THE DREAM Last night I had a dream that was very disturbing. I was in my home with my year and a half old niece and my father. The dream shifted quit a few times and in the end I was left with a four or so year old niece and my father. My niece was running around naked, screaming at my father not to hurt her. He had been molesting her for at least a year now. I was there, I could see everything but I couldn't move. I was screaming at him to let her go too, but he was just laughing at us and chasing her around a wall in the middle of the kitchen that wasn't connected to anything. He finally caught her and then I was locked in a bathroom, but I could hear her screams and his laughter.

My mom and sister, my niece's mother came home, and then I had a body or something. I came out of my room and walked to my mom and sister. My sister was sitting in a chair and my mom next to her, my niece was back to being nearly two and was smiling happily at being with her mother. My dad came in and I said that he had to go to jail. He simply smiled and nodded, agreeing with me. I gently rolled up the sleeve of my niece's shirt to reveal a brand that he had given her while I was locked in the bathroom. It said something like "I'm an Asian whore," and other things I can't recall. I woke up after my mom and sister looked to my father.

GUESSWORK The day before the dreamer was annoyed at her father. He kept on quizzing her on the phone about her sex life. He was convinced that she was having sex with men whilst away at college. He ended up insulting her and implied that she was nothing better than a whore. She then talked to her mother and she had a wonderful conversation.

The "Guesswork" stage of interpreting a dream involves spotting issues likely to cause dreams. For help with this click here

ASSOCIATIONS AND SYMBOLIC MEANINGS
1. FATHER ABUSES NIECE: Rape and molestation can translate into day to day thoughts where women feel degraded. The dreamers father was insulting her and cheapening her.
2. JAIL. The dreamer tells her Father to go to jail and so thinks he has done something wrong. He has broken unwritten laws regarding how you should treat people.
3. SCREAMING: Screaming often shows a persons anger. She is screaming at her father because of her depth of feeling about being treated badly.
4. BRANDED.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to the dreamers nervousness. The dream deals with the following themes
- feeling sexually degraded
- feeling her Father had broken unwritten laws on how to behave

If you weave together the different themes you find that they could capture these thoughts -"My Father was really insulting to me yesterday and really made me feel sexually degraded."