Air Raid

Feeling under attack, the severity depending on the dream damage. The attack might be emotional from people, or feelings we have about events around us. Things may be going badly at work, and comments be felt like bombshells. Very often though, the threats are purely mental. We may read of an illness such as AIDS and the anxiety we connect with the idea has a devastating effect.

Idioms: I feel blitzed; it come as a bombshell; go down like a bomb; go like a bomb; put a bomb under someone; earn a bomb. See: aeroplane; war.

Example: ‘I am in a house and planes are dropping bombs on it.’ Mrs S. M.

Example: I was in a room with my aunt and uncle. It was dark outside and there was some kind of air raid going on with glowing missiles flying through the sky. I was terrified and tried to draw the red curtain across the window to block them out. The window was a right angle shaped one in the corner of the room. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cover the whole window. As fast as I pulled the curtain across, the other end would be exposed, showing the missiles. I was becoming more and more frantic and my aunt and uncle just sat at the table playing cards, completely unperturbed and indifferent to my fear. D. K.

This dream from a girl in her teens clearly shows how she is dealing with her fears concerning the world. Her distress is even more intense because the fears of external threats which appear very real to her, are totally ignored by her family. The curtains depict how much she tries to shut these feelings out of her mind, and how unsuccessful this is. The dream is probably dealing with her difficulties in facing life as an adult, and the demands it may place upon her.

Useful questions:

What in my external life am I feeling threatened by?

Are things happening out of the blue that I feel threatened by?

Am I facing new things that I am still learning to deal with?

Can I put a name or situation to what threatens me?