Attempting to butcher myself for meat

Hi all,

I'm hoping that someone may be able to offer some insight here, because I've been feeling a bit sick ever since I woke up this morning remembering this dream and I think it might help to know what the heck my subconscious is talking about!

So in my dream, I decided to butcher my own body for meat. I did not think that this would kill me - in fact I think I had a sort of vague idea that I would be able to live on as a skeleton. In my dream I did discuss this with my girlfriend and neither of us considered it to be in any way a bad idea. I think the general feeling was that it was a quirky, eccentric thing to do, like dyeing my hair purple or going to work dressed in drag, that sort of thing. A bit silly but generally harmless.

I don't know if anyone has ever seen those schematic pictures of cows that you see at butchers shops sometimes - an outline of the cow with dotted lines all over it depicting where the different cuts of meat come from i.e. the rump, the fillet, the shin etc. but I had those lines drawn all over my naked body, depicting exactly where I would be cut up.

I'm not totally sure on this bit but think I expected to keep the meat and cook it myself for me and my girlfriend to eat. I certainly remember wondering what we were eventually going to do with my, erm, "specialist gentleman's part" if you take my meaning, because I couldn't think of any dish that would call for one of those.

So at some point I fastened myself onto a machine that was actually going to do the butchering. It was shaped a bit like a weight bench which I laid on face down and there were a number of circular steel saw blades that would move back and forth along the machine doing the cutting, sort of like a machine in a wood mill. I think I should re-itterate here that although this sounds pretty horrific, it was not being done to me, but was in fact all my idea. The machine was set going and the blades moved very suddenly - not slowly like you would expect a milling machine, but one sudden jerk, sort of like they were spring loaded. The blades hit me and then moved on (either under or through my flesh, I'm not sure) and the machining was done, but it had been largely ineffective. There were some little bits of me that had been sliced off as intended but most of my torso was still sort of roughly where it was supposed to be. I was cut quite badly and quite deeply and most of my body was hanging off in the lumps that had been marked out on me, but the cuts were not quite deep enough to actually cut the meat completely away (and there was very little blood). My immediate feeling was one of disappointment that my plan had failed.

Next I started to think about how I could finish the job, but I became aware that this was actually quite unpleasant. There was now some pain - not crippling, agonising pain, but definitely some vague sense of pain and discomfort and I decided that I didn't want to go through with it any more because it was going to hurt too much. At this point I checked the wounds on my torso again and found that they were not actually as deep as I had thought which was both good news and bad news - good because I was no longer sure that I wanted to have all my flesh removed, but bad because I sort of felt like now that I had said I was going to do it and my girlfriend was going to be expecting the meat that I was sort of obliged to do it, and now that the original wounds were so small there was certainly going to be a LOT more pain involved.

I need to make it clear here that my girlfriend was not in any way pressuring me into doing this, she was neither in favour of it nor opposed to it, she was just being supportive of me having decided myself that I was going to do this. Nevertheless, now that I had told her that I would do it, it felt binding.

So then I started thinking about a compromise. Maybe I could just cut a couple of steaks out off my buttocks and we could fry them up, but even that seemed like too much pain.

And that's all I remember.

I woke up this morning completely oblivious to this dream but it suddenly came back to me on the way into work this morning and has been making me feel sick ever since. I can still remember the chunks of flesh hanging off me.

I noticed in the sticky thread that a few facts about my life may be useful here. Well, I am a 32 year old man and I am a mature student. I am studying Engineering and doing pretty well with one year to go. I live with my girlfriend and even though I doubt we will ever get married, I think we will be together forever. We are planning to have a baby sometime soon - aiming to time it right to be just after I graduate. Since my (very stressful) end of year exams about 6 weeks ago I have been going a bit wild, drinking and smoking, and I have been worrying about the damage I am doing to my body and had decided to quit the smoking after my last cigarette last night, which I think might be a factor in this dream. we have just had an incredible weekend away in London where we saw The Libertines in Hyde Park. Cracking gig!

Well I realise that this is a very long post and if you've read this far then thank you. I hope someone can offer some insight into this insanity.

Tom

Im no interpreter but maybe this dream could symbolize that you wish to help yourself and others but sometimes go too far and end up hurting yourself and not getting the job done. Lol not the best help but just a thought man. ;-) have you tried interpreting it yourself?

The most likely thing is that it relates to the idea of starting a family. Maybe you don't feel confident that you can support that now but you're really trying to find a way to divvy yourself up that might make it work, and no matter how you plan it it always ends up demolishing you. Could mean financially, or could mean emotionally.

Looking at the actual contents of the dream, there's you, your girlfriend and the butchering. The butchering is done so you and your girlfriend can eat. You realize the damage being done to you, so you regret it. -- Perhaps this is something you can translate to actual life, to the relationship.

Sounds to me that it's time for you to be a vegetarian!:P