Interpretation of DA's Dream - Mercenaries in the Warehouse

This is a dream I recorded from a third party for the purposes of interpreting someone else’s dream.  As this is a new free of charge ‘service’ I am offering on my Blog, I had to use someone who is known to me. He verbally recounted the dream, whilst I transcribed it into text (in the third person).  Obviously, because I wish to publish the dream online, I have anonymised the individual. I am however able to say that DA is a 23 year old male from north London, who works in a warehouse environment. He has appeared, under the same pseudonym, DA, in some of my own dreams recorded on this Blog. 

Please note that this is the very first time I have ever interpreted someone else's dream and all observations included in this report come from my research into universal dream symbolism and my own interpretative logic in applying such symbolism to the manifest dream content. Obviously, as I am not a psychiatrist or therapist, I am unable to go into in-depth psychoanalysis when interpreting the dreams of others.

DA was at the distribution warehouse in which he works. He was standing, chatting to another colleague, although he was unable to recall exactly who this was. They were standing by the shutters, connected to the loading bay for the trucks. DA could see that it was daylight, but there was a very heavy rainstorm.  Suddenly the rain started to ‘fall’ in reverse, rising up into the sky. DA could feel a sucking sensation - as if everything was being pulled out of the warehouse by the rain rising upwards. He saw his colleagues being sucked out of the warehouse. There was some form of explosion, and the rain fell back down from the sky into the warehouse. DA ran and climbed up the racks in the warehouse to get away from the water, which he described as a 'whitewash'. From the windows at the top of the warehouse he could see what he described, first as SAS men, then mercenaries, climbing down ropes from helicopters onto the warehouse roof. DA thought the explosion of rain must have been caused by the mercenaries as a tactic in their attack. They were dressed in black and were armed with MP5 machine guns. They stormed the warehouse, shooting. DA was terrified. He watched his colleagues - the ones who had not been sucked out of the warehouse by water - kneeling down on their knees, being shot by the mercenaries. The mercenaries saw DA. He climbed to the end of the racks and onto the beams. There was a gunshot, aimed at him, and he woke up.

Workplace

1. Stress about needing to work harder/be more effective at work
2. Anxiety about current project/task or job security
3. An outstanding task which needs completion
4. Overworked/preoccupied with work – lack of leisure/relaxation

Colleague

1. Aspects of waking relationship with this person – difficulties/support
2. Ambition, struggles, competitive nature
3. Work-related stress

Warehouse

1. Stored energy/hidden resources
2. Memories; ambitions placed on hold

Shutters

1. The ‘shutting out’ of oneself in a given real-life situation; someone else is shutting you out
2. Feelings someone is trying to hide something from you

Rain

1. Forgiveness/good grace
2. Symbolic of tears, crying or sadness; negative emotions of feeling unsettled/lacking direction
3. Fertility and renewal
4. Seen from a window – spiritual ideas and insights are brought to awareness; potential for romance
5. Rain/storm clouds – poor management and misfortune; sorrow; broken relationships

Explosion

1. Repressed anger and aggression; such emotions coming to the surface
2. Something about to be exposed or brought to the consciousness
3. Injustice

Flood

1. An attack from an enemy
2. Overwhelmed by an emotional issue, where negative moods have been repressed for too long
3. The clearing away of old habits/problems – cleansing/fresh start
4. Need to release some sexual desires

Climbing

1. A struggle to be overcome; goals may be in reach
2. A level of prominence in a socio-economic sphere

Rack

Preoccupation with a problem which has caused anxiety

Helicopters

1. Ambitions and achievements; the pursuit of goals
2. Higher level of consciousness

Ropes

1. Connection and attachment
2. Bondage, restriction, captivity
3. Climbing down a rope – professional or personal decline or downturn in progress

Roof

1. Separation between states of consciousness
2. Imposition of thoughts, intrusions and judgements of others; authority
3. Ambition, upstartism
4. Need to surpass a looming problem/obstacle

Mercenaries

1. Anger/frustration giving way to violent tendencies
2. Feelings of disempowerment, frustration or resentfulness
3. Need for immediate action or attention

Black

1. The subconscious; danger; threat; mystery; loss; mourning; rejection; hate; malice
2. Lack of love/support

Gun

1. Danger; threat; anger; aggression; defensiveness; need to protect self
2. Issues of authority/dependence
3. Power and pride
4. The male phallus and sexual urges
5. Confrontation; victimisation; targeting

Attack by others

1. Feelings character is being questioned
2. Feelings of being stressed, vulnerable or helpless
3. Difficult changes in waking-life

Hiding

1. Something hidden/undisclosed information
2. Avoiding facing up to situation/feelings of guilt
3. Trying to avoid the implications of a confrontation with authority
4. Seeking a sense of security/protection

Kneeling

Surrender or yielding to another; open to the influence of others

Witnessing assassination

1. Need to pay more attention to some small detail
2. Feelings of being alone/lacking support
3. Notion of an unjust decision/unfair judgement being made

Shooting

To see shooting symbolises an aim, target or goal

Beam

1. Situation requires focus and full attention
2. Various aspects of life which need to be balanced

Escape

1. Need to leave a restrictive or constraining situation
2. A refusal to confront or address problems in waking life
3. An urge to distance self from a negative situation

I think this dream represents a conflict – between DA’s current job and other ambitions and goals. If DA had not successfully escaped losing his job, like some of his colleagues, he would have been free to pursue other avenues of employment or life choices and thus, there is a conflict between feeling trapped in his current job and wishing to maintain his current job security.  The mercenaries were descending from ropes – the ropes seem to represent a fastening or constraint of some sort. The ropes enable the mercenaries to climb down from their lofty position in the sky (which might represent future, opportunity, possibility etc – due to its abstract, nebulous, wide-open nature). DA does not descend the ropes, he passively watches authorities figures touching down on the roof of the building which he inhabits – his current security and representative of the framework of his life generally (full-time workplace, sole source of income, works and socialises with close friends who are colleagues). Just prior to the attack, there was the anticipation of some threat – the water may symbolise tides of change, a destructive force. DA certainly viewed it negatively in the dream, which left him with feelings of unease upon waking.

The mercenaries may represent management and authority – they descend from above, yet from out-of-the-blue (literally, as they are first seen in the sky at some distance), from helicopters (representing DA’s desire to be in a similarly superior position – perhaps as his own boss or in pursuit of his ultimate ambition?) into his workplace. There are recurrent themes of cleansing or the wiping clean of a slate, but also suggestions that DA may perceive the situation with some suspicion or doubt – i.e. the rain falling upwards, the ‘explosion’ as part of a master plan by the mercenaries, the flood having threatening overtones etc). Certainly, in his description of ‘mercenary’ to identify the nature of his attackers, and occurrence of symbolism such as the attackers lowering from ropes onto the roof; the kneeling colleagues being assassinated by gunshot, there are clear hints that DA feels that some of the decisions made in his workplace may have been unjust or unfair. There is a subtext of guilt – does DA feel he may not work as hard as others in the workplace, but has managed to escape the consequences, whereas they lost jobs? DA is also exerting some rebellion in the dream - he climbs structures (racks, beams) in the warehouse location to avoid detection/confrontation rather than submit to the threat, unlike his colleagues. It may be that he perceives them as weaker or giving in to authority, whereas he is  implicitly questioning and challenging it, albeit without taking positive or explicit action against it, perhaps in fear of consequences. 

Certainly, the symbols of the dream lead to me feel DA has repressed aggression regarding something over which he has had no control or power – or he may have avoided expressing emotions which remain bubbling at the border of his consciousness. As DA is well-known to me, I am able to guess that he has a reserve of unexpressed anxiety regarding a recent family situation, which is inappropriate to disclose in this published report. I shall ask DA what he thinks of this conclusion. If the building he is in represents his current life, it may be that the mercenaries represent an uncontrollable and threatening intrusion by some external force which has managed to penetrate and intrude upon DA’s sense of security or well being.

The rain flowing backwards was difficult to interpret – it may mean that the traditional meanings attributed to the symbol of falling rain are reversed – or some perception has been changed – i.e. a contradictory position has been adopted in relation to some matter. When asked what words he would immediately associate with the element of water in his dream, DA said: clarity and freshness. The fact that the rain ‘falls’ in the wrong direction may be a recognition of a wrong direction or lack of direction in DA’s life – something unfulfilled or unsatisfied – unquenched thirst for some form of nourishment or creative outlet? Something unresolved? DA does take action in the dream – he climbs the racks and then makes escape via the beams in the roof, but overall, his action in the dream is significantly passive – as a witness to events which unsettle him, but in which he is unable to intervene or save his colleagues from slaughter. The combination of these aspects of the dream with the overtly aggressive, masculine symbols (guns, explosion) would suggest (in my personal reading) repressed aggression/passive-aggressiveness; avoidance or stoic response concealing underlying trauma.

A Freudian reading would indicate that the symbol of water represents amniotic fluids and foetal life and may relate to infant life of childhood and a return to these notions. It is thus symbolic of the feminine, symbolic of the elementary and physical (real-life) mother. It has a alchemistic or transforming quality and implicitly refers to cleansing by destruction - in the Bible, for example, God is depicted as sending a Great Flood to wash clean humanity of all degenerate qualities. A flood would therefore represent an accumulation of destructive or violent tendencies or perhaps, the urges of the libido. The structures in the dream also have Freudian meaning - the racks and beams are masculine symbols of the phallus - climbing a structure would symbolise sexual intercourse in Freudian analysis. Helicopters were also cited by Freud as being capable of interpreted as the male erection. Guns, as with other weapons - particularly those which penetrate in some way - are also symbolic of the male penis. Hollow objects, such as rooms, are symbolic of the female genitalia.

I shall be consulting DA further and asking him to free associate further on some of the symbolism of this dream. Any addendum information will be added to this report, below.