When People In Dreams Attack

[spinr]

I have yet to understand why, but I've been having a lot of oddball dreams as of late.  I hadn't been able remember much of any one dream specifically, most of them seem to be quite similar or build upon one another in some way.

However, I guess it all came together the other night and I had rather memorable one.  I can recall quite a few specifics, some of it could pass for the actual goings on of a day for me; as they occurred over the past few years.

The particulars that lead me to post about it...

This one found me at work, doing what I do at work.  Took a slight veer and I was still at work, but in the multi-story building we used to occupy.  I found myself on one of the upper floors away from my workstation where, for some reason, I was confronting a group of hooligans commiting acts of thievery and who were otherwise up to no good.  

The hooligans, as I visualized them in the dream, were one of the weird aspects of the dream.  I'd hesitate to even describe them in certain company, but I trust that y'all are resonable folk and won't necessarily think ill of me.

There were three... or maybe four.  They were all women.  Black women (afromerican if you prefer).  LARGE... black women... like tree-fiddy-plus.

Now then.  I ordered them to stop their evil-doing and stand by whilst I summoned proper authorities.  They objected and started to leave the room in which we were standing.  I repeated my order and attempted to halt their flight.  I did so by placing myself in the doorway to the room to block their only exit from the room.  For some reason I also visualized this taking place in the doorway of the elevator of this building.  But that's really neither here nor there...  

Anyway, it started to go bad at this point.  The Amazons commenced to attacking me.  Viciously at that.  I fought back, hands and feet at first, and at some point I decided I was going to have to shoot them.  All I had on me, though, was my Kel-Tec P3AT.  The prospect of .380 vs. Amazons was not good.  And as I was debating this in my head, while fighting, I realized that I was on government/educational property and by state law I wasn't lawfully packing.  I decided I couldn't use the gun.

The next sequence in the dream found my all-stainless Spyderco Endura in my hand to fight the Amazons with.  As I was opening the knife, I felt it come apart in my hand.  The pivot pin tinkled to the ground and the blade flopped uselessly out of the handle.  I thought back to the gun again, and even though it was in my pocket, the state of my dream wouldn't have me use.  I gave up fighting the Amazons, stepped aside and let them flee.

I felt absolutely helpless and filled with despair.  Not just something I remember being in the dream, but I can sit here and go over the details of the dream and the feeling seems so tangible, like I've actually experienced it before.

The dream ended.  I woke up in a cold sweat.  I could feel my heart pounding and I had a ginormous headache.  

I can recall bits & pieces of other dreams that seem to have been variations of this one.  And a couple that I can recall in decent detail.  It's not usual that I have fairly vivid dreams.  This one just really stuck with me; and I don't usually wake up feeling like I've been worked over by half-a-ton of Amazonian masterhood.



Frakkin' strange.

[280plus]

I saw in a Nghtmare on Elm Street where they were eating instant coffee to try and stay awake.

[Antibubba]

No more burritos before bedtime!

[Marnoot]

Every dream I have where I'm under attack, any weapon I lay my hand on is broken or otherwise useless. My gun's always missing its magazine or it jams on the first (squib) shot, knives fall apart or become magically rounded and dull, club-like weapons are either too brittle or soft. Basically, I can't catch a break in dream-land. I then wake up, hyper-sensitive to any sound in the house. Dreams are weird. Normally I don't remember them, but the ones that wake me up I certainly do.

[Jamisjockey]

Every dream I have where I'm under attack, any weapon I lay my hand on is broken or otherwise useless. My gun's always missing its magazine or it jams on the first (squib) shot, knives fall apart or become magically rounded and dull, club-like weapons are either too brittle or soft. Basically, I can't catch a break in dream-land. I then wake up, hyper-sensitive to any sound in the house. Dreams are weird. Normally I don't remember them, but the ones that wake me up I certainly do.

There's gotta be something to that, since it's similar to the way any 'defensive' dreams go for me, too.  I often get the drop, only to find my pistol/shotgun won't shoot or is totally ineffective....

[Ben]

There's gotta be something to that

Add me to the statistics. A lot of the dreams I can remember that involve me defending myself with a gun also have an ineffective weapon (or maybe user). Most of the time I try squeezing the trigger but it won't move, or if it does, nothing happens.

You guys know someone is gonna come by this thread and negatively psychoanalyze us, right?

[BrokenPaw]

You guys know someone is gonna come by this thread and negatively psychoanalyze us, right?

You're all nuts.    There, with that out of the way...

Some dreams are a metaphorical representation of our anxieties.  A gun that's jammed in a self-defense dream may have nothing at all to do with personal self-defense; I've had dreams like that right before a big presentation at work, for instance, where my underlying fear was that I was going to be asked difficult questions (represented in the dream by people analogous to Spin's hooligans) and not have good answers for them (oops, squib round).

No one can analyze your dreams for you.  You're the only person who has enough context in your own life to determine what a dream might mean.  If you go to a counselor for a long time, and they get to know you well, they might be able to help shed light on obscure dream metaphors, but ultimately it comes down to you.  

It may be that some dreams are meant to give us a different perspective on a situation, in order to help us "think outside the box".  For instance, when I had the jammed-gun dream before the big presentation, I hadn't yet realized that I was afraid I wouldn't have the right answers to questions.  But the dream made be realize that through the metaphor of being attacked and unable to defend myself.

I would suggest looking at the underlying emotion in the dream (anxiety, for instance, or fear), and look at the situation in the dream in general terms (attacked, unable to defend), and then look for circumstances in your life that are analogous (nervous about work, nervous about a big date, afraid of flying but have a big trip upcoming, whatever).

-BP

[spinr]

Great insight there, Paw...

But what does the presence of the horde of enormous ebony estrogen mean?

[BrokenPaw]

But what does the presence of the horde of enormous ebony estrogen mean?

I really can't do more than speculate.  My guess is they represent some obstacle or threat to you.  Do you have a stressful event coming up in your life, soon?  As for why they're represented as the large black women...have you had experiences with a particular person who fit that description, and who made you feel threatened or unprepared?

If that's not the case, consider that our minds are not PC, so if you have a stereotypical idea in your mind that large black women are aggressive (whether from seeing one or more individuals who acted that way, or from a TV show that stereotyped in that way), your mind reached into its bag of stock photos of people-who-represent-a-threat-situation-to-Spin, and presented them to you.

I doubt there's any more significance to it than that.

-BP

[Nightfall]

When People In Dreams Attack

I thought this was going to be a thread about attacking other people while you're dreaming. Did that to my girlfriend last year...

[lupinus]

for some reason every time someone attacks me in my dreams the terminator ends up saving the day.....watching him beat the chit out of Michael Myers (Halloween dude) was friggin hilarious.

[Guest]

I thought this was going to be a thread about attacking other people while you're dreaming. Did that to my girlfriend last year...

My ex did that once. Socked me in the gut while he was sound asleep. I yelled at him and asked him what he was doing and his response (still sleeping) was "I thought you were a panther."

[K Frame]

What gun for people attacking you in your dreams?

[Ben]

What gun for people attacking you in your dreams?

One that freakin' works!

Actually for me, I always remember a 1911, which is my preferred pistol. Now of course we'll have the Glock guys saying, "If ya woulda had a Glock, it would have worked in your dream!"  

[Nightfall]

I yelled at him and asked him what he was doing and his response (still sleeping) was "I thought you were a panther."

IIRC, my response was "We talked about this yesterday, remember?"

No idea where that came from!

[mustanger98]

I thought this was going to be a thread about attacking other people while you're dreaming. Did that to my girlfriend last year...

My ex did that once. Socked me in the gut while he was sound asleep. I yelled at him and asked him what he was doing and his response (still sleeping) was "I thought you were a panther."

For me, it was coyotes doubling for some scaramouches I've had to deal with. But my only means of defense available at that moment- my Buck 110- wound up laying across the toe of my riding boot. I didn't punch, but I woke up hollerin' at 'em... in the dream I tried for a Rebel Yell, but it didn't work that way.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

There's actually a pretty simple explaination for why we have dreams in which we shoot somebody and nothing happens.  

It's normal to have a dream in which we are threatened by something or someone.  This is fairly common and routine among all people, gunnies and non-gunnies alike.  But as gunnnies, we're a little different   Most of us train and practice how to repsond to a threat.  When presented with an attacker in our dreams, we react the way we've been trained.  That usually means pulling the handgun and shooting the attacker.  So far so good...

The problem is that our experience and training stops there.  None of have experienced actually shooting someone, so we have no real deep-down understanding of what happens when the bullets hit the attacker.  Our subconsciences simply don't know how to handle that part of the dream, so nothing happens.  

If anything, our dreams provide the same experience we're used to seeing at the range:  the gun fires and nothing visible happens downrange.  What happens when you shoot that paper target at the range?  Does it keel over and die?  Spurt blood everywhere?  Run away screaming for its life?  Is it knocked off its feet?

Nope, that paper target sits there looking just like it did before it was shot.  The only effect it shows of having been shot is that tiny little bullet hole, and you don't see that until sometime later when you go downrange to retrieve the target.  Well, why should our dreams be any different than our daily experience?  When you shoot somebody in a dream nothing really happens, just like when you shoot a target at the range nothing really happens.


Hope this explaination makes sense.  It's a simple idea, but for some reason I'm having a hard time finding the words to describe it clearly.

[Gewehr98]

I hate it when I have those types of nightmare.  

It especially pisses me off during my retreat or battle to discover that I'm usually barefoot, and wearing jammies, to boot.  

I suppose one of these nights I'll go to bed fully clothed and armed to the gills.  Then we'll see either how the dream turned out, or how a house in Wisconsin got shot up in the middle of the night - from within.  


On a similar note, how about those charley-horses one gets in their legs at night?  Aren't they wunnerful?  

[pawcatch]

I've had many dreams where people have attacked me and my weapon has failed.
Many times I'm being attacked by celebrities.

One of the few dreams in which the weapon did not fail was when I was being robbed at gun point by Jimmy Dean and Willie Nelson at an airport parking lot.
Willie had a bat and Jimmy Dean had a Sig
and for some reason Dean's gun would not fire,so I took the bat away from Willie and I then defended myself.
FWIW,after the attack was over,I ran away and did not know if they lived or not.

[Sindawe]

Malfunctioning guns are naught but a distraction. My dreams have become lucid for the most part, the constraints of reality are irrelevant.