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Dreams => Dream Interpretation => Topic started by: horizen on May 08, 2011, 07:22:04 PM

Title: Kitten Rescue
Post by: horizen on May 08, 2011, 07:22:04 PM
I dreamt I was amongst my family thismorning at an outdoor park (which is where I would have been today (mother's day) had I not chosen to go no-contact.  Yes, I still see my parents, but I now forgo family get-togethers for the most part.  I'd long ago stopped thinking of myself as a family member (by age 11) I was never treated like one, even though I'd go through the motions during family events and put on the appearance of normalcy for everyone elses sake.  I had no choice then. But in reality, my family was dysfunctional, abusive toward me, the only time I was treated decently was in public, usually at family holdidays or get-togethers where everyone was there or it was in public. But this wouldn't last, once out of the public "show" the mistreatment would always resume.  That's how I learnt as a young kid that I wasn't  REALLY a member of the family, it was only for show.  My mother would abuse me behind closed doors, and my younger siblings followed her lead in mistreating me behind closed doors and then putting on a good show for outsiders.  They learnt from my mother this Dr. Jeykl/Mr. Hyde behavior, so that no one would know how mean they were as long as they acted like angels ini front of everyone else.  No one ever saw the abuse, it always happened in private, outsiders only saw the good face they put on...So I was powerless, knew no one would bellieve me, and simply withdrew into myself.  There was no point in telling anyone what they did.  It would always be denied. And when your mother and most of your family is against you..its so overpowering for a child, there really is nothing to do but accpt it.  Yet now, as a young adult I've decided the less I see of these people, the better off I am. 

Here is the dream:  I'm outside in the grass amongst my family.  We're in a public park.  Actually, I'm not really with the rest of my family, I'm just there, nearby until my brother and his wife ask me to fetch their bees for them.  They had 3 trays of live bees way off in the distance and they wanted me to bring them to them.  I have doubts about my ability to do this.  I've no experience with bees, let alone a colony of them.  Three colonies in fact.  I agree to, but ask if I can use their car (which is where the bees are currently) to drive them here.  They say No to this.  They are quite firm, I am NOT to use their car.  They think it might damage their car (the bees might get loose, the ride might be to bumpy, they don't want their car to drivve off-road across the field) So they tell me to use my car. Or walk.  But don't use their car for the transport of their bees.  So I walk off across the field.  I carry the tray of bees.  The trays are caked with honey and the bees are within that honey.  At least a few of them are.  I examine the tray of honey and realise there aren't that many bees in there. Basically, it's a tray of gooey honey with a few bees or bee parts swimming around.  Worried, I yell back to them aout the status of their bees.  My brother's wife shouts back to me that they must have flown away, left the trays because the field, the outdoors here was too enticing.  Since they seem to have expected thiks, I continue on across the field,finish transporting what remains of the bees...
But when I come to the edge of the field, as I approach man-made structure, and see a house up aheead, with a street and cars...I come across aa drainage ditch of sorts.  There is a plastic bucket, like a kid's beach bucket, turned upside down over this drain or hole.  I notice it because the bucket shifts and moves.  Something, some small animal is beneath that bucket.  I pause.  It's likely a rat or a mouse.  Yet..what if it's a kitten? I decide to lift the bucket.  I cast it aside.  There is a white kitten struggling against being pulled down this drain.  It looks awful.  Some animal (a rat) has it's teeth gripped firmly on the kitten and is smooshing it down into the small hole.  If I do nothing the kitten with be dragged down and sucked underground, killed.  If it gets sucked down underground completely I'll never be able to recover it.  The center of its body was being sucked and yanked violently down so that onlybits of its head remained above the ground.  It was awful to watch this kitten, too big to be smososhed down this tiny hole inthe ground, nevertheless being forced down it.  I leaned down and pulled the kitten out!  It was a beautiful white kitten.  But its not over because once I pulled him out I see there's ANOTHER white kitten in the same position.  This kitten is even smaller, much smaller, fragile, and weaker.  It's raggedy.  It's eyes are red (and because of this I have a fleeting fear that it might be a mouse and for that reason I consider backing away,...but no..it's definately a kitten, just a very weak, sick, kitten.  It is suffering so much more than the other kitten was.  The other kitten was healthy, robust.  This one I can see has had a rough time of it for a very long time and was ill for it.  In very poor shape.  It was being yanked and torn underground much more violently than the previous kitten.  And it had been underground until just now.  My rescuing the other kitten freed up space so that this raggedy one couldget some air.  I had even less to grab, less of the kitten was exposed above ground, so I reached inand pulled in out, with difficulty, despite my fears.  Some people would recoil (and a part of me considered this for a bit)from the sight of this kitten.  It was truly tiny, ragged, red eyed, in such poor shape from the hell it endured that it began to look less and less like a recognizable kitten, not cute at all.  One had to look and see that it was trully a kitten and not a mouse.  It had been in that unatural awful undergraound hell so long it had weakened  from that environment to the point where its outward appeaance kind of resembled the rat that had dragged it it down.  Theodd thing was, the instant I pulled that sick kitten out of ground, another robuse healthy kitten emerged.  From where I'm not sure.  It was just suddenly there, with us.. Above ground.  It was a black kitten.  I didn't pull it up.  So I wonder if my rescuing the other kittens freed up the path so that this black kitten could get itself out , or perhaps this kitten wasn't down the hole to begin with.  It was sudden.  I rescued the weakened white kitten, and bam! Suddenly this black kitten was there right beside us.  All kittens were now safe.
Title: Re: Kitten Rescue
Post by: horizen on May 08, 2011, 08:13:26 PM
The dream ended with my concern about the damaged white kitten's healing.  My thoughts were occupied with its welfare, how best to restore it back to a healthy vibrancy.  It needed a good home. It was in dire need of it, as opposed to the other two kittens, who were robust and healthy enough, scrappy enough to survive on their own.  There was a house nearby, and I'm sure they would meander over there and make do.  Find food, find people to feed them.  But the weakened tiny kitten I doubted had the physical strength to do so.  If it saw people or food I don't think it would move toward it. It seemed the kitten was so weakened and traumatized all it could do was curl up and shiver in a particular spot and stay there.  I reallized I wasn't "done" rescuing the kittens.  Becuase if I walked away now, the result would be just the same for this kitten as if I'd walked away and left the kittens in the snare of the rat.  This fragile kitten's fate would be certain death.  I know my job is not done in terms of this particular kitten.  I consider giving it to my brother and his wife.  It needs a home. But I'll have to explain that it was deprived for so long without food or water, was nearly eaten alive, that it was so traumatized that it needs more careful treatment and caring than your average kitten, in order to overcome  or remove the awful imprinting and deprivation it had thus far recieved.  My focus was on making sure this kitten had a good, safe, stable home.  When I woke up I wondered why did I automatically think of offering it to them?  Is that significant too?  Was I abdicating responsability by thinking of offering the cat to them instead of keeping it myself or finding someone else who was truly capable of providing the home it needed?  In real life I doubt they as a couple would take the time to properly treat this kitten.  They'd just take it on as another pet and it would have  to fend for itself amongst the other animals like any other pet of theirs.  I realised I was sstill attached to them in a way that was affecting my thinking, my loyalties.  Why did I automatically think of them as a home for the kitten?  Do they have a history of taking special care of wounded animals? No.  Yet in the dream I was within the thinking of..."This poor thing needs a home. They have a home.  Why not give the kitten to them?"  Plust I suppose they were on my mind anyway as I was doing tasks for them.  But I did catch myself when I awoke and wondered if it was wrong to have automatically thought of placing the needy kitten with them.
Title: Re: Kitten Rescue
Post by: Tony Crisp on May 10, 2011, 11:24:43 AM
Horizen – I want to share with you a dream I had in 1981, a dream that is still very meaningful for me. It is an entry I wrote thirty years ago in my dream journal.

I tried to look at the threat produced by my wife working with somebody else and getting something positive from it. I realised that in some way, this links with my feelings that survival is a struggle. At this point I begin to realise the meaning of a dream I had a day or two ago. In the dream I am standing in Brenda’s garden. A ferret (one we had set free after trouble over them with neighbours - the ferrets belonged to my son) it came down the garden to me. It was plump and healthy. I picked it up to look at it, and saw an enormous scar running the full length of its left side. I realised that although it had survived, and was well, it had been an incredible struggle, and was scarred for life.

I had been through a fantasy in working on myself, of being a baby that could not get satisfaction in life; could not satisfy its needs, life was such a struggle it wanted to kill everybody. With murderous rage it wanted to wipe out everyone.

“It’s a fucking struggle being a ferret. Nobody wants you. If your soft and nice it’s OK, but because of your instincts - if you’re a real live human being, that is different. I’ve got this bloody great gash up my side. God, what it took to survive! It’s ripped me open, right from the shoulder down to the hip. I healed up though, but it’s left this mark on me all the time. It will never go away. I’m marked for the rest of my life. The important thing I’ve learned though, is, what am I going to feel about that?”

“Something did that to me - another bloody animal. Another animal. It’s left me feeling I’ve got to be very cautious. I’ve got to be ready to bite anybody who gets too near. Okay, I’m not harmful. It’s a struggle, that’s what is left me with. Misery and pain. The awful pain. A struggle.”

“Okay ferret, I’m picking you up. I’m really pleased to see you’ve come home. I’m looking at that wound. God! Christ, how did you get that - and survive? And grow fat? Just looking at that wound I can feel it. Such an eager little heart you’ve got. Such an eager little creature trying to live. So full of love - strange. Very loving creatures, ferrets. You’re a very loving creature. It was that love that kept you going. You were so eager to come to me, just like a dog. So full of love. I don’t understand. I can understand something struggling for life. But I don’t understand it coming to me - with love. Why does it love me?”

Well, I think there is a message for you in this dream. What I realised 30 years ago, and the lesson still is alive in me, that the hurt was to a part of me that was Life itself; and because I worked to heal it and care for it, it came to me with such love – a love that stays with me and protects me through instincts. For instance during the period of writing a book, while walking home along a main country road, one I had walked many times, I suddenly felt fear of the cars passing me. It was strong enough to make me walk as far away from the road as the sidewalk allowed. As I walked on, still away from the road, wondering why I felt such fear, a van pulled up beside me on the road to make a turning away from me. As it stood there waiting for traffic to clear and I was passing it, I heard the scream of tires as a car went into a skid on the wet road. Then the skidding car shot up onto the sidewalk between me and the van. It was an extraordinary experience.

So do not let others take over the task of loving and caring for your poor weak white cat. It can help if you imagine yourself with an open and receptive heart to Life. Considering that Life created you, and then you know you can trust it. So open with the feeling that you are holding out the kitten to heal and strengthen.

Tony