someone plz help with this...

[silverrose]

I don't think this is connected to the dream I posted about a couple of weeks ago; but from this one the last thought before I woke up & directly afterward was "Somebody needs my help- but I don't know who it is," somebody is in real danger...I'm going to relate the dream as detailed as I can recall, hoping someone here can help me connect the loose ends, even though it was very detailed & quite long...a jumbled-up mess... The scene was my parent's home in NY..most of it took place outside, at night, was dark but lit up kinda like outside lights or flares; from the way the trees were it appeared to be autumn & I believed it was October...some scenes took place outside, & some was on their enclosed dining-room area, & inside the house; next door was the house where I lived for a few years. The first thing I remember is seeing 'flashes' of a young adult male who lives here in the midwest; a few years ago he raped a young friend of mine whom I'll call Jean here in the midwest...a couple of a couple of years ago she moved to a different state & I haven't heard from her since. the flashes were like 'maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't, maybe he was hiding in the shadows in the dark.' (I saw this kid approximately a week ago in a mall when I was with my daughter, she & I have crossed paths with him twice before, I don't like him being 'on the loose.') In the dream 'Jean' was running to me, crying, saying 'my brother' had raped her; my actual brother was in the dream & when I pointed out who he was she said it wasn't him but rather somebody who 'people thought was my brother;' it turned out the individual she was referring to was an escaped sex offender, an older person whom I didn't know & never seen before. There were other people in the scene, my real brother's friends, just kinda milling around not doing or saying much, just chatting in a neighborly way. The next thing I remember is people saying to hurry and shut the doors so 'the bear' doesn't get inside the house. I went outside and by the stream in their backyard there was a bear rolling around playing in the grass and in the water; it was weird because its body was brown like most bears but its head was all white. to add: I thought it was odd that they were so panicky about the bear- I didn't see anything intimidating about it, it just played for awhile, didn't even notice me, then it got up and walked away. My parents were kind of just wandering around too, & when my mother went off into another room my father was standing at the countertop cutting vegetables to make a salad. it seemed & felt very ordinary to me- until I realized he was dead (he died a few years ago)- I only realized this when he said (this is as close to exact words as I can recall) "if you remember hearing my eulogy, I sat up and cried when they said I should have spent more time with animals." (In real life I hadn't heard the eulogy because I was out of state & couldn't get to his funeral). He then said "if you talk anything about dying, they'll spend down to their last cent, so don't"- & I believed by 'they' he meant my brother & mother. Immediately after he said that, I heard a squeaky voice from off in the distance calling out "Help! Help!" & it seemed to me that whomever the person was was disguising his or her voice. & that's when I woke up. can someone help unravel this- connect what it all means? thanks...

[Burned up]

Nobody has picked this up so I'll give it a shot. The flashes in the darkness represent parts of your unconscious coming to awareness. I'm struck by the various male archetypes in the dream. The rapist, the brother, the bear (which I'm assuming is male) and the father. These I suspect are all aspects of the same maleness that's "haunting" the dream. From the innocent play of the bear and perhaps your brother with his friends to the more forceful actions of the rapist, it may be that you sense that with animal behaviour there is little difference between play and rape. Your "father's" words about animals perhaps support this theory. I believe you're in touch with a very primative maleness that at one level is scary (when you see the guy in real life) but on another is very bestial and innocent. The false-voice shouting for help perhaps suggests to you that your're not as worried about this as perhaps you maybe think you should be. Vague I know, but it's how I would start to look at it. Throw it around and see what sticks. Bu

[Anansi]

silverrose, I wonder if this dream could have been stirred up by your sighting and recognizing the young rapist in the mall while you were with your daughter and your strong feeling that you "don't like him being 'on the loose." It feels like the dream starts by transposing Jean's face over your daughter's - a fear that what happened to Jean could happen to your little girl, brought up by seeing the rapist and her together, sort of thrust into the same world. What seems to come up next is your response to him - that you don't like him being loose. It almost seems like over the course of the dream, you've taken that feeling and run with it and ended up disagreeing with it or retracting it. For example, first the Jean figure in the dream points out rumour, misdirection, the community finger pointing that follows a sex offender whether one convicted or suspected: she accuses your brother, but it wasn't him, someone just looked like him; and then someone else who might or might not be a sex offender. The bear feels like it represents community response to a perceived danger - running away, locking doors, isolating the member. But, when you actually looked at what they were running from you saw it to be exaggeration. Your father's comment about spending time with animals in the past scene feels like it follows along the trend of your dream, and what he means is to be more open-minded and get to know who people really are rather than what they are rumoured to be. Do you have some doubt as to whether the boy in the mall was the one who committed the rape? It feels like you have either sympathy for him, or for him as a figurehead for people who are ostracized by community judgement: perhaps only that you strongly rebelled against your own instant comdemnation. Could the voice calling for help/understanding have been the boy? Hope that helped. It's a completely different direction from Burned's thoughts.

[silverrose]

you both made some good points & gave me a lot to think about...thanks!