Real Dream Interpretation

First night: I'm in a mansion with friends. I feel I am a little girl again and I am near the banister playing with dolls or wanting to play with them. I descend the stairs, look up and see Barbie with scissors in her hand. She jumps off the second floor after me. I react quickly by moving away and running through the house. I woke up quickly.

Next night: Walking in an open space, I remember being outside, there are many domestic animals such as cats and dogs. All I vividly remember is that as I approach a dog, it is barking and my intuition is telling me it wants to eat me.

Two nights later: I walk into a cave which is like a store boutique selling artifacts from the African region. I pick up an arrowhead-like dagger which my brother tells me is used for vampires, maybe to kill them, and an amulet with a vampire face on it. I know I have to leave immediately and when I do, the shop owner is making his way to the cave opening to leave. Unfortunately, he doesn't make it as the ground under his feet gives way, engulfing him with soft sand like an hourglass. He finally stops fighting the forces that are about to engulf him and he embraces this. His mirror image sits next to him and says "It's going to be okay," and they disappear as the sand engulfs them.

Scene changes to a very simple shop out in the desert somewhere. This time it's very medieval looking, there are many old jewelry and artifacts around similar to the same merchandise that was in the cave. My brother picks up the same dagger I was going to get in the cave and the amulet is there too. As I browse through the shop, I notice that the store owner is closing up shop since it is daylight. The sun is beginning to set. I ask the store owner if there is public transportation and she says "We have a car but you must pay for the gas. You can make it into the next town. However, in this 110 degree heat that will take you awhile, why don't you remain in this town." I have a very eerie feeling that this town is not safe.

Scene changes. I'm in a hotel room with deep red velvet drapes everywhere and mahogany Spanish carved furniture. I didn't want to go outside. When I do go outside with some friends, we are all surrounded by vampires.

I woke up with my heart in my throat and was afraid to go back to sleep.

Dear Dreaming Woman: Thank you for sending us your dreams. Phew! At first reading, this looks pretty grim. At second and third reading too! Don't despair, even if Barbie and the Vampires seem to want your blood. The messages from these dreams are clearly important, since they came wrapped in such vivid, relentlessly threatening images. There's so much material here that I could go on for pages. I'll restrain myself.

As you read what I write, please pay attention to your responses. What rings true for you? Does anything make you say "ah ha!" Do you feel tense? Do you cry?

I'll start with blood. There isn't any in these dreams, you wake up before it is shed. You avoid Barbie's scissors and the dog's teeth. You don't buy or use the vampire dagger, even though you're trapped in Vampire Town as the sun sets.

Blood does show up, finally, in the form of the deep red velvet drapes which surround you (mahogany looks bloodstained to me, does it to you?) Then the vampires surround you and your friends, but you wake before they suck your blood.

I've had lots of blood dreams right before menstruating. So, I have a predictably natural question to ask you: where were you in your cycle when you had these dreams? Yes, I know that could seem to take away from the alarming aspects of these dreams, but let me ask a question that might set off some bells….

….how are you feeling about pregnancy?

As I go further out on this limb, remember that these are YOUR dreams, not mine. There are as many ways to interpret these symbols as there are pairs of eyes reading them. But I'm the one writing this, so here goes!

You're a little girl in a big girl's home, wanting to play with dolls. You turn away from them and start down some steps and then your life is threatened by Barbie. Who is Barbie, besides the "bitch who has everything?" Was Barbie our culture's first non-baby doll? Did you know that Barbie was modeled after Germany's Lili, a comic strip character and then a toy manufactured and marketed to men, sold in bars and tobacco stores? Why did she have scissors and not a knife or gun? What would these scissors normally be used for? To cut paper, fabric, hair?

Remember that, in this dream as in the last scene of your last dream, you are with friends, and nothing bad ever actually happens.

Next dream: you are outside, in the "wild" with domestic, tame animals. Or they seem to be, until you reach out to man's best friend and it lets you know to back off. Congratulate yourself on having excellent intuition, dreamer! You kept yourself from being consumed.

Then you're in a cave (womb?) where tools of protection are available. Your brother knows things in here that you don't know. What is your relationship with him? Does he have information for you now? You are not comfortable in this confined space and know you have to leave before time runs out for the owner. But time does run out, sand has its way, and the man in charge gives up control and embraces his death, comforted by his higher self as he goes under.

Then you are surrounded by sand (the desert) and have another chance to buy protection. But time is running out again, it's very hot, the shop and the day are closing and vampires are waiting to sustain themselves with your blood. Like babies do.

And then you have a baby's perspective, in a room/womb lined with velvet blood, bloodstained Spanish wood. Do you have Spanish blood? You don't want to be born, but when you are, you are surrounded by friends. But you still see the world (as a prospective mother OR potential baby) as full of people who will suck away all your energy.

You end your telling this way: "I woke up with my heart in my throat and was afraid to go back to sleep." This is good. Your heart is where it needs to be. Stay awake and let it speak.