Car crashing and a white cat

Hi there
I was hoping I can tap on your collective expertise to help me think through possible interpretations of this dream. I will attempt to provide possibly relevant context in (brackets) from the waking world. :) I do dream fairly frequently but tend to forget the details shortly after I wake up. However, in this case I forced myself to write it down so I would remember before going back to sleep.

Start Dream

I was waiting outside in a car bay of what I have the impression was a hospital--no idea why I was there, and I have the impression I was smoking a cigarette (this is what I would be doing in real life if I were outside a hospital. I don't work in a hospital but I work in health care) I noticed a large piece of machinery that was on wheels and which was starting to move. It was plugged in and I figured that it would gain momentum and start rolling into traffic. I wondered if I should do something but hesitated and did nothing. Eventually it started moving very fast, unplugged itself, and rammed into a parked car which then started moving. As it moved I noticed this car had several passengers but no in the driving seat. A backseat passenger, a teenage girl I think, reached up for the hand break but another fast moving car didn't see it coming and rammed heavily into car one. Both cars moved apart from the collision and a motorcyclist rammed the second car. I remember thinking that I should call emergency services but deciding not to as I noticed others were already calling. It would be difficult to describe how I felt. It wasn't exactly shock or paralysis it was more like detachment and general unease.

I started to walk away from the scene and noticed a cat who looked friendly. (i like cats) I thought the cat wanted some affection for me. Upon closer inspection the cat was very sickly. It was white but dirty, had only two legs, and twice or maybe three times gushes of fluid poured out of its ear. Pretty gross. I panicked that the cat had some disease which, if it touched me, I could pass on to my own cats (I have two cats that I got relatively recently in real life). I tried to walk away from the cat but it moved as well. It never directly followed me, it was always on my right hand side, but as I started to run it ran as well and actually got in front of me but still to the right side. Wherever I was walking towards was like a courtyard with a fairly high building surrounding it in clusters, consistent with a hospital campus I guess.

I think that's when I woke up. I am fairly certain they were one dream but not 100% sure.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Hello! This is my first post here, but I'd like to think I'm somewhat good at dream theory. So lemme give a shot:

First, the background where you are near a hospital and have something to do with health care only suggests you are connecting your reality and consciousness to your sub-conscious. It's not too important to interpretation, in my opinion, but fits with who you are. If you were a teacher, this might be set outside of a school...get it?

Second, you appear to foresee possible issues around you. They don't directly affect you, but they appear to be at least within your grasp of control--and you CHOOSE to not control it. The choice might be dependent on how you will be thought of by your peers, the people you work around (you're in health care, and near a hospital according to your background), and so you hesitate because you don't want the possible fallout that could come from trying to help, even if it is necessary to stop bigger problems others don't see. Which of course, you do...the accidents overlap one on top of another.

The first car, with no driver but a bevy of passengers in the back, probably suggests that the things that can be affected are out of control from within those problems. Like having a company with no boss, or, heck, having a car without a driver! The teenaged girl who steps up to help represents the youthful working class within the problem who are too inexperienced to be able to actually prevent the impending troubles to come, though she can clearly see the eventual issue. The multiple vehicular accidents simply represent additional troubles to come after the first problem explodes, though the motorcycle might represent something specific to you that I don't have the detail of.

As for the cat: you like cats. The cat might suggest an outside interest that you are kind of entertaining, but deeper down, you see it as possibly risky or dangerous. It's similar to a hobby or activity you currently enjoy, but you are afraid that interacting with this new interest would result in making your present pasttimes faulted and sickened. The two legs on a cat might suggest the interest you have isn't fully fleshed out, or you haven't thought it all the way through, you know? And perhaps the the opinion that it is pretty gross is the same way you perceive your interest--it's not socially accepted yet, and you fear that if people knew they would be disappointed or disgusted by your interest. The interest never goes away, though, and stays to your right side, which--symbolically--tends to suggest it is the principle consideration or the first thought on your mind, which is not uncommon if this is a new interest you are pursuing. (Of course, that's a reach I'm going on here. There's a lot I don't know about you, so this is only one line of thought regarding the cat.)

Please respond back if you feel these are close to what you are dealing with or not. This is just one line of thought, so I have no problems refining the evaluation.

When animals in our dreams are sick or wounded it is often an expression of us neglecting our instinctual self. Animals are often a symbol of our more “natural” self, our emotions and so forth, because animals are less “civilized”, more “unconscious”, less rational etcetera. When we go against our nature, our lust, turns our back to it, our “inner animal” fares badly and appears in dreams as mistreated, diseased, and so forth.

The wounded animal appears when you leave the scen with the collisions, and that scene is dominated by the fact that you didn’t do something you perhaps should have done. It is good to note the development in a dream, what happens before this-and-that, because then we often see that this happened because of that. At first a dream seems like disconnected scenes, but if we regard it as “B is because of A”, then we see that the scenes are in fact connected – “A led to B”.

So if it was my dream, I would contemplate the following question: In what way is my passiveness destructive to my true emotions?

thanks to both of you for the very helpful thoughts. I have to say both do resonate a bit given problems at work, the fact that some of my mates think it's gross to have cats and I'm worried about whether I can afford them, and generally fiancial worries means I'm focusing on money rather than health and quality of life so plenty in those analysis to think about.

The discussion is a great one in this thread.

I see in your dreams few things:

1- The vehicle's problem = Could be a source of fear in your real life. If in reality you drive a car, then the car itself is a symbol of problems because we use cars a lot and we are always afraid that our cars are stolen or that they are suddenly broken. This fear goes to the subconscious then correlates with other signs of fear. I think people who do not drive cars will dream about other sources of fear depending on their experiential memory.
2- The No driver issue = I agree that this could mean the situation in your real life is sometimes out of control. Still it seems you are afraid that you will lose control on some given issues. With the vehicle getting momentum, your fear now is getting that momentum as well.

3- The crash of the vehicle could mean that in real life you feel helpless and unable to avoid that thing which causes you the fear.
4- That some people are calling for help or a teenager trying to stop the car could mean that you are contemplating the referral of the issue to another qualified person. It is a teenager, so it possible means that in reality the person you look for to help you is inferior to you.
5- The sick cat with two legs is again a symbol of the person whom you think you want to depend on but you are not sure how efficient this person is. Since it is a cat, my feeling is that the person in reality is a woman.
6- The cat is at your right side = She is supportive but perhaps her inferior position leads you to ignore her help.

Overall, there is fear and hesitation. But by the way, the dream does not necessarily corresponds to your work. It could have something to do with your other life concerns.