If you have ever felt emotionally attacked, and especially if you are a survivor of narcissistic abuse, you might relate to this type of dream. Following is a dream that I had of being attacked, and what it meant to me.
I was recently in a professional relationship where some strange things were happening during our interactions. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so the first time it happened I chalked it up to a misunderstanding. After all, as Byron Katie says “No two people are having the same conversation”. While I don’t believe this is necessarily always the case, people do project onto others, and can hear things in a way the speaker didn’t intend, due to the filters through which each of us experiences the world. But then another snafu happened. Some people would have cut ties with the other person at this point, and perhaps I should have. Instead, I tried to clear things up again. Then, I had this dream:
It’s night time, and I’m at some kind of place like a camp for adults. Some women are perched on some logs in the water, encouraging me to go in. I think this might be a trick as there are some strange, prehistoric looking creatures around (like mythical dinosaurs or dragons, but different). It doesn’t seem safe to go in. Yet they are all is telling me it is safe. Then an old boyfriend appears and reaches out his hand towards me as if to say “come in, I’ll make sure you are safe”. I am aware that historically I have felt he was not the right match for me, and I would not normally blindly go along with what he says. Yet I so want to relax into that sense of safety and trust with someone. It seems like life would be so much easier. So even though part of me tells me to explore a little further whether or not this is safe, I go ahead I trust him and enter the water.
I wade through the shallow water until I get to the deeper area which requires swimming. As I swim, I look down and see 3 creatures circling below me. They look like female triplets who live under water, wearing identical dresses. They have very sharp, pointy teeth, like a piranha. I instinctively feel they are not safe, yet everyone had reassured me that I would be OK in this water. So I keep swimming, wanting to believe them. Then suddenly one of the creatures rushes toward me, and bites into my thigh with her razor sharp teeth, taking a chunk out of my leg.
My adrenaline surged, causing my heart to pound so hard it woke me up.
Dreams of being physically attacked often happen when we are feeling emotionally attacked.
My dreaming mind predicted what happened next in waking life: this person flat out attacked me two days after having this dream. This was the third and final communication that went awry. In waking life the attack was verbal rather than physical, but it feels just as painful, doesn’t it?
Let’s look at the dream symbolism:
In the dream, I’m being encouraged to enter something that I don’t think is safe. But other are telling me it’s safe. So I go against my inner voice, and join them. This is the very definition of gaslighting: when another person (or people) try to talk you out of what you know to be real and true. When we are gaslighted enough, it’s easy to develop an inner voice in our own head and start to gaslight our selves as well. Watch out for this, and don’t believe that voice.
This person I interacted with in waking life had provided a false sense of safety and even authority in their interactions with me – to the point of putting down my own knowledge of a subject matter that we had common experience with, making themselves the only authority. This is another thing to look out for: when someone treats you like they are in the one-up, and you are in the one-down. Even if they have some kind of professional expertise (like a doctor or mechanic) that you don’t – and especially if you both hold expertise in the matter at hand – no one should treat you like they are superior and you are inferior. No one.
So why were there 3 creatures in the water? The negative interactions with this person in waking life happened 3 times (more on a smaller scale, but 3 were significant).
Why did the creatures circle around me? This is what predators do before they attack, and in retrospect I can see that in some of our prior encounters she was she was gearing up to attack me. Not doing so yet, but silently circling in an eerie way that actually was kind of creepy.
Why did the creatures have sharp teeth? This person had something on/about/related to them that was very sharp and pointy (to protect identity I will leave out what that was). Sharp teeth can be used to attack – just like sharp words – and both teeth and words come from a person’s mouth. Symbolically, even in handwriting analysis, sharp jagged angles indicate aggression, where smooth round shapes denote friendliness.
What about the former boyfriend, what does he represent? He represents someone that I never fully trusted, and one time when I did let my guard down to count on him for something, he dropped the ball. Sometimes dreams will repeat a theme to get their message across.
Summary
If I had any doubts in my mind about whether this person was correct and that I should go along with what they say, or whether I was right in questioning how emotionally safe it was for me to be around them, my dream made it crystal clear. As the saying goes “Once is by chance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern.” This 3rd and final “snafu” was now clearly a pattern, not a simple misunderstanding, but a deliberate attack. At this point, I cut ties with them.
Our dreams speak the truth, even when our conscious mind can cause us to second guess ourselves. You can always trust your dreams. I was very grateful for this one, because if there was even a shadow of a doubt in my mind as to whether I was simply misunderstanding them, this dream made it explicitly clear that they had bad intentions, and sure enough two days later this played out in waking life.
Have you ever dreamed that you were attacked? If so, see if you can connect it to what was going on with you at the time, and whether you were feeling emotionally attacked (or even physically threatened). Sometimes well-meaning people snap, but in other cases we are dealing with an antagonistic personality. It is very common for survivor of narcissistic abuse to have dreams and nightmares of being attacked, but anyone can have them at any time, especially when they are feeling threatened.
Our dreams can provide messages to warn us of who is safe to be around, and who is not. I’ve heard from many woman who dodged very dangerous situations – and people – because of a dream warning. The subconscious can pick up on many subtle clues that the conscious mind wants to ignore. We also are more tapped into psychic and telepathic information while in the dream state.
Mimi Pettibone is a hypnotherapist, coach, and dream worker who offers individual consultations and groups, including support groups for survivors of narcissistic abuse. She loves helping people connect with their authentic self, find their truth and purpose, fulfill their potential, and access healing on all levels.
