dream

[Iphi]

When I was around 11 or 12 I had this dream.

In the dream I was somebody else - a young woman about 16 or 17 with different coloring - not 'me' at all.  She is babysitting a little boy who is about 4 or 5.  He is probably her little brother.  He is carrying a toy car carrying case for those little tiny matchbox hot wheels cars.  The carrying cases look like lunch boxes.

We are running through a construction site. It's night time. The building has floors and stair cases but no walls - just girders - it is a future skyscraper or other type of giant building.

Zombies are chasing us.  Wherever we go, no matter how fast or ingenious I am or how slow and stupid the zombies, somehow they are always on our tail.

Worse, the little boy is irritated with me because I am hurrying him along and pulling his arm.  He is angry that he is not in charge.  He wants to do what he wants to do.

We run up a wide staircase and then the snap comes loose on the lunch box carrying case.  All the hot wheels cars spill out across the floor.  The little boy sits down on the ground and starts to collect the spilled cars.  The zombies are coming up the stairs.  The cars have to be put back just exactly so in the right order.  The zombies are coming closer.  He takes each car and arranges it in its little space.  The zombies are surrounding us.  He won't get up.  He won't look up.  He won't leave without the cars.  He won't listen to me because he wants to do what he wants to do and I'm a nuisance to him.  The zombies are surrounding us and closing in and all I can think is I must save him or else I have failed in my charge to look after him.

Then I woke up.

And I knew that the little boy was really my dad.  He acts just like my dad.  My dad is exactly like that little boy, always.

But what I didn't know for a long time is that the zombies are also my dad.  That is why we can't shake them and they are always close.

I have often thought of that dream, and as you see have never forgotten it, but I could never see a way that it could possibly be the right thing to let go of that little boy's hand and leave him to the zombies. 

[Ami]

WOW,Iphi.
Bfeore you said it was your Dad,I was thinking that it was him. I think that you are on your way to leaving him there with his 'hot wheels" all in order. God help us, Iphi                       Love    Ami

[lighter]

(((Iphi)))  How dreadful.

[Poppy Seed]

What was it that made you feel such responsibility for your dad and what makes you feel that you need to be that responsible now?  or do you?

After reading your dream, I kept wondering what would happen if you just stood still next to the boy and let the Zombies come.  Look straight in their eyes with no fear?  Would they vanish?  Would they even know what to do next?  Would they lose their power and fade away or move on past?

Poppy

[Ami]

I understand the responsibility to the "sick" N. I gave up my life to make the N   O.K. I did not realize the dynamic. However,I chose to sacrifice myself for her( at an early age). I chose to take on all the lies ( from her own hatred of herself)and I chose to "wear" them for her so she would not have to feel and own them.
  At a deep level,I chose HER over me.I could never see that before. I just knew that I felt that I WAS all those awful qualities  that she threw on me. I simply owned them for her .I continually let her "re-abuse me by putting her fear,shame and guilt on me. It is subconscious until you start to heal and then you can see it.
 It is a "spell" that the witch casts in the fairy tales. Truth breaks it.
  I know what Iphi is saying. WE chose to "die" for them. Yesterday,I decided that she could die for herself.I made a decision NOT to take her pain for her. I felt the "rage"( suppressed) from her. I felt the huge rage at me. How dare I not take it   for her? How dare I have any self? How dare  I not  sacrifice my very guts and blood so she can "feel good".
 It is a very,deep subconscious choice.It is very hard to unearth.  It is the parent using the child as a "literal" sacrifice, I think that your name ---Iphi_is a myth about that.-
,Iphi, it was horrible that you were the victim of this. It is truly terrible,I am so,so  sorry,Iphi.
((((((((((((((((((Iphi)))))))))))))))))))                                                   Ami

[gratitude28]

Iphi, Before you said it was your dad, I was thinking the boy was just like MY dad. Isn't that funny? (not ha ha, but odd). I don't know if I had similar dreams, but I know my dad has also compartmentalized his life and feelings in order to pretend he doesn't live with The Zombie. And I think he started out this way to avoid seeing he had zombies for parents. His things are ordered - obsessively so... Their house is a pigsty and there are pockets of his little ordered spaces here and there. He could only keep the filth at bay for so long. I believe that his bit of order gives him the idea that he has control somewhere in his life.
Of course, when you are analyzing your parents, you are analyzing yourself...
Thanks for sharing this, Iphi.
Love, Beth

[Iphi]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.  I'm so glad you shared with me.  I wish I had a forum to put that dream out years ago! 

Such great questions Poppyseed - you must be a great dream analyst - I never thought of a single one of your questions before.  Well, except for 'what happens when the zombies get me?'  I was worried about the boy but of course didn't want zombies to get me either - but my main worry is my duty to him and failing at that (even to save my own skin so to speak). 

What made/makes me feel responsible for him.  I was raised to it.  Maybe I felt already that I was 'older' than my dad, or maybe the roles in the dream are that way because I was a parentified child.  It could be both or either.  I was told it was my responsibility to take care of him and it was expected of me, even though my efforts were always inadequate and disapproved.  Also, I was always hypervigilant and trying to ward off disaster by thinking ahead so I was always thinking down the road to try to avoid bad situations - this was an area where we often clashed just like in the dream - because my dad is a destructive saboteur of himself and others - just like in the dream.

My dad has a childish approach in many ways - kind of 'if you won't play my game, my way, then I take the ball and go home. So there!'  Also he is really into order and measurement.  He's an engineer.  He loves Truth, as long as it is scientific truth that can be proven.  That he loves truth at all is a redeeming quality about him, I think.  He just doesn't see how Truth applies to humans, or how there can be a Truth that isn't measured.  Also, all his life he hates to feel 'controlled.' He has to be the one to control.  I think he also hates to feel s/mothered but he demands to be cared for.  It's impossible.  It is just impossible.  Ugh.

Who are those zombies? I don't know.  Maybe they are from his unconscious.  Maybe they are disowned parts of himself that he refuses to 'know.'   But maybe they are my zombies too?  Maybe they are chasing me with unwelcome parts of myself?  That's the thing - it doesn't have to be either/or does it?  But my first instinct is to say - the zombies did get me - that they are his disowned stuff - that somehow I was in with the zombies, in with the disowned stuff too that he put on me and he demanded, without ever having to demand, absolute service, immediately - to be an arm, a leg, an extension. 

Hope to get back on later but got to go for now. 

[Ami]

Was it  recurrent dream ,Iphi?                                                                    Ami

[Hopalong]

Hi Iphi...
A theory I was once taught was, "You are every element in your dream--person, place, object."

What does this dream mean to you if you look at it that way? For example, what part of you is the little boy? What part of you are the zombies? What part of you is the need for order?, etc...

It's an interesting way to interpret dreams.
This was an amazing one, thanks for sharing it.

love
Hops

[Poppy Seed]

Was this a reoccuring dream from your childhood or you continue to have this dream today?  Totally hear you on the zombies "getting you".  Feel like they got me too some days.   

Do you still feel a need for hypervigilence or responsibility for your father today?  Are you still searching for something to set you free or give you permission to hand his stuff back to him?  To leave him to carry it and deal in whatever way he will?

I hope the reason you are thinking of this dream is because NOW is the opportunity to process it and finally lay it down.  And then I hope you breath, deep, clean, free air. 

BTW, I used to do the same thing.  Try to protect my father.  Try to carry the responsibility of the dysfunction of my family.  Run and run and sweat and carry.  Mending mending mending......trying to keep everything moving.  Been doing that in my marriage too.  Mending....pretending....mending.....pretending.....

Poppy

[Iphi]

I hope the reason you are thinking of this dream is because NOW is the opportunity to process it and finally lay it down.  And then I hope you breath, deep, clean, free air. 

Yes that's it exactly!  Mainly - I don't carry his stuff but I need to go through the process of laying it down and somehow it seems like I want to do it bit by bit on the board.  So in a way I am starting back in the past and it is not something that is happening last night or today.  But I have to start the story from back there or it won't make sense where I am at today and what needs to happen next.

However, I am still not where I can leave that boy.

Hops thanks for the interpretation idea. Interesting!  I have heard that concept before and try to usually do dream interpretation in several approaches, without abnegating seeming contradictions - holding them both (or more) as plausible or possible.  I guess since this is an old dream, it throws me because I know what I was trying to control then, but if I am thinking of it now should I even be trying to put that on my life now?  I think the concept I am thinking of here is 'legacy' issues.  This dream captures the whole picture of that time, but some of the dream is still undead - still a legacy.

Usually when I have a dream where it is about my own stuff, then I actually spend time as each being in the dream.  If there is an animal and 4 humans then I will actually 'be' each being in turn, walking in their shoes.  Don't know if anyone else finds that?

And that makes sense to me because in relationships... in some ways time and circumstance don't matter - it's either done or undone.  Or uh... something.

It's not a recurring dream.  I've almost never had a recurring dream ever.  Usually instead I have a Big Mac Daddy dream that blows me right out of my reality like a sledgehammer from my unconscious.  This was one of those.  There's only a handful of these type throughout my life and they started when I was about 4 years old, but I could go a decade without having a biggie.

I'm glad I put it out there and hope people don't mind that it isn't 'fresh.'  It just shows the shape of our relationship so well as it was for so long.

In the past 2 years I've dropped my hands.  There is no pushing and no pulling from me.  I feel tempted to push or pull, but I keep it to myself.  That was my part in our dysfunction - in the dream she is pulling the boy and he is hanging back.

I guess my main question that I do not know is why am I older and wiser than my dad?  If the dream was saying 'you are wrongly made the parent' then it seems to me I would be a child being expected to babysit a parent or something (like in life).

[Certain Hope]

Dear Iphi,

What I feel from your dream is that the young woman who is not "you" at all was your vision of the future...  the person you were afraid you'd become if the young boy (the part within you which may resemble your dad) were allowed to stay put. I can see within myself that it's often been my own desire for order - to be left to my own ways and means - has both paralyzed me and also forced me to become someone other than who I was designed to be... someone virtually unrecognizable.

As long as we are afraid to confront the zombies in our lives, we aren't ourselves... that's for sure. I really relate to that little boy...

Hugs,
Carolyn

P.S. I rarely dream, but the other day had one where my dad was chasing me around, trying to get my ear, you know, to share some of his tidbits of humor or stories about my mother's nuttiness... he reeked of cigar smoke and whiskey... absolutely revolting.

[Ami]

Dear Iphi,
   I think  that you( and I ) with our child like wisdom( as kids) WERE smarter than they were and we knew it. I knew it anyway. I used to think how much smarter I was than my M . I used to wonder how she could be so "old" and be such an idiot.
   Now,I know b?.c I became an "idiot" too. It is denial with it's layers upon layers of lies that makes you in to an idiot.                                        BLEH                                            Ami

[lighter]

I had a dream yesterday morning.....

one of those that haunts for days.... disturbing stuff.

I was coming home with my oldest daughter in the car.... we just turned onto our street.

I saw a red pick up parked accross the street.... thought not much of it.... one of the workers on something, power plant, new houses, tree cutter?  Something then....

I saw that he was carrying a shotgun.  I went blank mometarily... who wants to KNOW these things?

It sunk in that he was smiling at me.... and coming my way.

I screamed for dd to RUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!! 

which she did, thankfully.

I took after her, grabbing my gun from my car as I ran.... running running but he was on top of me so I turned around to face him.

We were between 2 cars..... so odd....

I recognized him. 

I've met him before..... my husband introduced him to me not long ago.

So... he raises the gun to shoot, pulls the trigger, still smiling.... and I see the shot leave the barrell.......

 it's all s l o w m o t i o n....

and I leaned back, yes... just like in the movies.... and watched it pass in front of my face.

I stood up and shot him dead in his right eye. 

He went down like a sack of potatoes.... I stood over him for a minute and contemplated shooting him in the head a few more times..... just in case.

It seemed wrong.... against the rules somehow.... so I didn't.

Next thing I knew.... he was up and smiling again.

Coming after me. 

I don't know where my child was or went and I was running for my life again.

I ran into a condominium and was hiding but then the room filled with men who were all smiling and looking forward to seeing what happened.....

looking forward to seeing me get what I had coming.

Seeing me get what I deserved.

I had to flee again and went out the back.... I ran accross the big street and started climbing a very steep front yard....

I was climbing tree roots...... slow going considering a man with a shot gun was after me.

I couldn't see where he was btw.

I ended up getting to the top and realized I'd run into a bathroom with no exit.

I was appalled when I woke up with that sick feeling I still can't shake.

Why cound't I have woken up after I shot him.... BEFORE he stood up and started chasing me again?

I've always had dreams where I can't find my gun or it won't go off or the bad guy just laughs and laughs as I shoot him..... he just won't go down.... I hit him in the eyes and he still laughs and laughs....I can't defend myself even though I'm doing everything right.

I just haven't had them for years and years. 

Sorry to see their back: /

Sorry to see the addiction of other men who think I'm getting what I deserve and do nothing to help, though they could if they wanted to: / 

[Ami]

WOW Lighter.
  I  studied some dream anaylsis in graduate school. What I remember is having each and every  person and object in your dream"speak" to you. Say,'I am the man with the gun.I want to..........
  Then you say,I am the .........
  You do this with as many parts of the dream as you can and you will find out what it is trying to tell you.Our subconscious knows the truth about our life.
   Do you think that your H is plotting on  you in any way? Does he want to inflict  physical  or emotional violence on you -- in any way?
  That would be my loose( and obvious) take on it. What do you think?                    Love   Ami