I’m at my apartment. My wife isn’t home. Two intruders break in. They push two women inside my apartment with me. They’re armed and dangerous. I try to stay calm so I don’t trigger any violence from the guys. While Intruder #2 watches the other two women, Intruder #1 hands us a paper with letters and numbers on them. He doesn’t explain anything or even what the numbers and letters are. He just tells us to decode it and we have 3 hours to decipher what those letters and numbers mean.
Our psyches want to wake us up as to what’s happening in our lives. Sometimes there are heavy-duty feelings going on which we brush away. There are signs around us which we ignore because we just don’t want to deal with problems or issues. This dream comes to Anna because she needs to pay attention to an issue in her life. The violence in the dream is a very strong signal that there’s something serious she needs to address.
I’m thinking there’s an issue at work which ultimately affects her home life, which is why the scenario is her apartment. I’m thinking this is work because she’s asked to decipher letters and numbers with two other women, an activity one does at work rather than at home. The fact that her wife isn’t home suggests that it’s a personal issue for her and her wife doesn’t factor into the ultimate choices she has to make to correct this problem. She has to live with it herself.
It sounds like the issue at work relates to men bullying certain women (the dreamer plus two others) to do the actual hard work while they luxuriate in less challenging work (baths and TV). In general, “bosses” relegate because they have more important things to do, but it sounds like that isn’t the case here. It isn’t as if Intruder #1 is engaged in more important work (unless he’s really really dirty). In fact, since he is taking a bath, the implication is that he is indeed “dirty,” but he has the means to “wash away” any wrongdoing which might otherwise make him feel guilty. He has found a way to “justify” to himself his unfair bullying of women. After all, he doesn’t bully the man in this scenario.
If all they’re gonna do is threaten us, I can deal with that. But now they want us women to decode some kind of secret message. For all I know, it’s a recipe to make a bomb or something, so I decide I don’t want to do it. I decide I’m going to eliminate the problem. It’s my apartment so I know there’s something I can use as a weapon. For weapons all I had were the knives in the kitchen I use for cooking. I really don’t want to stab anyone because it gets bloody.
Under my bed is a metallic bat. By now, the guys think they’ve got us in control, so Intruder #1 is in the bathroom taking a bath in the tub. Intruder #2 is in the living room with us watching TV, keeping an eye on us as we decode the message. I sneak away and get the bat and return to conk #2 unconscious. Then I go into the bathroom and start bashing at #1’s head. As he curls up his body to protect himself, I see his testicles and hit at them too. Now he’s unconscious. I don’t know if he’s dead or not.
It sounds as if it were just rude words or insulting innuendoes Anna can take it. However, when it comes to doing the actual work and the male boss doesn’t even respect the women enough to explain it, that’s something else. It’s no longer personal, but business. Anna doesn’t like that. She’s not going to “stab” the man in the back (i.e., go behind his back and tattle on him to a superior). She’s going to handle it herself. It’s her apartment, which suggests the work is in her field of expertise, and that she's "at home" with what she does at work. Her knowledge and expertise create a weapon (the bat) which she can use to bash his head (screw up his thinking). For instance, she might point out the discrepancies in his work which would make it impossible for her and the two other women to do their work.
When he curls up his body to protect himself, exposing his sexist male attitudes (he might taunt her that she’s being bitchy because she’s on her period), she bashes that too.
Anna, if this were all, I would say, “Go, girl! Defend yourself before things get worse.” However, we have to consider the rest of the dream.
I run to the phone and call 911 and explain there’s a man in my tub and I don’t know if he’s dead or just unconscious. When I give the address to the woman who answers, she tells me someone else has already called and an ambulance is on the way. I’m surprised because no one else is in the house. But I hang up and check it out. Sure enough, there’s a woman in the second bedroom. Apparently, my wife and I had rented that extra room out to one of my wife’s friends, Bev.
In real life, Bev is a therapist. In the dream, she admits that she came home hours earlier. She thought there were weird things going on. She felt it wasn’t her place to intrude, but she did call 911. I tell her about what I’ve done, and she assures me the police and an ambulance are already on their way. She calmly asks me questions the way a therapist would.
This adds to the previous message. There are other ways her psyche could have guided Anna on how to resolve her issues. Maybe she could have tied up the two intruders and then called in the police to handle it. Instead, she gets pretty violent. Anna swears she isn’t violent in awake life. So her psyche is telling her something. Maybe she tends to over-react. Maybe she sees sexist attitudes as a judgment on her being in a gay marriage, and that really pisses her off.
Now comes the message about the renter, Bev the therapist. She rents the extra bedroom to a friend of her wife’s. Her psyche is telling her there is a possibility that her wife’s friend has noticed Anna overreacting in some situations in real life. Maybe she suspects Anna needs therapeutic help. There is also a message symbolized by the 911 woman already having been notified.
If indeed I’ve interpreted the dream accurately so far, then it follows that a woman in high authority already knows about the sexist bullying occurring at her place of work. She has already set some corrective measures in place.
At this point, Anna can set aside the bullying problem and focus on herself. She needs to ask herself if she overreacts sometimes to men who tend to be sexist… and if her anger pushes her to the point of literally wanting to “bash” their heads in. Her psyche says this might be the case.
Anna, I would say to you that anger which isn’t expressed builds up until it becomes violent expression. Don’t let this happen to you. Why should you ignore rude and insulting behavior just to avoid confrontation. Why not say, “Hey, Jake, it’s a free country and you can say what you want whenever you want. Just take note I don’t like or appreciate what you just said.” Spoken in a calm, non-threatening way, this is absolutely appropriate. If you need to talk to a therapist to help you process your hidden frustrations, that’s a wise decision to make and nothing to be ashamed of.
Snoozle on it, Anna, and wishing you happier dreams ahead.
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