Author

Subject: murder

chris

21:11 10/12/2001 

I put together a semiautomatic gun, slid a bullet cartridge in and shot my grandfather in the head. He wanted to die. I was helping.

I then decapitated him and buried his head near where he was lying, outside a cave. I was to dismember the rest of his body and scatter the pieces because I knew that without the body the police wouldn't arrest me. They wouldn't know what had happened.

I put the rest of the body in the boot of a white car and went to drive the car off a bridge but instead the ground opened up and swallowed the car, so I just covered the hole over and let it be.

I then went to the beach. On the way I ran into a police officer who looked at me funny. I got scared. At the beach I was walking along the rocks and met a man and woman. I invited them back to my place. The guy was sitting on the bed and I had a sudden flash of realisation. I had put the pieces of the gun under the blankets of the bed. He found the body of the gun, but I simply thought, who cares, it’s just a gun, there’s no bullets in it anyway. But the woman looked at me and very clearly said, "We know what you did. We’re just waiting to find the body". She was a police officer sent to keep an eye on me.

I then had to tell my grandmother that my grandfather was dead. She was very upset, but I could see she knew what had happened. She didn't blame me and that was all that mattered to me. (Strangely, in the dream, my grandmother was a very young girl).

The police continued to look for the body but were unsuccessful. They realised it was in the car but presumed I would have dumped it in the river. They were all looking underwater when it was under the ground all the time.

At the place where the head was buried all the fruit trees were growing mad and dropping huge fruits but under the skin of the fruit was grey hair (very freaky). I destroyed all the fruit as it fell from the trees.

Suddenly I realised I had forgotten where the car was buried, then I remembered: It was the ground underneath my lounge which was doubling as my bed. I moved the lounge to see if there was any sight of the body there but no, the ground was all grown over normally. A lot of time must have passed. Still everyone was looking in rivers ponds and oceans but found nothing.

In real life, my grandfather died about five years ago. He was very sick for a long time before.

Dream edited for easier reading - JT, 2005

2004

Jane Teresa's View

Jane Teresa Anderson

Overview Interpretation & Dream Alchemy Practice suggestion

OVERVIEW INTERPRETATION

Hi Chris,

It’s a common experience to wake up from a dream in which you’ve calmly committed a murder and be horrified at how normal it all seemed in the dream. Your feelings about the dream murder are an important key to its interpretation. It’s also vital to remember that death in dreams is about the death of an attitude or belief within yourself. Murderous dreams have nothing whatsoever to do with murderous intent!

You were helping your grandfather to die. Your grandmother, although upset at losing her husband, didn’t blame you. She understood that you were doing what needed to be done to help.

Throughout the rest of your dream you felt no guilt or remorse. You worked to hide the evidence from the police, burying the body, hiding the gun and destroying the fruit, but you still felt comfortable within yourself about what you had done. You were so comfortable that you were able to give the news to your grandmother and even check under the lounge to see if the dead body was visible.

As your grandfather was, in waking life, very sick for a long time before he died, he symbolises something within you that has or had been in pain emotionally for some time. When was this? Although you committed the murder in the dream, there are many references to this being a long time in the past: your grandmother was young, the ground where the body parts were buried had grown over normally and enough time had passed for the trees to grow very old (grey haired) fruit. The sense is that your dream is looking back at how you have, in the past, tried to heal your own emotional pain by putting an end to your suffering and how these changes have become incorporated deeply into your nature.

How old was your grandmother in the dream? What was happening for you when you were that age? Your grandmother may represent your own feminine nature (as a male, your female side) that understood your pain and knew that you had to do what you had to do. Looking back, what was it that you did to try to help end your suffering?

The police represent authority in your dream. The police officer said she was sent to “keep an eye” on you. The police represent your own inner judgement and perhaps your feelings of being judged by the various authorities in life. It seems that although you felt comfortable with how you handled your pain, you still have an inner voice interested in judging your actions.

You shot your grandfather in the head and then decapitated him. The head, in dreams, often refers to the way you think in contrast with the heart that represents the way you feel. It’s best to make decisions with a 50:50 mix of head and heart. Your dream shows you tried to separate (decapitate) your thoughts from your feelings. Is this how you coped with the emotional pain? Did you work to end (kill, murder) your suffering by making a clean cut between how you felt and how you thought? Did you create a whole new way of thinking about your situation rather than dealing with your feelings?

Your dream suggests you have incorporated this way of thinking deeply into your being. For example, the head was swallowed up into the ground of your being, your being (the ground) has grown (over) normally and is bearing fruit. And yet, although you feel comfortable about who you are and how you think within yourself, you are hiding the evidence (the fruit, the police) to some extent.

There are two key sentences in your dream:

The police “wouldn't know what had happened” (if you hid it well).

Your grandmother “knew what had happened. She didn't blame me and that was all that mattered to me.”

In summary you have made changes to the way you think about a deep emotional pain to help yourself cope and it is working well for you, within yourself. You did what seemed right to you at the time and so there is no blame. However, in situations where people aren’t privy to what happened (to how you really felt or feel) you feel judged. On an inner level, you forget, from time to time, how you felt in the past and in those moments you judge yourself harshly, sending out your own inner police to search the waters. Water usually represents emotions in dreams, so your dream solution is spot on: when you wander into head-judgement mode remember that you did what you did because of heartfelt emotional pain. When you feel comfortable with those feelings (share them, talk about them) your inner police will finally understand and, like your grandmother, they will have no grounds for blame.

You will find it helpful to read ‘Death and murder’ in Dream Alchemy, pages 283-88, ‘Decapitated’ in Dream Alchemy, pages 270-75 nd ‘Dead body discovered’ in Dream Alchemy, pages 32-7.

DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE

Writing Exercise

Once you have identified the painful situation you tried to put an end to, write an epitaph to the pain. It’s time to come clean about the dream murder, to feel comfortable about sharing the pain so you can be public about the death and then lay the issue to rest. Write the epitaph fare-welling the pain, thanking it for what it has taught you and blessing it in death for the positive fruits you now harvest proudly as a result. You might like to hold a small ceremony, reading the epitaph aloud and perhaps planting a tree to mark the freeing occasion.

How does this work?

By working with dream elements and symbols in writing form you are communicating with your unconscious mind in its own language to create change, to explore your feelings and to resolve and heal past issues.

More details on various writing exercises as Dream Alchemy Practices in: “Dream Alchemy”, by Jane Teresa Anderson, pages 337-338.

Jane Teresa Anderson

You can consult with Jane Teresa or her Dream Team and receive your interpretation by email within five working days.

ORIGINAL THREAD

Below is the original forum discussion on this dream, contributed before Jane Teresa's 2004 interpretation.

Star

05:51 11/12/2001 

Wow Chris - When I saw your title my immediate thought was what part of yourself are you killing off now?

Seems to me you are going through some pretty full on processes, yeah?

Wonder if this one is about severing within yourself all that your Grandfather represents with no emotional attachment (the way in which you went about it and the fact that no trace was found of the body parts despite everyone looking in the water for them) but with some feelings of guilt at doing so?

I recently had a Grandfather appear in a dream and I saw him as representing the patriachal energy that is changing which has been such a dominant energy within each and the world for such a long time, which is also helpless to stop the changes that are occuring for many as more and more are clearing out all that old conditioning and coming into a new awareness of the true reality of life.

Taking your own power back, stepping into your own power more fully?

What a great dream.

Star

06:02 11/12/2001 

Is the fruit with the grey hair under the skin possibly symbolising the fruits of your labour which have now become a new wisdom within you??

chris

22:28 12/12/2001 

I agree with all youve said and inccidentally you said something that triggereda response...you mentioned the hair under the skin of the friut.....and of late I have let a number of things get "under my skin " so to speak......and most of those situations are ones Ive puut myself in ...and whenI reallly look at them ...their not really as bas as I think and are actually quite benificial to me. I must say...I certainly felt empowerd by this dream and woke feeling as if I had a secret knowlege of some sort (ie...I knew wher the body was ...but know one else would ever know)

Star

14:06 13/12/2001 

Could this "secret knowledge" be a truth you now know in relation to physical reality - the death of the patriachal energy - the body - the earth, which for most is hidden knowledge???

It is a very old belief that the Earth represents our bodies, the water our blood, and the air our spirit.

Could the reference to the "grey/white hair/ideas growth - under the skin" be implying to use your wisdom and new knowledge when things do get under your skin??

The semi-automatic gun - representing taking back your power and not now coming from a space of re-action (the re-acting of old patterns of behaviour and thought) but from a space of reflection and response???