Hello, BlueForest.
I can see this post is three years old, so I don't know if it's still relevant in your life, or if you'll be notified that I've replied. But on the off chance that it is relevant, and you have email notification set up, I wanted to offer up my attempt at an interpretation.
When I was reading your description of your partner's dream, I was impressed by how disconcerting it must be to have something like that appear in dreams, especially as a child. I can understand why he's felt reluctant to share this dream.
It's my opinion that people have recurring dreams or nightmares because of some kind of unresolved issue in their waking lives. This issue could be anything. Struggling with a relationship, learning a skill - a dream can even recur if there's something in our lives which makes us unusually happy.
If it's a recurring nightmare, the issue often seems to be revolving around something unpleasant or not understood in waking life, and once it is understood and addressed to resolution, the dream either changes, or it goes away entirely. If I knew a little more detail about the dream, or your partner's waking life, I might be able to be a little more specific in my interpretation - but even though I'm going to have to remain a bit vague there - maybe once he gets the idea of the interpretation, it will all fall in to place for him without my specific identification of the issues that have been troubling him. I hope I make it clearer, within the interpretation.
The setting of the dream is a chase.
I can not tell you exactly what the vampire creatures represented to him, as a child. I can tell you that because the dream led to him being afraid of the dark in waking life, my suspicion is that his fear had something to do with dishonesty. It could be his own dishonesty, as children often reflect on this topic with guilt as they mature. Or it could be that he noticed someone else was being dishonest with him, or asking him to be dishonest, and he struggled with those issues. This is just a guess, though, and he might have a better idea of what he was afraid of, originally. The reason I suspect dishonesty is because darkness symbolizes dishonesty. I understand this was a symptom of the dream, and not an image in the dream, but sometimes that's how the mind operates, and the symbolism of the dream seems as if it could support this guess.
Being chased by a mob of vampire creatures as a child conveys feelings that there is a chance of being overwhelmed. In this case, being overwhelmed by something that might "suck the life out" of you. He felt he might be overcome by a lot of unpleasant things that felt draining to him. He was under a lot of pressure. Not from one source (vampire), but a multitude of issues (vampires), possibly issues related to dishonesty.
When the dream changed, it's very likely that his thinking about these issues changed in waking life. The monster, sometimes represented by a snake, arrives and kills all of the vampires. A monster snake represents an even bigger lie. Like kills like. He was exploring the possibility that maybe one big lie would eliminate all of the little ones.
He knows that a big lie isn't easy to control though, and that's why it turns on him.
He doesn't feel fear, but relief when he's eaten by the monster snake. That doesn't mean that he would actually enjoy being eaten alive, and he's profoundly disturbed. He just would be relieved if all of the lying would stop somehow, even if it means telling one big lie, and even if that big lie kills him in the end.
That's actually a positive, healthy attitude for a young boy to adopt, and he shouldn't be embarrassed, or feel like it's something he has to hide. Your partner values honesty.
What might help him to eliminate these dreams entirely is if he tries to recall what exactly were the "issues" which were represented by vampires in his original dream. My guess is it has something to do with dishonesty, largely because he developed a fear of the darkness, and because the later monster was a snake, which can also symbolize dishonesty.
However, he may remember that there was something else that he felt overwhelmed by at that age. Maybe he was involved in too many extracurricular activities, and that's what the vampires would represent to him. He can adjust my "guess" that the vampires and snake represent lies, to whatever he remembers was causing him to feel pressured and overwhelmed at around the age he first recalls having this nightmare. That is what the monsters really represent.
Once he's identified the meaning of the monsters, and if he's still experiencing this nightmare, he should understand that it means that the issue remains unresolved, and there's a good chance the nightmare will go away or change if he addresses the issue in waking life.
For example: if he realizes that what was driving him crazy when the dream started was that his brother was always fibbing to him, and he knows that his brother still constantly fibs to him, then he might get relief from the nightmare if he can work it out with his brother in waking life. If he thinks that the vampires represent little family secrets he was asked to keep, and he still keeps those secrets, then the nightmare might go away if he divulges those secrets with someone he trusts, or if even if he explains to his family that he felt overwhelmed by that from an early age, and it threatens to "consume" him to this day.
I hope that this helps.
Take it easy.
|
|
Bookmarks