My cat was being attacked

Can anyone help interpret the meaning of this rearm please?

I was dreaming about something else that I don't recall but then I was on a street and saw my old cat (which had passed years ago). I felt guilty because I realized I hadn't been home for a long time and had not fed the cats. I was worried that they were possible sick or dead. I walked home with the cat at my side to feed it. When I arrived at the house (which was home in my dream but not a place I have ever lived) I began looking for the other cats and checking up on them. All my cats were accounted for and alive but but I continued to look for my kitten. There was a stray cat in the house that I could tell had been attacking my kitten. The kitten was scared. The kitten had my ex boyfriends name. The stray pounced on him and was biting his neck. This wasn't a normal cat fight just the one cat biting the other. I felt bad for my kitten and that I had not protected it. It took me awhile to separate the stray from my kitten. It had been biting his next but the stray did not bite or scratch me. When I finally had them separated the stray ran away and I held the kitten in my arms. He had some bite marks and a few patches of hair missing where there were scars. I felt horrible that I hadn't protected him. I started carrying the kitten while going to get food for all the cats and was going to check on the litter box but I woke up because I still felt so horrible about not protecting the kitten.

Background info: recently had a fight with my ex that ruined our friendship. It bothers me but I know it's for the best that I don't speak to him anymore as he had become disrespectful and began being dishonest. I've recently begun dating someone new as well. I've also felt emotionally drained by life lately and a bit directionless. Hopefully some of this helps. I can answer other questions if needed. I rarely remember any of my dreams but this one bothered me tremendously and I can't shake it

Although in order to provide a more accurate interpretation it would usually be best to have some additional general background information about you (and a description of any other events just before the dream), it’s safe to say that animals in dreams symbolize the dreamer’s connection with, and overall attitude toward, natural instinctive reactions, strong emotions, vague feelings, intuitions and even cold thoughts and actions that are sometimes needed to defend ourselves in certain situations.

So it looks like the dream could be trying to symbolically show a way out of your recent feelings of being emotionally drained and directionless.

Apparently, you might somehow have been ignoring certain emotions for quite a while as symbolized by the appearance of your old cat who died years ago and the other cats who have not been cared for.

If so, you’ve possibly become too disconnected with this area of yourself, e.g. the house where you live in the dream isn’t one you recognized on waking.

A stray cat that’s loose in the house has been attacking the kitten who has your ex-boyfriend’s name.

Many people and “dream dictionaries” would say that, therefore, the kitten symbolizes your boyfriend, but this isn’t the case.

Instead, the kitten likely represents some kind of instinctive “knowing” inside yourself which should be nurtured instead of being allowed to be “attacked” in some way by, say, the mostly uncontrolled feelings that came out in the fight with your ex-boyfriend.

Although this might sound confusing, it could be that somehow you’ve sort of realized in a semi-conscious way how you can sometimes be “disrespectful” and “dishonest” in an equivalent way to your ex-boyfriend.

Seeing this type of thing in ourselves even a little bit is painful and so we often tend to see it instead only in others.

We then lash out at them as opposed to allowing in a growing acceptance that we too sometimes have certain unpleasant ways of feeling and acting.

If we are able to remain aware of this darker side of ourselves and to work at it, doing so can help prevent unconsciously getting into relationships where various upsets and arguments seem to take over too much of the time.

Anyway as mentioned, without knowing anything much about you, this way of looking at your dream might not fit your personal circumstances very well, but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.

Please feel free to ask any questions or to make any comments about this particular way of looking at your dream.