zombie cat,but not really??

[jsr76]

I've been trying to make heads or tails of a dream I had last week. As it starts,I'm back in the living room at my parents' old house. I'm not alone,there is another guy there with me,but I have no idea who he is. There is a cat laying on the floor. I knew it was a zombie cat,though nothing about it would indicate this;it was not decayed,dead or in any way zombie-like. It just looked like a regular orange cat. The cat jumped,grabbed hold of my arm and made like it was going to try to bite me. I slung my arm and threw it the floor. I didn't see him actually holding it,but I knew the fellow with me had a chainsaw. He could have done something at this point,but didn't. The only thing I had on me was a kitchen knife with an orange plastic handle. I stabbed the cat in the upper part of its leg,thought better of that,stabbed again,this time through its ribs,trying to pin it to the floor. I remembered there was a hammer in another room so I ran to find it. I thought it would be hanging on the wall in the other room,but it wasn't. After looking around,I found it. The handle was wrapped in black padded rubber. The head was bent down at a ninety degree angle with the claws sticking straight up. I bent the head back into the correct position and went back to the living room to finish the job. I get back to the living room and the cat is gone now. The doors and windows are all closed so it couldn't have escaped. I just assumed the other fellow had killed it in my absence. Rather than feeling relieved,I was mad. I was mad that he had waited so long to do something and told him so. "You know,you could have just as easily done that before without making me go through all this," I snapped.

[ParanoidLlama]

Unless this is a recurring dream, I really don't think this has any meaning. You could have had those elements on your mind the day before that and it decided to pop up in your dreams. But either way, I'll give you my interpretation: Considering you had a bad feeling of the cat (being you thought it was a zombie) even though it showed no signs, it could be that something is concealed in some way in waking life. Often times in dreams when something has a violent/scary behavior, it's likely some negative representation in your life. So if you have some not so obvious bad event or feeling in waking life, this might be the case. Now, whether or not this negative occurrence was in the past or not, basically your hostile tendencies towards the cat may (have) signify (ed) that you must (or have) cast aside those bad things. When the cat disappeared, you were angry that he killed it when he could have done it earlier. Your subconscious may be telling you that either you or a 3rd party could easily help your situation. If it matches your current situation in any way, then this might be the correct interpretation. Sweet dreams..

[Athanor]

From reading your other posts, some background and context has been found which is helpful in looking at this particular dream and in being able to provide a more accurate interpretation in general terms. For example, the presence of your sister and ex-girlfriend in the other dreams likely pointed to issues related broadly to your feeling life, values and “sensitivity” etc. because females in the dreams of males usually represent this area of the dreamer’s life overall. Similarly, the current dream centers on the zombie cat who tries to bite you and this usually symbolizes an “attack” from your instinctive and emotional side. That’s because the presence of animals in dreams usually points to the issue of the dreamer’s overall attitude towards his or her instinctive reactions, emotions, vague feelings, intuitions, fantasies and similar inborn natural traits. If these areas of oneself are being ignored too much, it’s as if the instinctive side becomes “angry” because it’s “not being cared for” enough of the time. The problem is that if a bite actually occurs, this often means the danger on the practical side of various unpleasant physical and/or psychological symptoms appearing. As an example, a person could feel anxious for no apparent outer reason, or be down too much of the time etc. Physically, one or more of an endless number of symptoms can appear for no apparent medical reason (e.g. constant headaches or digestive problems etc.). Assuming that your parents’ old house was part of your childhood, being back there could symbolize that some attitude or habit etc. (as related to your instinctive and emotional side) which developed at that time perhaps was the underlying cause of a recent incident etc. which was upsetting in some way. If so, the dream would be outlining a problem and presenting a few ideas about possible solutions. For instance, there’s a man present in the house who you don’t know and who apparently likes to carry around a chainsaw. He could possibly symbolize a part of your personality about which you’re too unaware and which feels very raw and vulnerable in certain situations, causing a “brutal cutting off” of any appearance of “rebellious instinct” in the form of symptoms and therefore of the chance of uncovering any underlying problem. The need for such a reaction might be fairly rare (e.g. the cat is “domesticated” and not a wild animal; it looks normal) but every once in a while, something might tend to snap (e.g. the cat lunges at you to get in a bite). Basically a zombie is a member of the “living dead” and is without a soul. The zombie cat looks normal but isn’t, perhaps indicating that a certain kind of lip service is paid to feeling values etc. but sometimes, the instincts might rebel at too much possible deception in this area. For example, a person might tend to always be pleasant and to never show any sign of feelings of anger or resentment etc. that he or she may be experiencing. Indeed, he or she may be totally aware of any such emotions. A zombie also symbolizes our disagreeable faults which are “dead” in the sense that we are sometimes very unconscious of one or more of them. In this case, maybe a very painful recollection or incident etc. could have perhaps “gotten through” into consciousness instead of being cut off as usual by the chainsaw-man within, leading to an extra rough time in “keeping it down” and making it “go away” (e.g. use various means to “kill” the cat). For example, you first use a knife with an orange handle, linking it somehow symbolically with the cat which is also orange. In general, any kind of knife tends to symbolize mostly dark instinctive forces which tend to be “out of control” in some way. Some “cutting” anger or other similar strong emotions such as resentment and “why me?” feelings etc. etc. can grow because of some really bad single incident or an overall situation in a person’s life. Usually, any such emotions have to be kept an eye on instead of being “killed” as you possibly attempt to do in this dream. That’s because becoming totally unaware of feelings (killing them) so that we can casually go about our business without being bothered by them can often lead to various problems down the road (e.g. the symptoms mentioned above). The dream might actually be ending without a resolution because you don’t really know if the guy with the chainsaw killed the cat or not (he apparently doesn’t say anything and you didn’t see the cat). So the cat’s “disappearance” might mean that what it represents has only temporarily gone back into your unconscious and will appear again if something isn’t done to deal with an apparently painful underlying issue. Anyway, without knowing anything much about you, this interpretation might not fit your personal circumstances very well if at all, but if something about this way of looking at your dream seems to make sense to you, a couple of books about how to get closer to you emotions might help. For example “Nothing’s Wrong” by David Kundtz, and “Emotion: A Very Short Introduction” by Dylan Evans. Please feel free to make any comments or to ask any questions that you may want to about this particular way of looking at your dream.

[jsr76]

Very interesting that you mentioned getting my attention,Athanor. A couple of weeks ago,I had a different dream but something was definitely trying to get my attention in that one also. Might post that one at a later date because it was definitely a doozy. The last week or so I have had some on and off symptoms which I just chalked up to stress. I'm so focused on making certain things happen in my life right now that I just kind of block out everything around me. I feel like I always have to be everybody else's rock,their source of comfort and strength,often at the expense of my own emotional needs and well-being. I am dealing with some heavy stuff right now,ParanoidLlama. I am wondering if maybe the dream is just my way of expressing that I just want those things gone (i.e. killed) or to just disappear entirely.

[ParanoidLlama]

Ah, I never knew that you were having some tough times. Hopefully you will be able to get past the cat (or your problem) and feel at ease again!