[kpryor]

Me, age 4.5 (My brother was 10 months old): I had a dream my mother, my brother and I were sitting on a park bench in an empty white dream-scape. A man with scruffy facial hair and a hat and sunglasses sat on the other side of my mom (my brother was on her lap). He talked sweetly to my brother and then pulled out a knife. My mother continued to look on as if the man wasn't there. The man poked my brother's forehead and created a small slit, and my brother began to cry. I jumped up and yelled at him to stop, that he was hurting my brother. The man looked at me, surprised and angry and stood up. "You wanna see hurt?" He said with a gravelly voice. Then he ripped open the back of my dress and sliced my back open from neck to tailbone.

Obviously, pre-schooler me woke up from this screaming. This nightmare has been burned into my brain for years. My parent's and I believe it may have been (I don't put a whole lot of stock into it, but I believe it is possible) a premonition of sorts. Almost a year later to the date, my brother was killed in a horrible car accident that my mother and I were also both in.
Now fast forward to present time. I am 22, a functioning (for the most part) adult, student, employee, mother and soon-to-be wife. Over the past few months (about 5-6 months) I have had a reoccurring dream that sometimes alters in details, but never in outcome.

Me, age 22: I am living in a mostly empty apartment with a boy I don't recognize, but I feel a faint bond with. The man with the dark, scruffy beard, glasses and hat is with us. We are locked in and I am scared. We spend what feels like several weeks with this man, as he does horrible things to me and the boy. After a while he gets bored. Sometimes in the dream I physically fight him to try to free me and the boy, but I always lose. Sometimes I am completely submissive, hoping he'll let us go, he never does. And sometimes I plan a great escape and hide tools throughout the apartment or almost create a successful escape plan, but he always catches us before we can leave. Then the dream becomes the same again. He whispers to me at night about how he wants to run away. I encourage him to. Eventually he packs his things and says he is leaving. I am weak at this point and don't know why. He says goodbye and leaves the apartment, locking the door from the outside. I feel like I am dying, maybe starving. I hold the boy until I can't anymore. He is limp. Everything fades to black.

I always wake up in a cold sweat, terrified. I have had this dream, or a variant of it at least once a week. Please, does anyone know how to decipher dreams so I can maybe figure out a way to resolve whatever issue I have and never have it again?

[Thunder Bow]

The boy represents a part of yourself. You may be in a real life situation where you feel you can not escape from. You feel like you are dying or starving in this situation.