I'm sorry for the details. I'll do my best to make this a safe post, but please be warned. If you are easily triggered, I don't recommend you read this.

I dreamed I was inpatient in a psychiatric ward. Although in real life I do have a mild physical disability, in the dream I was more severely disabled, using a catheter, and barely able to leave my bed on my own. For several days I had a room to myself, but eventually a roommate came in. She had a lot of luggage and a bit of an entourage with her. Beside staff going through her things, there was also a relative or two. All was chaotic for a while as she was being settled in, and finally everyone left but the roommate. She excused herself to the bathroom.

I'm going to type this next part in white lettering. If you are OK with the details, you can drag your mouse over the paragraph and see what happened at this point in my dream. Please be careful. It's ugly, to say the least.

Start here: A puddle of blood started seeping out from under the bathroom door, and I checked on her. Despite the careful inventory of her things when she came in, it turned out she had smuggled in a meat cleaver, and taken her own life by hacking herself to pieces. I screamed for staff. They took her out on a stretcher, covered up. Then they tried to clean up the blood, but there was so much of it that they ended up moving me to another room. End here.

I was thoroughly traumatized and couldn't stop screaming, but staff finally got me calmed down. Then at supper time, a young man in his late teens or early 20's was making inappropriate internet-troll-style jokes about the tragedy, and I went into hysterics. Staff told that young man off and sent him to his room.

When I woke from the nightmare, my daughter's take on it was this: According to traditional interpretation, every person who appears in your dream is some aspect of you, yourself. Therefore I was not only "me," but also the roommate, the staff, and the trolling young man. This means there is a part of me who feels powerless (in the dream I was more disabled than I actually am), a part of me who is clueless enough to put myself in danger without knowing it (staff assigning this particular roommate to me), and a part of me that is capable of great harm but turns it on self rather than others (the roommate could have hurt "me" but hurt "herself" instead). As for the young man making the inappropriate jokes, daughter said, "Face it, your inner child is Bart Simpson." I despise juvenile or "sick" humor, but daughter tells me a part of myself enjoys it, and I should accept that. She says that the staff sending the young man to his room is representative of that inner child being squelched.

Do you agree with my daughter's interpretation? Do you have any additional insight to offer?

And why is it that when I'm having sweet dreams, my husband and daughter carelessly wake me up with their noise, but when I'm having a nightmare, that's when they remember I'm asleep and make sure to be quiet?

[Perna]

Yes, I agree with your daughter, however, I would add, my first reaction to you being more disabled in the dream than you are actually is that you would be "confined" to watcher status, have to see it all, not be able to get away or run from what you saw/knew?

Your daughter's Bart Simpson inner child thoughts put me in mind of how many opposites and extremes you have here in this dream? You have an "all-or-nothing" dream, basically. Extreme psychological problems but you're in a mental hospital. Extreme physical problems, barely able to leave the bed on your own but you checked on the girl in the bathroom and screamed (at the top of your lungs, no doubt :-) versus the quiet of her chopping and only seeing the fluid seeping under the door? Serious news to impart, but it's done as a joke.

My Therapist (or someone, she later said she did not recall saying it) had to remind me that "a wet towel on the bed is not a murder" because I did not differentiate between the two; anything/everything would bother me/make me angry? I had no thermostat settings, no way to differentiate degree of anything. Your dream kind of reminds me of that in that you have the worst of the worst of the worst going on?

If it were my dream; I'd look at the act in the bathroom as being "internal" to me; you chop yourself or your self esteem to pieces with your internal dialog and beliefs? Interesting too, that your physical body was in so very bad a shape and then you have the bathroom scene for your interior and, perhaps the internet idiot is your "exterior"/world part? Sounds like you think/feel you are a mess all around?

Which section "attracted" you the most? Again, the red/blood at the "heart" (bathroom as heart) of it all, I think I'd work on my self esteem? Either that or you "bleed" for others too much? You don't take care of yourself enough, give yourself away for others (the internet idiot broadcasting it). And, if doing for others, you don't feel appreciated (internet idiot's joking attitude).

I forgot to note that in the dream, my roommate and her accompanying family members were of a different race than I am. I'm a peppermint (part Native American, part European, so "red" and "white" ) and they were black. I accept the interpretation that she is an aspect of me, but daughter says the different race was my not recognizing her as my "self." And obviously, the young man making the inappropriate jokes was the opposite sex, but he too is an aspect of me. Staff members were kind of a blur and nondescript. I wouldn't be able to describe ethnicity or gender.

Originally Posted by Perna

Which section "attracted" you the most? Again, the red/blood at the "heart" (bathroom as heart) of it all, I think I'd work on my self esteem? Either that or you "bleed" for others too much? You don't take care of yourself enough, give yourself away for others (the internet idiot broadcasting it). And, if doing for others, you don't feel appreciated (internet idiot's joking attitude).

Here I'm shielding with white text again, for the protection of the easily squicked out. What really stands out in the dream was all that blood. The bathroom was permeated with it, and it was seeping out into the bedroom too, getting all over everything. The nurses were having trouble cleaning it up because there was just too much. Plus, the injuries were horrendous. She had actually severed some of her body parts entirely. OK, I'm done.

[Perna]

My therapist taught me to go after feeling. So, the quantity got to you; the river, the mess of it? I think of your signature and PMS and it's obvious menopause/being a woman aspects; the strength (and opposites) of the all or nothing. You've got this whole life force thing overtaking everything else, uncontrolled, etc.

^^Wow, that was insightful. Thank you.

[yutzman]

No disrespect, but pretty standard and not psychotic....I've experienced mass inappropriate juxtapositions of relationships....which means nothing.
Most will say...it's just a dream...it's just a dream....