It’s always frightening to have dreams about death, but most often, the theme of “death” relates symbolically to a needed change in attitude and outlook etc.
And although it is usually better to have as much background information about the dreamer as possible in order to improve the accuracy of an interpretation, a few ideas can be still tried out to see if they might fit your personal situation in some way. If the interpretation that follows seems to be off or at least needs some tweaking, you should feel free to provide further information if you’d like to.
The dream starts off with you and your friend watching TV where a shocking item appears about the death of your cat.
Since your cat is very sick right now, it’s possible that the dream is using his image as some kind of analogy.
For example, animals in dreams relate to how the dreamer is connected with their instinctive side, such things as natural instinctive reactions, strong emotions, vague feelings, intuitions and even cold thoughts and actions that are sometimes needed to defend ourselves in certain situations (just like a quiet mother bear etc. will suddenly turn very savage if her cubs are in danger).
So from the dream’s point of view, it could be that some outworn attitude about instinctive life “has to die” in order to be renewed in some way.
Just as dealing with the eventual sad death of your cat will be very painful, so too is the task of following your deepest instincts (that can appear in dreams and intuitions etc.) about the apparent need to let go of various old beliefs, habits, opinions and states of mind etc.
In this respect, your old friend in the dream could partly symbolize a way of looking at things which has naturally been part of your life “for a long time”.
In the next scene, your friend is driving the car while you’re in the passenger seat.
Generally speaking, a vehicle in dreams (whether a car, truck, bicycle, ship or aircraft etc.) represents a mix of the physical body along with the dreamer’s interests, drives, wishes and beliefs etc. etc.
So it symbolizes a kind of body-and-mind mix with which the person moves through daily life.
In this case, you the ego are not “in charge of” where the car is going, suggesting that certain habits of mind etc. are possibly automatically directing things when instead, a new and more conscious direction is needed.
After talking about the death of the cat, the conversation turns to the dates related to your own deaths.
Immediately after, you pull out a pair of new, white sandals of your exact size and with the date apparently of 2024 on them. You freak out since you take this as being the year of your own death.
In general, footwear often symbolizes the idea that the wearer has a feeling of individual authority and power.
In this case, any chance of maintaining such a feeling is shattered by the assumption that the year on the sandals relates to your death coming in a few years.
In addition, by wearing shoes, one is being protected from the pain of the “stones” and “nettles” which can be experienced when dealing with others and with difficult happenings in general. One’s vulnerable “soul” is therefore shielded by the “soles” of footwear.
The sandals are white and exactly your size which probably suggests that, from the dream’s point of view, they represent a positive meaning in stark contrast to your conclusion in the dream.
For example, we all need to “find the shoes that fit us”, just like the glass slipper which fit only Cinderella resulted in a “happy ending”. That is, the glass slipper represented her unique personality as an individual.
So the idea could be that something might come to stand in the way of developing yourself fully if certain adjustments in your life’s direction and attitude aren’t gradually made over time (perhaps during the next six or seven years as related to the date of 2024).
This possible block to a fuller self-development might be symbolized by the beige sandals in your friend’s size, along with the calculation that she’ll live to the excessively old age of 123.
That is, it looks like you could be reluctant to accept (as we all do hesitate to do) that you’ve reached the general age of mid-life.
Being 35 or 40 years old is still young from our point of view, but even at age 35, from the point of view of dreams, an ascent has ended and decline has begun.
That is, the general mid-point of life has been reached where our work to build a career and family has now to take into account that a gradual descent is beginning, and we have to do our best to fill in parts of our personality which had to be left behind during the climb during the first half of life.
So it’s not unusual at all for dreams to appear around this age and later with a “Memento mori” theme, i.e. Latin for “Remember that you have to die”, and I think this could be part of the meaning of your dream.
To bring the point home, the dream has apparently included the unhappy circumstance that your cat is becoming worse and could indeed not live very long.
If this interpretation seems to fit your personal circumstances in some way, you might like to read a few books by analyst James Hollis who has written extensively on how to make the best of the second half of life.
But in any case, please feel free to comment on, or to ask any questions about, this particular way of looking at your dream.
|
|
Bookmarks