Thunder Bow and Perma - some good thoughts for exploration.
I've worked a lot with trying to understand my dreams and daydreams. I like to remember dreams and what they tell me. For me, most dreams show me what I am feeling during the day, but in symbols that make the feelings more clear. Dreams can get complicated, often using symbols we have recently experienced. If it were my dream, of punching for example, I would ask myself, am I having this feeling sometime during my waking life? Punching sounds to me like an expression of frustration or dislike. Trying to discipline sounds like something in yourself that you are trying to control that gives you resistance. But it could be something else, too.
My dreams tell me what I'm feeling and what I need to work on in myself. You say you felt threatened. When do you feel threatened in your waking life? What circumstances? Then you felt bad for what you'd done - maybe feeling bad about having feelings of wanting to hurt or kill what you feel threatened by? How did you feel when a group of people took you down from hanging? How did you feel when they spread peanut butter on your wounds? For me, it is the feelings, sensations, emotions that are a big clue to what the dreams mean. Sometimes I do a kind of free-association to the symbols, too, and that often helps me understand where the dream came from. The symbols and the feelings are related.
Re Thunder Bow's comment, one way to look at dreams is to see every character as an aspect of yourself. That fits with beating up on yourself. Sometimes I talk to the characters and ask them what they are trying to tell me.