need an interpretation please

It’s great that you’ve provided a good amount of background information because doing so helps to provide a more accurate interpretation, but it’s important to say that a website like this one consists of “amateur dream interpreters”, including myself, who are not professionals certified by a psychological organization which, for example, would be accepted as legitimate by insurance companies in certifying analysts as being eligible for payments for therapy under a policy.

I think it’s important to emphasize this fact because of your approaching marriage which is of course a momentous event in a person’s life and it looks like your dream could possibly be commenting on some possible results of this upcoming happening.

So it’s best to take the following interpretation as being only a general attempt which might not fit your overall situation very closely.

To start off, the image of the space shuttle is basically that of a “vehicle” which in turn symbolizes the complex mix of the physical body along with the dreamer’s interests, drives, wishes and beliefs etc. etc.; that is, it symbolizes a kind of body-and-mind unity with which the person moves through daily life.

In the dream, you and your fiancée are “leaving the Earth” and going “into the stratosphere”.

Since the language of dreams is one of analogies, metaphors and “as if” statements being made via images, it’s possible that, from the dream’s point of view, your desire to marry at this time, although natural and understandable because of the strong feelings of love for your fiancée, might unfortunately be based on assumptions and so on that are not maybe “grounded enough” in the circumstances.

For example, you wrote how you yourself are worried about your current financial situation and that there are ongoing arguments between you and your fiancée about it in connection with the upcoming marriage.

The problem is that it’s known how one of the chief stresses in any marriage which causes huge pressures and often a break-up consists of financial strain.

While you and your fiancée love each other, it takes time to build a lasting marriage-bond and it might be that financial difficulties early on could be very hard to deal with.

As you described, PTSD and the effects of TBI’s are also present, so perhaps these additional stressors going on right now could unfortunately tip the balance towards a “crash” if not handled very carefully.

To help to grasp this idea and although it might sound like a surface and ineffective method of looking at a dream, you can try thinking about what it would mean in real life if you were actually trying to fly a space shuttle with your fiancée.

The word “impossible” might come to mind and maybe through this striking image the dream is at least trying to make you look more closely at your current situation.

It’s also important to say that the image of your fiancée in the dream is probably a mixture of the real girl and an inner psychological figure.

For example, the image of a woman in the dreams of a guy is usually symbolizing such things as his connection with his emotions, values, intuitions, gut feelings and relationships etc.

So you can try asking yourself what do you actually DO in these areas in everyday life regarding most decision-making situations.

For instance, do you actually use logical thinking instead of feelings to make your decisions?

If so, doing so probably works very well most of the time, so your actual awareness of and skills with valuing situations is likely less developed and not as strong (e.g. your fiancée turns out not to be strong enough to pilot the space shuttle and in fact said earlier that she didn’t even know how).

This is very natural in a young man such as yourself but the problem could possibly be that, partly because of your experiences in the Marines, there are a bunch of unseen feelings and values etc. that are maybe affecting your decision-making too much about getting married at this time.

Such a situation is probably being hinted at early on by the fact your fiancée leaves you alone to pilot the shuttle when she goes to the bathroom.

For example, peeing occurs in a bathroom. The medical term for peeing is the “expression of urine” and this links it up via analogy to the free and open “expression” of feelings which shouldn’t be “held back”, just like not peeing over a long period of time can lead to serious medical problems.

In addition, excrement and pee can symbolize, as an example, the “disgusting” results of having to “absorb” and “digest” various realities regarding our own lives and those of others.

The “by-products” of this process include such things as anger, resentment, jealousies and grudges etc. etc. which somehow have to be “gotten rid of”.

From what you wrote, you had a very hard time in the Marines and of course it takes time to deal with what happened.

So is it possible that you might understandably want to “get back to being normal” right away by doing the things that a young man does like getting married?

You might not be aware of how just much the existence of the symptoms of PTSD is bothering you and so mostly trying to deny them and basically only “depending on your feelings of love” regarding your fiancée might not be enough to “pilot” your ship effectively enough right now.

It could be that the dream shows this idea in the fact that, while your fiancée in the dream thinks it’s easy to pilot the aircraft while it’s in space, this turns out not to be true and it starts hurtling back to earth.

You then have to take over because she’s not strong enough.

Things seem to go OK but reality (probably symbolized by the green hill) apparently might possibly not allow for a “safe landing” if you’ve been tending to rely too much on your maybe limited set of emotions right now as opposed to your usual way of thinking in making your big decision to get married.

Unfortunately, the “crash” and the darkness could represent the possibility of a deep depression as related to your PTSD for example if various pressures in life become too great over time.

It’s very important to emphasize that the dream isn’t saying “This will happen” but only that this sort of thing might potentially happen if, in this way of looking at your dream, certain attitudes, feelings and beliefs right now aren’t changed in a reasonable way so as to lessen the chance of a “crash”.

The scene with the dogs is probably meant to help you understand something of what’s going on with your PSTD and TBI’s.

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.

This ties in with part of what your fiancée probably represents in the dream.

Since you’ve been through so much, your connection with your own instinctive side is understandably kind of “mixed up” and “in conflict” as probably partly symbolized by the one dog biting the other one.

The quiet small dog could represent your normal, regular everyday feelings that are often doing quite well, but they’re maybe too often interfered with by less pleasant emotions.

So trying to “handle” and “control” the mix of various good and upsetting feelings (e.g. trying to keep the dogs apart), which can even include the need to give up control, pride or fear etc., at this stage probably inevitably involves getting “bitten” too often.

In a practical sense, this can mean experiencing such things as uncontrollable outbursts of anger, feeling too sad or depressed and having unpleasant physical symptoms at times etc.

Anyone who goes through this type of thing naturally just wants it to stop and to stop now, but unfortunately, it can take a while before things calm down.

Trying to “kill” such emotions (e.g. you want to kill the dog which keeps “biting”) isn’t really the best thing to do as symbolized by your buddies coming to the rescue of the dog.

Maybe the final line of the dream forms the core image of how you still have to work at your feelings which haven’t perhaps healed enough so far.

The way the dream ends is probably saying something like “This is the way things are. It’s up to you to do the right thing to help yourself to get well”.

Anyway as mentioned, without knowing all that much about you in detail, this way of looking at your upsetting 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.