A nightmare straight out of an action movie

[bluepolaski]

Maybe someone with an interest in Freud or Jung would like to help me make sense of this crazy ass dream I had last night?

First, I rarely remember my dreams, when I do it's generally because they were very pleasurable or extremely shocking. I also like to think that because they are so rare, they must be scenes from my subconscious and there's some sort of meaning in them.

My dream starts off with myself and another faceless person, standing around in my yard. The calm is suddenly shattered with gunfire and bullets hitting the ground all around me. I dive for cover behind a car. On the roof of the 4-story brick building next door is a man with a machine gun firing on full auto in one hand and a girl wrapped in his other arm. The girl looks like she's struggling to free herself from the man, I can't discern anything about her other than that she is blond. I can see the man clearly, his face is extremely frightening. He's white but his face is darkened with dirt and what looks like some blood, his eyes are red and bulging, he's flashing his gnashed teeth and screaming madly as he fires the gun at me.

I decide to make a break for it and I take off zig-zagging down the driveway as fast as I can. Bullets are pinging the ground around me. I make it across the street into another neighbor's yard, I thought I had evaded the psycho but somehow he appears on the roof of the house beside the yard I just entered, and he's still shooting at me. I duck under a staircase and it seems like he's lost sight of me. He continues to shoot the gun and scream into the sky.

I sit down and wonder why no one has called for help, or anything at all really, the area looks deserted. There's no on in the streets, no cars around, nothing happening. The shooting suddenly stops as I'm thinking, I get up and leave my hiding spot and the madman is gone. Then I wake up with my heart pounding, gasping for air and sweating. I was so shook up, I couldn't fall asleep again for about an hour.

[n0nsensical]

maybe you're the next Jerry Bruckheimer?

[ngdawg]

According to dream interpretation, the bullets coming at you represent anger and/or aggression either aimed at you or you're feeling it from within.
Since the aggressor is holding a hostage, it's safe to assume that the aggression/anger is holding back something in you that's struggling to be free.(powerlessness) This is further represented by you thinking you're hiding safely only to come face to face again with the aggressor.
No one has called for help because only you see the "attack".

Dreams are puzzle solvers of the things we are perplexed or stumped by during our waking hours. They bring our issues to the forefront, albeit in symbolic form, so that we can deal with them. Once we figure out the symbolism, mixed with the residual feelings upon waking, we can then deal with whatever was shown to us while we slept.

[abaya]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

According to dream interpretation, the bullets coming at you represent anger and/or aggression either aimed at you or you're feeling it from within.
Since the aggressor is holding a hostage, it's safe to assume that the aggression/anger is holding back something in you that's struggling to be free.(powerlessness) This is further represented by you thinking you're hiding safely only to come face to face again with the aggressor.
No one has called for help because only you see the "attack".

Dreams are puzzle solvers of the things we are perplexed or stumped by during our waking hours. They bring our issues to the forefront, albeit in symbolic form, so that we can deal with them. Once we figure out the symbolism, mixed with the residual feelings upon waking, we can then deal with whatever was shown to us while we slept.

Whoa, ng. I'm PM'ing you next time I wake up from a hellraiser of a dream!!

Personally, though, I think a lot of my dreams are less about puzzles and more about expressing my fears about people or situations. It's always totally absurd stuff that would never, ever happen in real life (and rationally/consciously, I know that)... but in my dreams, it's oh-so-real. Maybe my waking life just doesn't have enough drama going on to keep things exciting, so my subconscious makes up for it. Yay.

[Hain]

Dreams are the sticky notes your subconscious leaves for your conscious mind to find. When you are not consciously acknowledging some element of your life, your dreams have a tendency of becoming more frequent and vivid---just like you leaving more colorful posted notes for yourself to find so you don't forget something.

Ng's analysis is good, but I never go into such detail with dreams. From what I have learned, which is not much, and from my dreams, individual elements do not convey specific meaning. The entirety of the dream itself is the posted note. That and I usually only figure the simple answer.

Based on the intensity of the dream, you feel angered or threated but aren't doing anything about it.

Or, you want to watch an action movie or miss riding roller-coasters.

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by abaya

Whoa, ng. I'm PM'ing you next time I wake up from a hellraiser of a dream!!

Personally, though, I think a lot of my dreams are less about puzzles and more about expressing my fears about people or situations. It's always totally absurd stuff that would never, ever happen in real life (and rationally/consciously, I know that)... but in my dreams, it's oh-so-real. Maybe my waking life just doesn't have enough drama going on to keep things exciting, so my subconscious makes up for it. Yay.

Dreams are about feelings, fears, etc. and let us see those feelings in their most basic form-as symbols. They feel real because they are real. Put those symbols together (ala a puzzle) and we can deal with the feelings they represent.

Originally Posted by Augi

Dreams are the sticky notes your subconscious leaves for your conscious mind to find. When you are not consciously acknowledging some element of your life, your dreams have a tendency of becoming more frequent and vivid---just like you leaving more colorful posted notes for yourself to find so you don't forget something.

Ng's analysis is good, but I never go into such detail with dreams. From what I have learned, which is not much, and from my dreams, individual elements do not convey specific meaning. The entirety of the dream itself is the posted note. That and I usually only figure the simple answer.

Based on the intensity of the dream, you feel angered or threated but aren't doing anything about it.

Or, you want to watch an action movie or miss riding roller-coasters.

Individual elements are single pieces of the "puzzle"; it's how they're put together that makes the statement. F'instance, bullets being fired represent aggression and/or anger. A hostage represents powerlessness or being held back. Hiding can mean either keeping something secret or, as in this case, not facing up to the situation at hand. The town being deserted is loneliness, isolation and/or despair.
Every element means more than one thing; it's within the entire context that the meaning is understood. Once that is clear, the reason for the dream can be dealt with or at least understood.

[jewels]

There are several schools of thought about dreams and what they really are. Hidden messages or subconscious cleansing, it all boils down to you.

You're the one who knows if the participants are real people, your self or your fears.

Suggestion: Keep a journal, documenting even the tiniest details. After some weeks or months, some things may become clear to you. This was recommended to me some years back, and it's amazing how you'll see similarities in your dreams when you look at the minutia.

Besides, maybe one day you will have some great material for a blockbuster hit

[MSD]

Sounds like what happens to me after watching too many action movies before sleeping. I used to look further into things, but I've moved away from the school of thought that our dreams mean anything. My dreams are kind of like what you'd get if you printed out a storyboard of my day on fruit roll-ups, crumpled them into a ball, and told a bunch of kids they could eat them if they straightened everything out first (the kids mash them up more and eat them before they finish anyway.)

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by MSD

Sounds like what happens to me after watching too many action movies before sleeping. I used to look further into things, but I've moved away from the school of thought that our dreams mean anything. My dreams are kind of like what you'd get if you printed out a storyboard of my day on fruit roll-ups, crumpled them into a ball, and told a bunch of kids they could eat them if they straightened everything out first (the kids mash them up more and eat them before they finish anyway.)

Our day actually has a lot to do with our dreams, even the action movies. But I'd be willing to bet that those dreams don't follow the movies, they just borrow the actions and maybe the actors.
They can be a review of the day, broken down into weird vignettes or they can be puzzle pieces of our feelings and fears. Sometimes they're very relaxing, but sometimes, like the OP, they can be weirdly terrifying. Sometimes they help us remember something we just couldn't put our finger on in our waking hours(I like those kind!)
Dreams are used in the mental health field to get to the root of issues that can't otherwise be recognized or expressed. That can be tricky-people have thought they'd been abused based on dreams revealed to therapists and, in fact, there have been court cases where abusers were brought to trial years after the committed crime, based on the dreams of the victim, who'd forgotten the events. One was a murder case quite a while back, where the killer's daughter had long forgotten what had happened, but dreamed about it as an adult. The man had killed her friend and was convicted of murder, primarily based on the daughter's newly-discovered recollections.
I can't find the particular case online-it was during the 80's. If I do, I'll post it.

[Manic_Skafe]

Maybe the dream means that you shouldn't sleep with the television on.

..

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

One was a murder case quite a while back, where the killer's daughter had long forgotten what had happened, but dreamed about it as an adult. The man had killed her friend and was convicted of murder, primarily based on the daughter's newly-discovered recollections.

Based on all the hypnosis bullshit from the 80's and the kids who were saying the were molested in a day care which turned out to be completely bogus and due to the questioning methods of the investigators, I really hope they had a confession or something and it wasn't all based on someones dreams.

[blahblah454]

Originally Posted by Manic_Skafe

Maybe the dream means that you shouldn't sleep with the television on.

..

I think this hits the nail on the head. I pretty much always have messed up dreams when the TV has been left on. Infomercials especially mess me up, I think its because of there repetitive nature.

[flstf]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Dreams are used in the mental health field to get to the root of issues that can't otherwise be recognized or expressed. That can be tricky-people have thought they'd been abused based on dreams revealed to therapists and, in fact, there have been court cases where abusers were brought to trial years after the committed crime, based on the dreams of the victim, who'd forgotten the events. One was a murder case quite a while back, where the killer's daughter had long forgotten what had happened, but dreamed about it as an adult. The man had killed her friend and was convicted of murder, primarily based on the daughter's newly-discovered recollections.
I can't find the particular case online-it was during the 80's. If I do, I'll post it.

What follows may be the case you are referring to. I would hope that the basis of a conviction would be a lot more than someone's repressed memories.

No retrial planned in repressed-memory murder case
Man accused by daughter expects to be freed
July 2, 1996

REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- After spending the last six years in prison for the murder of an 8-year-old, George Franklin is expected to walk free Wednesday after new revelations overturned his conviction. Franklin's conviction in the 1969 slaying of his daughter's friend -- the first conviction involving so-called recovered memory -- was overturned last year, and prosecutors had planned to retry him.

But the disclosure that his daughter may have lied about not being hypnotized before the 1990 trial has virtually ruled out the use of her testimony, District Attorney James Fox said.

Her credibility was also undermined by recent DNA tests that cleared Franklin of a second murder that Eileen Franklin had accused him of committing. In a second case, prosecutors have too few details to begin an investigation.
"It just creates a case where we don't believe we're going to be able to meet our burden of proof," Fox said of the 1969 slaying.

Franklin's conviction was overturned by a federal judge who ruled the trial judge should not have told jurors that Franklin's silence, in the face of his daughter's rape accusation, could be considered a confession. The court also ruled that the defense should have been allowed to show the jury newspaper articles that Franklin's lawyers claimed were the real source of the daughter's knowledge.

Daughter taps memory

Franklin's daughter, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker, told the court in 1990 -- more than 20 years after the murder -- that she remembered seeing her father rape her best friend, Susan Nason, and beat her in the head with a rock.

"I remembered seeing Susan sitting there and seeing my father with the rock above his head," she said.

The case unraveled when Eileen Franklin's sister told police last month that she and her sister had been hypnotized by a therapist before the 1990 trial. If true, Eileen would have been barred from testifying, because statements provoked by hypnosis are considered too unreliable in court.

Fox said he will reluctantly ask a judge to dismiss the charges Wednesday, allowing Franklin to be set free. Franklin, 57, has been held on $1 million bail while awaiting retrial. Fox said prosecutors will not pursue the case, because it is not "reasonably probable that we would prevail."
Franklin's attorney, Penny Cooper, said the case indicated that prosecutors should never base their arguments solely on recovered testimony. (221K AIFF or WAV sound)

Douglas Horngrad, another defense attorney, was pleased with the news but disappointed in the judicial system. "I'm relieved that George is going to be released from custody for a crime he didn't commit," he said. "But I'm disappointed the system failed."

The victim's family said they are bitterly disappointed with Franklin's anticipated release, but they understand. Franklin's lawyers had argued that Eileen's memory was incorrect -- that the details she said she recalled could have come from newspaper accounts.

Fox, meanwhile, stands by Eileen's repressed-memory testimony; he still believes Franklin committed the murder.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/02/repressed.murder/

Eileen Franklin-Lipsker recovers memories of 2 more murders

The woman who persuaded a 1989 jury to convict her father (George Franklin) of murder on the basis of her recovered memories, has recently recalled 2 other murders allegedly conducted by her father, with the assistance of her step-father.

She claims seeing them strangle a young woman in a wood, and also being involved in another killing in the mid-1970s.

Police have eliminated all but one unsolved murder from the period ( a 1976 rape-murder), and semen samples have ruled out her father and stepfather. Franklin’s conviction was overturned last year.

(Rocky Mountain News, 22 Feb 1996, p A36)

[hulk]

I'm of the opinion that the only person who can really interpret dreams is the one that dreamt it - the symbols are so personal that anyone trying to interpret for you would come up with what your dream would mean to them, if they had it.

And repressed memory is a quack science - I'm sure most hypnotists will tell you that with the right suggestion anything can be recalled as what really happened, so to speak.

[Manic_Skafe]

Originally Posted by Charles Mackay

It should be observed that the rules for the interpretation of dreams are far from being universal. The cheeks of the peasant girl of England glow with pleasure in the morning after she has dreamed of a rose, while the paysanne of Normandy dreads disappointment and vexation for the very same reason. The Switzer who dreams of an oak tree does not share in the Englishman's joy; for he imagines that the vision was a warning to him that, from some trifiling cause, an overwhelming calamity will burst over him. Thus do the ignorant and the credulous torment themselves; thus do they spread their nets to catch vexation, and pass their lives between hopes which are of no value and fears which are a positive evil.

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by flstf

What follows may be the case you are referring to. I would hope that the basis of a conviction would be a lot more than someone's repressed memories.

Thanks. That's the one. Frankly, I agree. Repressed memories brought forward by dreams is a lousy way to convict someone.

[Hain]

Originally Posted by hulk

I'm of the opinion that the only person who can really interpret dreams is the one that dreamt it - the symbols are so personal that anyone trying to interpret for you would come up with what your dream would mean to them, if they had it.

I agree with this statement. Specific objects and actions have unique meanings to the dreamer.

Dream based testimony...? I am all about self hypnosis, but they ought not convict someone based on a dream. Maybe next they can call a psychic hotline (no disrespect to real psychics out there).

[bluepolaski]

Originally Posted by Manic_Skafe

Maybe the dream means that you shouldn't sleep with the television on.

..

I never sleep with my TV on, it annoys the hell out of me.

[ItWasMe]

Before I read NG's take on it (which was very good IMO) this is what I thought.

Somewhere in your life, maybe there is something (gunman) causing problems (the bullets) that you would rather not have to deal with right now, but the problem won't just go away. I saw the hostage as your life being disrupted or a goal being prevented.

Were you possibly on any kind of pain killers? Because those things all give me scary or strange dreams to some degree.

[savmesom11]

Originally Posted by ngdawg

Our day actually has a lot to do with our dreams, even the action movies. But I'd be willing to bet that those dreams don't follow the movies, they just borrow the actions and maybe the actors.
They can be a review of the day, broken down into weird vignettes or they can be puzzle pieces of our feelings and fears. Sometimes they're very relaxing, but sometimes, like the OP, they can be weirdly terrifying. Sometimes they help us remember something we just couldn't put our finger on in our waking hours(I like those kind!)
Dreams are used in the mental health field to get to the root of issues that can't otherwise be recognized or expressed. That can be tricky-people have thought they'd been abused based on dreams revealed to therapists and, in fact, there have been court cases where abusers were brought to trial years after the committed crime, based on the dreams of the victim, who'd forgotten the events. One was a murder case quite a while back, where the killer's daughter had long forgotten what had happened, but dreamed about it as an adult. The man had killed her friend and was convicted of murder, primarily based on the daughter's newly-discovered recollections.
I can't find the particular case online-it was during the 80's. If I do, I'll post it.

If I fall asleep with the weather channel on, I dream that I am involved in floods, blizzards, etc. Dreams don't always have hidden meanings but can be slipped into your subconscious, plus everyone including those who have dedicated their lives to studying dreams, has a different interpretation of what the dream may mean. I do understand the If I fall asleep with the weather channel on, I dream that I am involved in floods, blizzards, etc. Dreams don't always have hidden meanings but can be slipped into your subconscious, plus everyone including those who have dedicated their lives to studying dreams, has a different interpretation of what the dream may be. I do understand the fascination with trying to figure them out though.

[Sion]

I don't think dreams have any meaning whatsoever. I think dreams are your mind entertaining itself while you sleep.