A nine-year old girl had the following dream:

“I dreamed I was in an arcade with my friend, we were having fun and there were superheros all around us. I discovered a hole in the ground with a slide in it, so I went down the slide and it was a lot of fun! When I got to the bottom I met Winnie the Pooh and his friends, they were all really happy. Then I met Princess Jasmine. She told me that there was another princess who needed my help because she was surrounded by two-headed monsters. They were actually people, but they had been drinking a poison potion that turned them into scary two-headed monsters, and the princess needed my help to be safe. So I went and helped her, and then I got to talk to another princess after that. There were lots of baby animals around us and I was really happy.”

In working with this dream, I first spoke with the little girl whose dream it was, then later I had the chance to speak with her mother. The overall tone of the dream was very happy, a little girl’s “dream” so to speak. Princesses, Winnie the Pooh and friends, superheros and a slide that transports her to another world… what a fun adventure.

The crux of the story is the rescue mission to help the princess in distress. I could tell this little girl’s psyche was amazingly healthy and strong, and that she was a natural born healer and helper. Most dreams contain elements of conflict, and often the conflict is a greater part of the dream. But in this dream the majority of the actions are fun and the emotions are happy.

Embedded deep in the middle of the dream is the point of conflict, the rescue mission for the princess who needs help. The superheros at the beginning of the dream set the tone for, and may very well represent, the parts of this girl that are ready to step in and take action to protect those in need against those who are doing wrong. In the arcade the girl is with her friend, but she goes down the slide alone.

My own personal “hit” on the slide was that it symbolically represented the girl’s way of dropping down into her own self, including her intuitive abilities and empathic sense of what other people need, which showed her how to help them.

The people who turned into two-headed monsters after drinking poison gave me the image of adults drinking alcohol, and the changes in their personality that can occur as a result. Perhaps the two heads are a metaphor for the two aspects of a person, before and after drinking, or the unpredictable (and sometimes scary) behavior that can result from chemical alteration of the personality.

After speaking with the girl, I asked her mother privately if there might be anyone in her daughter’s life who could be using alcohol, relating it to the symbolism of the poison in the dream. The mother confirmed that her daughter had a good friend whom she loved spending time with, but the friend’s mother had a tendency to imbibe. It then became very clear to both of us that this dream was an outline of the girl’s attempt to help protect her friend from the negative effects that alcohol was having on her friend’s mother.

The dream ends with the dreamer talking to yet another princess, and being surrounded by baby animals. While it is common for children to dream of animals, they can also represent our instincts and intuition. This happy ending seems like a nice reward for a superhero’s job well done.

Mimi Pettibone is the creator of the Enchanted Art Oracle Cards, and offers consultations, classes, and groups at East West Bookshop in Seattle

This ‘Ask The Dream Detective’ post is from Mimi’s Dream Column for the New Spirit Journal