Dream: There is a kitten that keeps meowing. I want her to shut up. I get so angry that I open her mouth a little too wide and I hurt her jaw. The kitten turns into a little girl (maybe 4 or 5). She looks so sad. I feel bad. I realize what I did. I say, “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” She says yes so I say, “Let me get you a baby aspirin.” I go to leave and she still looks sad so I say, “Do you want to come with me to get it?”  She nods her head yes. So I bring her with me to get the baby aspirin. I feel bad about hurting her and I want to make it better for her.

This dream is reflecting a part of myself that I have a hard time looking at. I don’t think of myself as angry and certainly not angry enough to torture a kitten. This anger theme has come up before in dreams and I find it mysterious. The dreams will not let go of this notion that I have underlying anger within me. Maybe the dreams want me to get to a place where I can experience a direct connection to this anger and its source. They won’t let up until I get it.

In the dream, I hate that the kitten is expressing her needs. Perhaps she is hungry or wants some attention but I just want her to shut up. When I take my anger to the next step by hurting the kitten, I hurt her right at the place where she is expressing herself – her mouth. There is something about the expression of her desires that triggers this rage in me. Once I hurt the kitten – which becomes the girl, I don’t really feel much. The girl is in pain and I don’t show much compassion. I am numb. I say the right things. I go through the motions – I go to get her a baby aspirin – but I am not feeling. Numbing out is what I do in the dream and in waking life. It’s a conditioned habit that I use.

The dream is showing me that under the numbness there is anger and the anger has to do with expressing desires.

I marvel at dreams like this. I feel like an outsider looking into my own psyche. I am able to “understand” it as a concept but the existence of this anger in me still seems so foreign. I find it hard to understand at a deeper knowing place what this dream is suggesting. I find it disturbing and at the same time fascinating that there are these parts of myself that I am completely unaware of.