Dream analysis #1: the three parter

1st part:  There is a bomb that is going to go off, and I am told to take my younger brother to a safe place.  I drag him and we run off as fast as we can.  We go to a small baby blue room and we are safe as we watch the explosion from outside except I'm not with my brother anymore I'm holding a baby

I have a hard time interpreting this dream.  It's obviously coming from a fear or general feeling of unsafety.  There is a feeling of impending doom as the bomb gets closer to exploding.  I thought that it was coming from a feeling of needing to protect my brother, but now I wonder if it is more about feeling I need to protect myself.  In the dream I act as the hero, the child, and the hermit.  I protect the child from harms way by taking it to a far away place.  The small baby blue room is higher than all the other buildings.  We are so high nothing can touch us, but also entirely secluded.  What is most interesting about the dream is that my brother goes from being his age (14) to an infant.  What does this mean?  Is it the revealing of vulnerability?  Infants cannot protect themselves like 14 year olds can.  My general sense is that I am protecting myself as the infant from the dangers of the outside world.  I feel weak, vulnerable, and unsafe.

2nd part: I'm at college, the junior college.  Except this college is nothing like the junior college near me, it has grand halls with high ceilings and beautiful windows.  I'm with some people who seem to be my friends.  Some of them I even know in real life.  One of my friends looks ill, so I carry her out of class and put her to bed on the couch like a baby.  Once she is put to bed I go back to class but for some reason I get frustrated in a group project with someone and I leave class.  Then we are all at thanksgiving together with my family but all I want to eat is bread, I took 8 slices. Later in the dream when my friends come to find me I am acting out screaming "you guys this is just a dream"!  Of course my friends act like I'm going crazy.  I say I'll prove it by putting my hand through the metal bar but when I reach out I feel cold hard metal and my hand refuses to go through.  Then I realize what I must do to prove it isn't real.  I jump from the platform and when my face is inches away from the cold hard concrete and I'm about to feel great pain or die the dream ends.

In this dream I play the role of the martyr.  First I carry my friend to bed like a baby.  This may suggest that she is playing the role of the victim.  Then later on I sacrifice my life to break the illusion of our reality so that my friends can know the truth.  What is interesting here is that the martyr in the dream (me) and the victim of the dream (my friend who also likely represents me) are both coming from the same place.  Both the martyr and the victim are coming from a place of self pity. The martyr in its shadow is performing acts of selflessness from a place of selfishness.  This isn't nescesarrily evil or ill intended, mostly it comes from a place of great need.  The martyr and the victim are inadvertently seeking love and adoration.  They believe they must come from a place of great lack to deserve this love.  When I eat the eight pieces of bread I am acting as a glutton.  But where does the need for gluttony or greed come from?  Hunger.  The glutton clings to the bread because it is not used to getting any.   The essence of the dream is a deep need that is not getting met, a hunger.  In some sense I feel I must be sacrificial in order to get this hunger fed leaving me to feel powerlessness and desperation.

3rd part:  me, my college friends, and a little girl are at an amusement park getting on a ride.  But the ride is dangerous.  It goes to great heights and falls into 4 feet rushing water.  Before I realize it the little girl is gone probably drowning in the water or already dead.  I escape from the ride and see a black women.  I realize the women is up to something.  I think she realizes that the ride was intended to kill people but she is trying to stay hidden as she attempts to take it down.  She finds me hidden and tells me irritably that I must be more careful 

Of all the dreams I've ever had, my dreams of horrendous amusement park accidents reign supreme.  Even without looking into archetypes I can understand this dream easily.  The child in the dream is me, it represents my child like self.  In archetypes I would call the child the magical or innocent child.  It is the part of me that believes in fantasy, hope, and possibility.  The child is drowning because I feel this part of me is at risk of slipping through my fingers as I am faced with difficult circumstances that are much larger than me.   So why the amusement park?  Two years ago my family went to Disneyland.  My brother has moderate to severe autism and cannot speak, so our yearly vacations had their challenges.  Sometimes he can act out violently if he is angry or confused, and as he has gotten older and stronger this has become harder to control.  My brother was acting out more than we'd ever seen him act out before.  It was scary, my parents didn't know what to do.  When my brother struck one of the people we were in Disneyland with, we knew he had to go home.  This was very sad on its own because my  brother adored Disneyland, but what was even worse was when he broke the window of my moms car.  She was alone in the middle of no where with a violent speechless child and a broken mirror.  My dad couldn't do anything because she was two hours away.  The police came and taped up her window, but my dad was a wreck the whole time they were driving hoping it would be alright.  This wasn't just scary, it was an acknowledgment of a sad truth.  It was finally recognizing how powerless we really are and the very real fear that we carry about where my brother is going to be as an adult.  It was also having to let go of our most binding family tradition, something that I had looked forward to every year.  The amusement park and the dying child are about my fear of losing childhood.  The black woman is acting as the hero.  She is my self preservation instinct trying to save me from any more pain.