick at it, but seeing that it was embedded in my flesh, I had to dig to the point where my finger started bleeding. Odd thing was, I felt the pain in my dream as I could in reality. Then the spiral-shaped object started to heat up like a metal filament in a light bulb. As it got hotter and the filament glowed red, my flesh started burning and by this time, I was in full alarm that it woke me up.
After these dreams, I had a strange suspicion that something was not quite right in my head. Here are the interpretations I found online regarding some of the elements that were observed in my dreams:
Pain
To dream that you are in pain, signifies that you are being too hard on yourself with regards to a situation that was out of your control. It may also be a true reflection of real pain that exists somewhere in your body. Dreams can reveal and warn about health problems.
To dream that you are inflicting pain to yourself, indicates that you are experiencing some overwhelming turmoil or problems in your waking life. You are trying to disconnect yourself from your reality by concentrating on the pain that you inflicted to yourself.
Cat
To see a cat in your dream, signifies much misfortune, treachery, and bad luck. If the cat is aggressive, then it suggests that you are having problems with the feminine aspect of yourself. If a cat is biting you, then it symbolizes the devouring female. Perhaps you are taking and taking without giving. You may be expressing some fear or frustration especially when something is not going as planned.
Blood
To see blood in your dream, represents life, love, and passion as well as disappointments. To dream that you are bleeding or losing blood, signifies that you are suffering from exhaustion or that you are feeling emotionally drained. It may also denote bitter confrontations between you and your friends. Your past actions has come back to haunt you.
None of the information above settled my nerves about the dreams. Perhaps it is better left up to a medical professional to sort out what's going on. Though not quite as traumatic as the dreams I mentioned above, I did have yet another disturbing dream recently. During my disturbed sleep cycle last night, I dreamt that I was observing a female orgy. To a straight man, this might've turned to be a wet dream, but for a gay man, it might as well have been a nightmare.
Please just give me a hit of Ambien or Lunesta.
