Re-occurrence of childhood nightmares

[qlc]

When I was a child, I had multiple nightmares about rabid dogs. Never about being attacked by non-rabid dogs, never about any other kind of rabid animal. Not really sure where the theme came from - I do vaguely remember realizing that rabies was a horrific disease at some point as a child, but to the best of my knowledge I've never seen a rabid animal, known anyone who died of rabies, etc. I'm no dog lover but haven't had any particularly bad experiences with dogs and don't have a phobia of dogs. Anyway, those dreams stopped for a long time. Recently I had a series of apocalypse-related dreams, which somewhat ironically stopped after I posted here about them. But a couple of nights ago I had a semi-nightmare and a full-blown nightmare, the latter being again about rabies:

-The first dream, I was traveling, from a nearby city to where I live. I was at a bus station, with my wife, looking for a bus to where we live. We were waiting in line to try and board a bus, which was a gigantic, jumbo jet sized thing, with a line long enough to match. Everything started going wrong, we had no tickets and wasn't sure we could buy them at the door, didn't have enough cash, etc. It wasn't a full blown nightmare but was anxiety-ridden.

-The full-blown nightmare. My hand had been bitten by a rabid dog and I was arguing with a bunch of people that it hadn't actually bitten hard enough to break skin so I was fine, then realized I had some kind of cut or rash in my hand, not caused by the bite itself but from before the bite, so I started worrying about having been exposed through that. Then a boy of about 8 or 9 wandered in (we were at some public, mall-like place), and the others realized he had rabies - he wasn't violent but seemed delirious and had a high fever and a flushed appearance and I was thinking what were the chances of me being bitten and then running into someone with rabies and I also worried that I would have to be isolated from everyone I knew. I then woke up, not long before my alarm went off. Not sure why this nightmare theme came back and I'm really hoping it won't re-occur.

 

[unclesirbobbyrobson]

Well I have had dreams about alligators and there are no alligators where I live and I have never seen one other on telly in nature programs. YOU have had dreams about dogs and never come across any. That's because dreams use symbols. Your dog dreams represent something which is similar in your mind. They probably represent some fear. Dreams are like metaphors so they do not use the same fear as in reality (That's not true in every case but there you go - some dreams may use symbols as literal meanings you may get a dog dream attacking you when you actually did get bitten by a dog)

If you had a dream about an apocalyptic situation it will probably depict something completely different but where you probably felt the same emotions. WE often temporarily feel extreme emotions. I get dreams about the end of the world if my health has gone downhill but they soon go away. It just means you feel like its the end of the world. Try this page END OF THE WORLD DREAMS

Dreams use symbols in the same way as we use words in real life. A rabid dog dream could be a symbol for the word "fear". Just try to think about when you had a fear. Most dreams are linked to recent thoughts about the day before or the day to come. If the dream had a story about being attacked by dogs and then the dream ended in you feeling anxious it could represent the feeling "Yesterday I felt really anxious and fearful about my examination at work but then I calmed down". Dreams depict your emotions rather than the facts of your life. Same emotions but in a different story line which may often seem totally unrelated to real life.

Try not to be too worked up about dreams as they depict our emotions. The next day we may seem to have completely different feelings.