Attack Attacked Attacker
In looking at many dreams in which attack takes place, it is obvious that there are many degrees and forms of attack. So attack or being attacked can represent many things such as feeling attacked or threatened by ones own impulses such as anger or sexuality; feeling surreptitiously attacked by other people and their attitude to you or their remarks; a subtle sense of being attacked by age, or a serious attack by an illness – one speaks of an asthma or virus attack for instance, but also one may be attacked by a poison, or food if one is allergic to it; one might personally attack an issue or a project, and so a dream might depict one attacking something in this sense; confidence may be attacked; it is a common term in sport or business, and so may refer to attitude or energy. This aspect of attack may also refer to ones beliefs, or to other peoples, which may be attacked and threatened; attack is also sometimes a form of defence, so may suggest defensiveness about some issue or aspect of ones life. A positive side to attack is that we often feel attacked by an emerging new insight or positive personal change. We feel it as an attack because it threatens our old way of life, our habitual way of ding things and thinking about things.
It is important to define or be aware of ones response to threat or attack in a dream. Experiments in connection with dreams in which the person runs away from attack, or is very passive, show that if the dreamer visualises changing the situation and faces attackers, their dreams and even waking behaviour changes radically. Passivity in dream situations may depict the innate feeling that we are helpless in dealing with the feelings involved. This usually dates from past experience, perhaps in childhood, where in fact one did not have the strength or maturity to meet what was happening. See Life Changes.
Occasionally attack in dreams shows a desire to be attacked in order to live out forms of self punishment or sadism. In most such cases this desire arises out of a need to remember, and make fully conscious, punishment or sadism that has been practised on the dreamer.
Being attacked: This dream usually arises because in some way you are repressing, in conflict with, or frightened off your own emotions, sexuality or anger. Occasionally the fear is about ones own potential or expanded awareness.
Attacked by animal: Feeling under threat from external events or internal emotions, impulses or ideas; feeling a victim in relationship to others and self; taking a defensive attitude. The repression or fear here is in regard to your own natural urges. Sometimes our dreams put into animal form someone who we feel is expressing anger toward us.
Attacked by shadowy or frightening figure: Our childhood traumas and fears may take this guise in a dream. So in this case the attack is depicting our feelings of fear and pain surrounding those past issues. How we meet such an attack is important. If we run from it, the trauma may remain largely unconscious, and therefore capable of influencing our behaviour negatively. Better to explore it or change it. (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peerdream work.)
Attacked by animal: Introverting one’s own aggression or sexuality; fear of one’s own natural urges; anxiety about aggression in oneself or other people; feeling attacked by an external person.
Being the attacker: This is more positive, as you are not being passive and hurt in your dreams. But you are still in conflict with whatever it is your attacking. Considering that what you attack is probably a part of your own personality, it might be better to meet it in some way. Positive self expression; defending oneself against something one feels threatened by; attempt to destroy some urge or feeling in oneself or others. The word attack is also used in many ways, so might refer to an ‘attack’ of an illness, or ‘heart attack’. Can express the difference between feeling threatened by a work/relationship/sex problem, or feeling challenged by it in a way to stimulate creativity or research.
Bird attacking: Fear of ideas, ideals or opinions; verbal attack by others; fear of the Self – a view of things that may destroy ones present more limited views or opinions.
Sexual attack: This has many aspects, and can at times be a re-playing of previous sexual attacks, or an expression of fear concerning them. But we also create dreams of sexual attack when we are frightened of our own feelings and desires. Grof gives the interesting account of a woman who experienced many images of sexual attack. He says:-
…. whenever a boy friend initiated even the most innocent sexual approach, such as touching. embracing, or kissing, she was overwhelmed with terror. It seemed to her that when such a situation occurred, her lover was actually changing physically and assuming animal features. Repeatedly, she fled from these situations in a state of panic anxiety and never wanted to see her partner again. Episodes of this kind were repeatedly relived …. with details of the physical setting, as well as the physical sensations and emotions involved. From Realms of The Human Unconscious, by S. Grof. Published by Souvenir Press.
Someone else being attacked: Anger or aggression toward another; killing off an aspect of oneself represented by the person in the dream. If the person is someone you are in relationship with, it suggests an attempt, however short, to distance oneself from them emotionally. See: fight; War.
Example: I had this dream at a time when there was a lot of talk and anxiety in newspapers and on television about nuclear war. In the dream a nuclear attack had been announced. I immediately thought of my children who are away in boarding school. I go out into the street to see if I can get to them, but realise it is hopeless. In the street everybody is walking about as if it were a holiday Sunday. I realised there was no time to get to my children so decided to join the people on the street. John C.
John had this dream at a time when there was a lot of media coverage about nuclear attack. It is therefore most likely dealing with his real fears about how he would deal with such an attack if it happened.
Example: Whilst suffering from nervous exhaustion three years ago. I had a recurring nightmare that left me feeling totally worthless and wretched. In it I underwent an indecent attack upon my person by my father. I was about four or five in the dream. It was not the attack in itself that left me with these feelings, but rather the look my mother gave me shortly afterwards – making me feel like a specimen in a jar. In the dream I sensed she had refused to be his wife fully, until he had got us into our own home again. I sense she is blaming me for not being able to continue with this threat, and that once more she will have to suffer my father’s attentions because of me. There is no one to help me so I decide to leave. I pack a small case, which I believe someone gets for me. In reality I did try to leave home at this age but got no further than the bus stop across the road. Maria.
Maria gives no indication of whether she was abused by her father, but the dream is certainly dealing with the sexual politics of her parents.
Example: Several men attacked me and were trying to drag me off somewhere against my will. As the dream progressed, or replayed, I began to realise that it only appeared like an attack because I was resisting the process. In fact the men wanted to show me something that was important to me. They were being quite gentle, but because of my resistance, it felt to me like an aggressive act. My thoughts about this are that this may represent the way I feel about events. Because of underlying anxiety, I feel events and changes, such as losing my job are very threatening and difficult to bear. In fact no harm has come from these events at all. The dream suggests that I am being led somewhere if only I would go along with things. Albie R.
Sometimes it is our response to the action that makes it appear like an attack. So it is worthwhile entering the dream again in imagination and exploring it – try Acting on your dream.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If I take the images away what are my feelings about the attack, and where am I meeting those feelings?
Is there any way I can change this dream? For help doing this see Carrying the Dream Forward.
What are the underlying issues here?
Comments
I had a dream yesterday..
Few days to my marriage.
I am in an empty house with my would b father in law nd brother in law . All of us are in different rooms.
There is a knock on the door.. I open it to find my ex bf( broke up with him long time ago) and his friend with a box full of things I gave him/ my things; and blaming me for breaking up. I am scared my inlaws would hear them.
In the mean time they come in,to keep the things in my room, and mu brother in law also come in. ****I forgot some portion*****
My ex bf shoots my brother in law. He is bleeding but would be fine. .my and his friend run towards the door. My father in law co.es out. He says ” u shouldn’t have shot my son” and shoot both of them. They die…
Would u interpret the dream for me
nearly every dream for 15years I am always on the verge of not being able to stop myself from thinking that something is trying to make me attack people whoever happens to be there at the time and then I wake up but in the dream yet I know I AM DREAMING YET STILL CAN’T STOP IT.
By the way in real life I have no history of violence and don’t even harm insects unless I have too.
Stafford – There are all manner or reasons you have such dreams. One might be that in childhood you were taught never to be aggressive. Yet aggression is as strong an urge as the sexual drive and just as natural. If that were the case then you have bottled it up and it seeks release. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/aggression-aggressiveness/
Another possibility is that you experienced things in earlier years that left you feeling helpless and angry. For instance I lived through several things that left me feeling murderous rage toward my mother. “The outcome of this encounter, and the many others that follow it, is inevitable. Faced with overwhelming power, the child withdraws, but he cannot withdraw his hatred. It is buried in the dark earth of his mind, where it seethes for a lifetime, disturbing the surface of life with irrational rages and guilts, sadism and masochism. When the patient makes contact with this level of past experience he is in for one of the wildest, most atavistic passages in all of therapy.
Sooner or later he is bound to fall into this particular psychic inferno. Suddenly, as though all hell had erupted into frothing crim¬son lava, his psyche explodes into rage. The room whirls; chairs, lamps, tables spring into wild distortions; images fly in panicked disor¬der; his whole body shakes with an ague of fury. This anger is not painful, it is a sickness of yearning, a rapture of destruction that pounds in his temples. And underneath all images, appearances, and symbols cries the hungry urge to destroy—to throw anything, to tear everything, to kill and kill and kill—and the act would be the end of all joy.
Now trembling sweeps his body, and as each surge flares up the spine, the parts of an image are driven together in his brain as though a great hand were slamming down, one by one, the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. A hand, a leg, an ear: the figure snaps together before him. Behold his mother—not the mother he loved but a monster, enor¬mous, menacing, her hand raised to strike him.”
So whatever the cause you, have managed to keep it only in your dreams. Why not let it out as suggested in aggression. Also please see http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/
Tony
I dreamt of my husband joining a gang. We were in a house and one of the rooms I was trying to get his attention by crawling into his lap but it didn’t work, then I left. I called him and then I found out he was with another girl. I ran back to the house to the room and I yelled at him. Leaving the room, the gang was there and started to attack me, I ran back to the room but it was locked. I look ahead of me and they dragged me into the kitchen. I saw my husband, screaming for help but he looked do ashamed and hid behind the curtains as they attacked me and took advantage then I woke up….
Gwennie – Please first read – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing as it will save a lot of time explaining your dream.
Like many women, your dream seems to say that you are uncertain of you own attractiveness as a woman. So you crawl into your husband lap, which was probably an act of passive acceptance instead of being upright and proclaiming your wonderful female power. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/active-passive/
Then you feel the power of masculinity in the group or men, and your own powerlessness in the other woman. Again saying you lack assurance of your own attractiveness. Perhaps the attack and sexual activity of the group of men was in the end saying something like, “All these other men find me sexually attractive, even though it is not the sort I want.”
Tony
I dreamt I got a new dog, he looked about 5 months old. And very much like a golden retriever I had, her name was Daisy and she passed away last year. The new dog looked so much like her that I called him Daisy by mistake. He had a redder coat however. My dog Rusty who passed long before Daisy was present in the dream, very much alive. He was from the pound and a snauzher /cocker spaniel mix.
In the dream I was driving the car I drove in High School. It was a small two-door green Hyundai Accent, like a 2001. I was very happy to have my two companions with me.
We arrive to what could be described as a community center. It has a pool and a clubhouse. I leave my dogs inside the car with the windows partially open. Inside the clubhouse, it was fairly dark. There is a narrow hallway and a small area with lockers.
I put my belongings down on a ledge by the lockers and gather my surroundings. There’s a nice Hispanic family here and most of it’s members are in the pool. There are also a group of tough-looking Mexican thugs here.
All if a sudden, a particular thug makes it known he has some beef with me. I don’t know why. But immediately I don’t like him and his group either. They look threatening and intuitively I think they could be dangerous. Rough around the edges, these thugs give off a presence that they’ve committed some major crimes. I’m anxious about the men and the possibility that they could turn violent at any moment. I’m especially anxious about the man who’s given me the dirty looks.
Sure enough, the man comes at me with a knife and threatens me. He leaves for a while and another member of his group approaches me. My heart is still racing but this guy approaches calmly. He hands me two knives; two shanks really. One is significantly sharp and pointy and the other is only sharpened a little. The sharper one is a lot smaller because it’s been ground and sharpened down so much that it’s a lot narrower. It looks like a deadly weapon to me. I’m uneasy but I feel better now that I have these weapons on hand.
The terrifying thug comes back, and starts attacking me. He cuts into my abdomen and I swing for him and cut him right back. This happens repeatedly. At one point he was close to the car and I was worried that he had injured my dogs. I look inside and the dogs look dead. But they are okay! They are just asleep because it is so hot and even hotter inside the vehicle. I let them out of the car, unsure of where to take them. I want them where they will be the safest. I know that man would try to kill them if he could, because he is trying to kill me!
They are outside of the car for a little while when I decide to put them back in the car. The heat is less dangerous than the man at this point. Now I am racing with time and protecting not only myself, but my dogs as well.
We continue to violently thrash and cut each other with the blades. The man is mean and strong, but he is a lot shorter than me. Somehow I end up injuring him more than he hurts me. In the end I am victorious.
He talks to a supervisor of the club and says something about how he’s surprised that I beat him. And goes on to say that all of the other women go down. I don’t know what the supervisor says back. Obviously this person was no help, as the police were never contacted. For some reason even I don’t contact the police after all the fighting is over. This totally goes against what I would do in real life.
I slump into the green Hyundai Accent and drive off. I’m driving on the highway to get home. It’s the same highway I drove on in high school to get home. I call my sister and tell her I got a new dog. She tells me she thought I had gotten one. I had been wanting one for a long time.
I arrive at home and I show someone my battle wounds. My memory of the dream is fuzzy. I couldn’t describe to you all what the house looked like, or know where I was, maybe it was the apartment I live in now. I also couldn’t tell you whether it was my boyfriend or my sister who I showed my battle wounds to. I can tell you this: the part of the dream where I lifted my shirt and showed my wounds to the person and the mirror is mostly vivid. I see multiple cuts and lacerations. There are eight cuts on my stomach, one on each shoulder, and maybe four cuts on the outer sides of my back, on the top and bottom. The imagery of my wounded body concludes the dream.
I am trying to understand this dream, as it was very powerful. Here’s a little more background on myself…
I am new to the desert where I live. I’ve lived here about 3 years in the area. I’ve experienced some trying times but remain optimistic about the future. I enjoy the desert most of the year for its warm weather. But sometimes I feel in conflict with the desert. It’s extremely hot in the summertime. And the desert is like another planet compared to where I’ve spent most of my years. (Wyoming and Montana). I’m feeling conflicted about living in the desert for a long time. It seems like that is what’s going to happen because my boyfriend is pretty tied to this place because of his job. And regarding the dog part of the dream, I want one badly but won’t get one. The desert gets so hot and difficult, and perhaps I travel too much at this point. So I think it isn’t wise to get a dog yet. Do you have any thoughts about my dream and what it may mean? Or about my feelings regarding where I live? I hope you enjoyed my comment. Thank you for reading.
I keep having the same dream every day for two weeks: I’m at home in my backyard with a boy and then all of a sudden because of something we did with some kind of gang the gang throws a bomb into our little house in the backyard and I always am the one to know before it comes so I warn him and we hide then somehow we already know that after the bomb they come and look for survivors to kill so we hide under the stairs and then they come but skip us then when we look through the cracks all of a sudden theirs a bunch of people in the backyard running and screaming and their heads being cut off n then we get out when they leave and go to the little house and the same thing happens over and over again until I finally wake up I’m sick of having this dream it’s frightening to me what do you think it could mean?
Me and my bestfriend are fighting right now. I had a dream that someone started attacking her and beating her up so I immediately got in there removed her from the situation and put myself into it. I woke up as soon as the girl started to attack ME. What does this mean?!?!
Savannah – The people you dream about are very seldom about them, but are about what you feel about them. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/
So as every part of a dream actually represents you it shows you attacking yourself. Then the person you attacked – yourself again – of course attacked you. It shows your inturned aggression. Try exploring you dreams http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/ or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
Tony
Thank you so much for these insightful articles regarding dream interpretation. They have been helpful to me on numerous occasions.
I deampt in a house I was staying at these women had a baby that had 3 cuts on it. I kept saying the baby needs to go to the hospital. They stared in an evil way at me and then they planned how they were going to blame the baby on me. Then they were all(3-4 women) attacking me and I was trying to fight back but they were to strong. They were evil because they were ex-cons. This confusing to me but I don’t get along with my sisters right now, they are like that blaming and greedy. Do you think this is a revelation or premonition?
So my dream takes place at a golf course where I work, am walking with my little dog, soon I realize we are not alone and see two big pumas on the other side of the gate, I pick up my dog and try to walk away before they see me but they see is, they go around the gate fairly easy and begin their attack, I am than on conflict between dropping my dog and running away but instead I throw her in the opposite side from pumas and face the pumas, I wake up before they attack, and I was feeling fear.
What about dreaming of a crowd running because they are being attacked. In my dream there was shooting from the sky and a lot of explosions. People were running and hiding from the unknown attackers. I was part of the crowd and i was trying to keep my family running together, dodging bullets and grenades.
Crazy huh.
Last night I dream that i woke up in the middle of the woods, not so far from me i could see a female gorilla with a young gorilla, but i was hidding for them not to see me, then i saw 2 pumas, attacking a deer, but the deer ran away and one of the pumas came onto me, and he bit my hand, it felt so real, i yelled at him and i said, get away from me, then he stepped back looking afraid and then i saw the way out of the woods, and just then i woke up, what does this dream mean?
I had a dream that I was standing in a garden with a gardener looking out on a beautiful view of the sea at close range. Suddenly dolphins started swimming directly towards us at high speed, I was afraid they might hurt themselves on the shore, but they evaporated and more came, then it was pilot whales with ears like a hippopotamus and then sharks. One of the sharks then seemed to do a sort of humorous sideways dance, then to my shock attacked and gobbled up a rather pale looking woman that was walking on the shore. The dream ended with me telling the gardener I live far away and could not begin a relationship. I recently left a long term relationship where I had given too much and had to carry the burden of all the practical decisions and now I’m feeling quite bereft and lost.
I had an experience I was asleep and I was woken by the feel of the bed covers lifting and someone getting into bed beside me. I felt the weight on me but I could not move. I was scared and I tried calling out to my husband the second time I called out and I heard myself say “Father” and I felt someone putting their hand on my mouth. But after I called out It left. 2 weeks later I felt a finger rubbed across my back the feel of it woke me up. I am so confused what was it?
i dreamed i was in a large fuction room with several friends and family. as i neared my table, it moved a few inches towards me. i pushed it back where it was and it moved a again, this time further. again i pushed it back an moved away from the table. the table then came towards me at great speed, hit me on my ribcage and carried me up towards the ceiling before crashing down and taking me with it. it happened once more. it felt like a supernatural force behind the table.the table was large, round and bare. im 36, 2 children, had my heartbroken a year ago and been single since…..does this dream have any meaning? thanks x
Rebecca – It could, but I had to search for a meaning. I think it is something like this. You were in a situation where you were expecting to be with friends and family in a happy time. But at first you felt something shift in you – and the table represent friends and family being happy together. But in fact that is awful because it pushed you into feelings of not being loved, abandoned and an odd one out, and that can be devastating. It was not a supernatural force, but your own emotions that still need to be allowed full expression.
Tony
I have a very difficult time sleeping I was afraid I would come to physical harm or not wake up, reading this I can comfortably let go and not struggle during this ” attack” . I do not know what’s coming in my dreams but now I am jumping in without blatant fear for my well being. Thank you author, wish me luck… Here goes nothin.
Micah – I wish you more than luck. And hope you can learn that dream images are always your own feeling, fears and hopes put into the form of people, animals, dark shapes in order to impress what is going on inside you.
Tony