Dreams of Horror: Gunning down a child. (Dream Analysis)

[Wesley B]

Hello everyone,

 

Below is a dream that I had a little over two months ago. It is a very long and extremely detailed dream. As soon as I awoke from this dream i got the feeling that it was very important and immediately went to write it down. It took almost two hours to write. As i said, parts of this dream are very disturbing and it is sometimes meticulously detailed and somewhat complicated so I hope you will bear with it. Also very mysterious and strange at times. I don't know why i didn't want to post this here until now but i re-read the dream again today and that really inspired me to post it here. It is also important to know before reading this dream that i have an abysmal relationship with both of my parents and plan on De-fooing as soon as I'm financially independent. They have also never taken responsibility for the abuse inflicted on me as a child. I hope by saying that i am not "loading" or giving you any pre-conceived notions about the dream but I just think its important to know that because there seems to be many parental themes in the dream.  Anyway, here it is:

 

The dream starts

 

I am dressed in a black suit in tie. I am walking up a staircase where at the top there is a door. Through the door there is an immediate turn left. I take the immediate turn left and begin walking down a hallway. This is the first of four hallways. The hallways appear to be a part of a movie set. There is no ceiling and the walls are propped up. Furthermore, beyond the hallways there is only darkness. As I walk down the hallway, I look in front of me above the walls (which again, have no ceiling and are not much taller than myself), As I look up beyond the walls, I see another big wall behind it with a phrase written on it with big letters. The phrase is "WE WILL FUCK YOU". It is written in blood. I definitely perceive this as a threat. I become aware that the whole time I am walking down these hallways, someone is watching me and they want me to know that they are powerful and that "they will fuck me" if i don't complete my task (more on what the "task" is later).

 

As I reach the end of this hallway, I turn right into the second hallway. As I start walking down the second hallway I look to my left, there is no wall only a frame of a wall. Beyond the frame of the wall I see boards sticking up from the ground in an angular manner, like you would see in an attic. Beyond these boards and below the writing that says "we will fuck you", i see a man being tortured. He is strapped to a chair with a big white sheet over his head and most of his body. I can really only see his legs. There are two men next to him that are his torturers. They look as if they are preparing something. I cannot tell who they are or how they are torturing him, i only know not to interfere. If i did anything to interfere the person or thing watching over me would surly kill me. I continue on down the second hallway and take a left to the third.

 

In the third hallway there is a cardboard cut out of a very muscular man. He looks like the muscular guy on the book cover of Atlas Shrugged who is holding up the globe, only not as noble looking but more intimidating. He also looks like a body builder. He has his fists on his hips and is looking off in the distance with an arrogant and angry look on his face. I perceive this cardboard cut out as message from the person or thing watching over me describing the power that they have. I acknowledge this and continue down into the end of the hallway. As i reach the end, I turn right and look down the fourth and final hallway... (Note: I am only looking down the fourth hallway not walking down it.)

 

It is very dark and at the end of the hallway there is a door which is closed. In front of the door there is a child playing with some toys. The child is four years old. From what I can tell the child is a boy. He is wearing a shirt and a diaper. (He actually looks a bit younger that four years old but for some reason I am positive of the fact that he is four). The child sees me and begins walking towards me. Eventually he starts running towards me. As he is running towards me, two mirror entities of himself appear to the left and right of him. they are greenish and very spectral looking. The child has a smile on his face for the entirety on the dream, an open mouth smile like he is laughing. As he continues to run towards me, I pull a gun out of my inside suit pocket. The gun is a big ass revolver. I aim the gun at the child and proceed to shoot his two mirror entities, and then himself, in the head. This is the end of this part of the dream...

 

The next part of the dream begins and i am in a totally different place. I am in a room in the house were I live (I'm 19 and live with my mother). The location of the room in the house is the downstairs bathroom, but it is not the downstairs bathroom... It is just an empty room with a big window. I am looking out the window. As I am looking out the window, I see the area and the neighborhood in front of my house. The strange thing is that instead of being on ground level looking out (and this room is on the ground level of my house), I am looking down at the neighborhood from what looks like 3 stories up. There is no 3rd floor in my house unless you count the attic.

 

As I look out the window I am contemplating. I think I remember doing something else as i am looking out the window but i cant remember what it was and i cant remember if i was doing anything for sure.

 

Eventually, I leave the room and walk out to the first floor of my house. I see my mother in the living room. She is standing on something and is working on something near the ceiling. I think perhaps she is decorating. She does not notice me. I walk into the pantry in the kitchen and collapse. Thus ends the second part of the dream.

 

The third part of the dream begins and i am standing at the beginning of the first hallway again. Something is different this time. I begin to see things in a third person perspective (specifically is feels like I am playing a character in a video game). This part of the dream is somewhat hard to describe. As I am playing this video game character (which is me in the hallway) I (the person playing the character) suddenly remember that this scene in the hallway was really memorable and really stuck with me. It is as if I am re watching the whole scene again. (This is the first time in the dream where it is acting like a video game, this theme of it being a video game continues later).

 

Suddenly I am back embodying myself again in the hallway (IE: im not playing myself in a game anymore, I am simply there in the hallway). Everything is the same in the hallways. As I am walking down the first hallway I suddenly have a flashback...

 

The flashback is to a room where two people (I don't know who they are) are standing on a catwalk (or bridge like structure). It is very dark in the place they are in, it is a very similar darkness to the room with the hallways. they are observing something being made below. I don't know what is being made but it looks mechanical, like a giant futuristic robot and whatever it is it is obviously evil and nefarious. Suddenly, a man jumps out of the darkness from the area where the thing is being made and begins to somehow climb up the catwalk. The man is a character from the video game grand theft auto 4 (which i first played many years ago when it first came out at a time when I was much younger. I remember having to convince my mom to buy it for me.) The man then proceeds to kill the two people on the catwalk (I think he shoots them). This is the end of the flashback

 

Back to me. As I continue down the hallways is the same as the first time. However during the second hallway, I look to my right instead of my left (to the left is where the tortured man is). Again there is no wall just the frame of the wall and there are the same boards protruding from the ground. As i look to the right I see a wooden head attached to one of the boards. The head looks like Pinocchio. Above the head there is a sign that says "we see everything". This is a reminder that i am being watched. Further off to the right I see a light in the darkness but i don't know what it is. I continue down the second hallway then turn left into the third. I walk down the third hallway past the muscular cardboard cut-out and reach the end of the third hallway and the beginning of the fourth and final hallway.

 

The final part of the dream begins. I am now seeing things from the perspective of a young woman. She is the same age as me (19) or perhaps a bit older. She has short hair and is attractive. I (as this woman) am sitting at the end of the fourth and final hallway were the child was before. As a reminder, there is a door at the end of this hallway. I am propped up against the wall next to the door. I am injured in some way. The door next to me which was closed before is now open. The room that lies beyond it is my mothers bathroom which is large and bright.

 

As I (as this woman) am lying there injured, an invisible entity appears next to me and says into my ear: "Four years and five score today..." It then stabs me in the womb. (It could be the gut but i think it is symbolic for the womb).

 

(Note: When the invisible entity says "Five score" I thought during the dream that this meant five days. However after looking it up, a "score" means a group of 20. So perhaps "Five score" means one hundred days? I'm still not totally sure. The important thing is that during the dream i perceived it as five days.)

 

As soon as this entity stabs me, the four year old child appears and begins running towards me from the beginning of the hall. The two spectral mirror entities that he had before are running along side it. I (still from the perspective of the woman) pull out the same revolver that I shot the child with earlier. I shoot the two entities beside it but not the child itself. The child itself reaches me and I get a "game over" screen (this is where the theme of the dream being a video game begins again). I suppose I press "continue" and the sequence with the child running at me starts again. This time however as the child turns the corner to the fourth hallway, he does so in an intensely terrifying manner. As he turns the corner his shadow looks like that of Nosferatu and he skulking very creepily. I see this and I am shaken with fear to the very core. He stops skulking and begins to run at me again with that same laughing smile on his face. This time, I crawl back into the room behind me (which is my mothers bathroom) through the door that is open. I then pull out the revolver and shoot the child himself (not the entities beside him) Many times in the head. It takes many shots (I suppose six since its a revolver) but he finally vaporizes and his mirror entities beside him disappear. I take a breath of relief. The theme of this part of the dream being a video game is now fully realized because when i kill the child, a screen appears before me that says I will now get a reward. The reward is that I get access to a new weapon (or to be more specific it is an upgrade to a weapon that I already have). It is a katana. As I try to confirm the upgrade by hitting yes or no on the game menu, the buttons on the screen change from Xbox buttons to PlayStation buttons. I realize that I cannot control a PlayStation game with an Xbox controller.

 

THE DREAM ENDS.

 

I wake up in a sweat.

 

It is important to note that the night before I had the same dream however it was only the first part of the dream and when i got to the part with the child in the fourth hallway (as me not the woman) I managed not to shoot him and continue on through some different path.

 

Some of my thoughts on the dream:

 

I think that the "task" I had in the dream was to not shoot the child and that the being watching over me was warning me not to and if i did i would regret it.

 

I think the writing that said "We will fuck you" is not really sexual in its intention. I perceived it in the dream as more like "we will fuck your life up". However, I could be wrong in this assumption.

 

Also, The child is four years old and there are four hallways. Coincidence? I don't know.

 

Here my last thought. In the last scene I think the injured woman could be my mother. This is because she appears in the same place where the child was earlier and In reality I see my mother as basically an overgrown child.

 

I'm very sorry if I provided any unnecessary details (I know i use too many parentheses lololol) but i just wanted to add everything because some of the things described could be very important to the dream.

 

Please, please, please, I would LOVE to have your thoughts about this dream. If you made it to the end I commend you haha. This dream is very important to me and I would be absolutely thrilled to get some feedback on it.

 

Thank you so much. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luxfelix]

*Cracks Knuckles*

 

Okay, so first I'd like to recommend Joseph Campbell along with Carl Jung and Co., as well as preempt my interpretation with a disclaimer: Your own interpretation will be the most valuable to you since it's your subconscious experience; if anything I write resonates with you, ask yourself why and pay attention to how you feel, since the language of your subconscious is likely to come in symbols and/or emotions. Every detail you feel is important will be important. By this, I mean you should trust your subconscious, validate how you feel, and then try to translate it into actionable steps if necessary.

 

I first noticed the repetition of "left" (a potential callback to viewing the left as "sinister" or "unclean"). Take another look at what happens on your left and what happens on your right.

 

The movie set is acknowledgement of a fiction (one you can't change... as in your past?), whereas the video game is acknowledgement of another fiction (one you can change... as in your present?).

 

Four hallways, four years old, Grand Theft Auto 4... A quick numerological search for the number 4 brought up concepts such as unpleasant tasks, self-sacrifice, seeking of home and security (simulation of your house in the dream?).

 

If you get a chance to replay the dream again, try accepting the child in an embrace; protect them and ask them what they need (if you can find yourself in front of a mirror you can try asking the reflection as well... or any of the other characters actually!).

 

I didn't come up with anything on five specifically, but I found a connection with 3, 4, and 5, as well as the 3rd floor (and three parts to the dream); a progression to something that "shouldn't be there" is a chance for discovery (or at the very least, what you expect to discover). That this seems to be the less detailed part of the dream stands out since it's like the blank canvas of the future.

 

I did notice that, even though you titled this thread and described elements that would be horrific, I didn't find that expressed in the character of your dreaming. (Maybe that's because you have the Revolver of Philosophy?)

 

Anywho, I hope this was at least a little helpful.

[villagewisdom]

The overall sense that I get of the dream is a graphic description of how you approach tasks or goals in your life. There is a great deal of detail here that I cannot fill in as it relates to how you perceive things. There is some great perspective from luxfelix that I had not thought of but will add in now as I go through the dream again. There is just so much detail there and I want to say what a great job you did with that. You have the potential to really use your dreams for self-knowledge and making changes and adjustments in how you are living.

 

I also will put in my disclaimer and reiterate luxfelix. Only you can interpret your dreams. Everything I present is my opinion of what the symbols represent. I will also second the recommendations of Campbell and Jung and add Condron’s Dreamer’s Dictionary. If you are dreaming in that much detail on a regular basis, just think what you can do if you study. We only use a small portion of our minds and it looks and sounds like you are tapping into much more than the average Joe.

 

*Cracks Knuckles* (borrowing from luxfelix again but this dream truly needs that physical/mental preparation and focus)

Because of my background in dream interpretation, I am going to disagree with a couple of the symbol interpretations made by luxfelix. Hopefully, this will give you a different perspective and food for thought about how you might come up with your own system that is different from either of ours. Anyway, I digress.

 

Black suit and tie – formal attire? Are you approaching your life decisions in a formal manner with specific rules or morals or ethics? If so, think about what they are and how they might relate to this dream. You are “setting the stage” with your dress for how you interact with the movie of your life. Also how you dress is how you present yourself to the world. So that might be a consideration here as well to determine what this part of the dream indicates. Dreams can indicate how you think about yourself. They can indicate how you present yourself, or how you approach the world, etc. It is interesting to note that you had a similar dream the night before but it was not exactly the same. This is further evidence of how your dreams relate to your present state of consciousness. They change with your daily thoughts. Each morning you are presented with the opportunity to examine your thoughts and actions of the previous day. Armed with that information you can make more informed choices for the coming day. But I digress again into the importance of dream interpretation.

 

Up the staircase – going or looking deeper into your mind. Going left I now see is quite significant. Thanks to luxfelix for helping me expand my knowledge and skill. I believe when you investigate this further you may find significance in Left being less productive or sinister choices and Right being righteous and productive choices being made.  

 

4 hallways. This may relate to the formal attire in that there are 4 distinct or formal choices of direction made as you are moving forward. This would be in contrast to someone who randomly moved from one place to another in their dream. In your dream, the progression is distinctly laid out and intentionally created as part of a movie set. So beyond the intentionally created walls is darkness and the unknown. There is even a sign threatening harm and death as it is written in blood – like your life’s blood.

There is a great deal here in the details that indicate how you think about yourself and how you approach life. Some of my thoughts are that you were taught early in life to follow the rules or you will get in trouble. But you would also have a tendency to look outside of those walls to other possibilities (the higher wall further back) with a desire to explore, but as of the date of this dream you are still not willing to go outside of those boundaries. There is a thought pattern built early that keeps you within a certain circle of experience that is “safe”.

 

Who made the movie set? Is it the person watching you? By the way, that person would also be you. There is this aspect of ourselves that is always watching over us and telling us what is right and what is wrong based on what we learned about ethics and morality in childhood. Our “inner authority” for lack of a better word to describe it.  My experience is that it relates to your own drive to know yourself more deeply. So that is the “watcher” throughout the dream. Again, what is being “watched” to keep you safe would be based on what you internalized as a child.

 

This idea is further solidified when you make the right turn (the righteous path) which might indicate what a slight change to a more productive thought or approach would be. As you look to the left (sinister side) You see that a man (you) is being tortured by 2 men (also you) but you do not interfere due to that inner voice that says you will experience pain and perhaps death if you interfere. An approach might be to find out what they are doing to torture the bound man. Just to become aware of it – not to change it at this time. So responding to not knowing what is torturing him and also not directly interfering would be a small step that you could take. The white sheet – perhaps relating to purity. Legs visible perhaps related to the ability to move forward to a destination. There is a lot of detail here that you would need to decode for insight into exactly how you are torturing yourself and what patterns of thinking you are using to accomplish the deed.

 

The third hallway is another left turn. Interesting, now there is a cardboard – or fake -- image of a man. Since you did not include it in the dream, I’m going to add information about the cover of Atlas Shrugged. Please ignore if you already have this information. The man on the cover is the Greek god Atlas who was given the task of holding the heavens on his shoulders as punishment from Zeus for leading the Titans in their battle with the Olympian Gods for control of the heavens. The book Atlas Shrugged is related to what happens when Atlas shrugs and says, “The heck with this bearing the weight of the world, I’m living for myself” and relieves himself (or herself as in Dagny Taggert) of the burden. That’s my opinion and interpretation of the book cover as it relates to the title and content of the book.  

 

Again, using the idea that the left is the sinister side – which does not produce the life you want. There is an artificial image of yourself that you need to be ignoble, angry and intimidating and perhaps all of that is because you think you have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. These ideas come from the invisible watcher as the “power” you hold. I can see that you would not want to identify with that kind of aggressive power and desire a change. Again, this is the non-productive, or left, hallway.

 

The fourth hallway. You have not entered it so that might indicate you are considering your next action but haven’t taken any steps yet. This is sometimes where dreams can really be beneficial if they seem to suggest a path to change. The child would also be you.

We change our ideas of who we are many times throughout our lives based on the choices we make, the experiences those choices create, and the subsequent choices we make.  In the process, we first conceive of an idea and then birth and develop it. I have seen this depicted in dreams with children of various ages as stages in the development of that idea of who we are and how we will interact with the world. It’s kind of like a report card of where you are in the process of making changes in your thoughts about yourself. The child is happy. You are happy with the new idea about yourself. There are two shadow images – perhaps the two left hallways and the choices you are making when you are going down that hallway. They are shadowing the child. At four the child would be learning what? That might be important to know the stage of progression of this idea as it was prominent in the dream.

 

The gun and shooting are related to making dramatic and conscious changes to your idea of who you are. I say this because death is a transition from being a certain way and then you no longer exist in that way. In dreams, it means that the idea that you had about yourself dies. It will be replaced with something else as in reality you are still alive and you will continue to create new ideas about who you are and what you want to do with your life. I interpret any kind of death in a dream as an old way of thinking dying and the children are the new ideas that have been birthed. I use the terms dramatic and conscious changes with guns and violent death as it is different than someone in your dreams dying of old age which might indicate a way of thinking that served its purpose and you simply outgrew it over time. With guns and a swift demise there is a conscious awareness that something needs to change and it is acted upon. Sometimes that can be identified as a “bad” person that you kill but sometimes it’s just that an idea did not pan out or needs to be adjusted in some way to work more effectively – so babies and children die when you change how you are thinking before an idea reaches maturity. Sometimes is can mean that you are sabotaging your ideas before you bring them to fruition.

 

The second part of the dream is not as clear to me. Except that there is some examination of your thoughts and how you perceive the world indicated by being on the third floor of the house in addition to your description of “contemplating” in the dream.

 

The viewing of the world from a third story window would be like taking some quiet time or meditation time to examine how you think. Going into the pantry would be looking for nourishment. In this case something to nourish your mind as it is a dream. I don’t have any impression of what the collapsing part means. Other than there may be some thought about being ignored by your mother. Not your real mother but what your mother means to you in the dream. I know you mentioned that you see her as an overgrown child. Perhaps that idea or perhaps another.

 

The more I look at that part of the dream and the symbolism it seems that I might be unclear because that part of the dream is indicating you are unclear on what you need to do. The bathroom is not a bathroom. It is not located in the correct place in the house.  You are on the 3rd floor but there is no 3rd floor. You are ignored by the dream mother – that might be you ignoring what your dream mother is offering because you are unclear how to use her influence. The collapsing in the pantry would mean that you did not actually get the nourishment you were seeking as you collapsed before consuming (at least you did not indicate eating anything in what you wrote). All of this is confusing and leads nowhere.

 

At this point I’m going to have to sum up the third part and give my overall impression as I’ve been working on this for 2 hours and I need to get back to work J Hopefully, some of what I have written makes sense and will give you an idea about my approach to dream interpretation and that might stimulate you to investigate on your own.

 

The third part seems to offer the solution to the dilemma. I say this because of the same scenario but looking at it from a different perspective.

 

The first hallway – observing your actions and developing the observer in you. Using the flashback information – I wish I had more time to offer insight to that and perhaps later I will – to successfully navigate that first hallway.

Second hallway – look to the right instead of the left – Pinocchio – it’s easy to tell when he lies.  That seems clear. Be honest in your communication with yourself and others.

 

Third hallway – give no attention to the man and just keep moving.

 

Fourth hallway – female perspective but it is you. Pay attention to your subconscious thoughts and use them for direction (the female aspect being part of you but internal as opposed to the outward male that you actually embody now). Awareness of injury – your awareness of your damaged childhood.

 

Door opened to mother’s bathroom. That’s the pathway. Bathroom eliminates waste. Get rid of the stuff that is no longer useful in your life.

 

Invisible entity – aspect of yourself you are not aware of that is injuring your creative capacity – stab to the womb. I would go with 5 days as that is the impression you had in the dream. When I read it I read it as 5 days and was only aware of “score” because of your note.

 

Shooting the baby – this time only the spectral images are killed. So the productive part is saved and reaches you. So apparently the idea is valid and useful but the spectral images are distorting it and need to be eliminated.

 

Nosferatu I had to look up. A vampire it appears. So the idea apparently still needs to change as it is sucking off the blood of others. Apparently you do not have the tools to do the job properly.

 

I skipped a lot of stuff there on the 3rd part. There is so much more here and I just do not have the time to give to it. I apologize but hopefully you will get something out of some of this.

 

[luxfelix]

 

I also want to add:

 

It can be tempting to lucid dream yourself away from a dreamscape like this, but that could be like ignoring what your subconscious is trying to show you (good job for sticking with it by the way!); however, when a dream repeats like this (especially between nights and whatnot) and/or leaves "blank space" open, it can be interpreted as an invitation to input lucidity, as in your chance to "speak" or "play" (improv/jazz/conversation), and then hold back again to see what happens. Make it a give-and-take experience.

[Wesley B]

Thank you guys so much for your great responses I really appreciate it

 

I never even thought about the whole thing with directions. Weather im turning left or right and what that means

 

 

To quote Villagewisdom: "Some of my thoughts are that you were taught early in life to follow the rules or you will get in trouble. But you would also have a tendency to look outside of those walls to other possibilities (the higher wall further back) with a desire to explore, but as of the date of this dream you are still not willing to go outside of those boundaries. There is a thought pattern built early that keeps you within a certain circle of experience that is “safe”."

 

What you said here really resonated with me and I must continue to think about this.