Eat What You Take

Hey Peregrin,

I had the strangest dream and it seemed scary. In my dream, me and my mom were outside at some kind of gathering behind my house. All of the sudden I look up and notice a plane in the distance. Just when I figure out what the plane is about to do, the plane drops the bomb. My mom is behind me. Every time I barely escape the bomb and as I'm running and dodging I can feel the heat and flames off the bomb. Finally me and my mom get to my house (which is now my grandmother's house though) and I'm trying to rush my mom up. She keeps telling me that she has to rest and I keep pleading with her telling her they are going to capture us if we don't get out soon. Then it's my whole family and this man has a gun and wont let us out of the house.

Somehow we find a way to run and get in the car to leave when he isn't paying attention, but one of my brothers is in the house and the other one the man has hostage. I tell my mom "we have to leave, we have to leave or none of us are going to get free" but she refuses to leave without them. She runs in and grabs my youngest brother and I start trying to get my other brother free from the man. I kick him and every time after I do this, I think that it was stupid to do and that I'm going to get shot now but the man never shoots me and eventually we get free.

Then in another dream right after this I dream that me and my cousin are at my grandmothers and we are about to go home but since I'm riding with her we have to grab as much food as we can within a certain amount of time, so we will have a lot of eat (but whatever food we get we HAVE to eat) After the amount of time we have to get it, I sneak some chips out of the bag. (for some reason I really remember this part).

Next, all the sudden we are at a ceremony at my school like they have for school shootings but this is for us when we were kidnapped earlier. It was a combination of this and a trial. Two of my good friends and I knew we had to testify and we didn't want to because we didn't know what to say about it all. That was all of my dream. It seemed really strange and everything seemed very real in my dream.

Just to have some background, so you will know what's going on in my life and that might help you understand what my dream might be about. I'm 16. I've been under a lot of stress lately with school and cheerleading.

Considering I'm only 16, one of the main things happening in my life is my relationship with my new boyfriend of about two months. Things are great but I've been thinking a whole lot about how long we will last considering he's the first guy that's actually been decent. Ya know how that is. And also I'm pretty concerned with my motives in the relationship and what I feel is ok for us physically. I feel like I have nobody to talk to about it and I don't know if I will draw the line where I need to.

Anything that you could tell me about this dream would be greatly appreciated.

Holly

Good morning, Holly.

Thank you for understanding why I ask for some background. Quite a few people equate dream translations with psychics, which is quite untrue.

The stress part is easy to see from all the escaping you have to do in your dream. There also seems to be no safe haven for you - first you escape to your grandmother's house, then you have to escape from it. I would ascribe this directly to feeling as if you have stress placed upon you from all fronts, so that there's no place you can just relax.

However, I have some good news. When you repeatedly kick your kidnapper, thinking that you are going to get shot but never do - this indicates that some of the stress you are feeling is internal only - you're overreacting a little bit, and it's making you worry more than you have to. You are, in fact, capable of handling the situation. Of course, you have all kinds of situations going on right now, but this one could be referring to your new relationship - partly because guns are somewhat phallic, so a fear of getting shot can directly correspond with your fear of going too far physically. If you don't want it to happen - it probably won't.

Your dream about food is all about consequences. You get to choose what you take, but must eat it all (quite a common attitude among older people, by the way - "take what you want, eat what you take" is what I always used to hear). This means you must choose your path, but be prepared to accept the consequences of your choices. The limited time to choose is another indicator of your stress - you are feeling time pressure to decide some things. Again, because you are able to cheat this rule, some of the pressure you are feeling isn't as important as you think it is. You may be able to extend at least one of your deadlines without too much consequence.

Your third dream has to do with testifying. You have to account for your actions - part of the consequences discussed earlier, perhaps - and you don't know what to say. This is not a unique feeling - often we act in accordance with the situation at hand, without really consciously thinking about why we're doing what we do. Because this situation wasn't resolved in the dream, I think that this is a concern about the future - how will you account for yourself if asked?

One common thread throughout all three of these dreams is that you are never alone. You always have family and/or friends by your side. This is an important reminder for you, because you feel as if you can confide in no one. Perhaps there is no one person who can share all your secrets, but it's likely that there is someone you can talk to about each individual problem, who can offer moral support if nothing else.

Pleasant dreams,

Peregrin