This dreamer had been highly affected the previous day when meeting her brother in law who was dying of cancer. It is easy to see how these recent events and the emotions in the dream are linked

THE DREAM - I felt that I was in school grounds, but I don't know why that is. There were birds around, and people started bringing out large hamper - like containers which seemed to have food in them and said to someone, "So that's how you do it", meaning collect the birds for the night.

On the chest of the person beside me was the most beautiful little bird I had ever seen. It was vividly colourful, yellow stood out to me, and the person said to me "Here you are" and gave the bird to me. She placed it on my hand. Almost immediately a cat pounced from nowhere at the bird, but the bird managed to get away. Time and time again more and more cats attacked the bird and the bird kept on escaping from them but each time it was hurt more and more. All the time this was going on I was trying to save the bird. Finally, a female lion came along side me and grabbed the bird to the ground. I stood and looked at it. It had lost all of its beautiful colour, but it still was not dead. It was only barely alive and hardly moving.

I woke up then with a profound sense of loss, sadness and a feeling that it was all my fault.

GUESSWORK The dreamers brother in law was in his last stages of cancer. Highly emotional dreams where you wake up feeling sad are often easy to understand. They simply mirror the same emotion in real life.

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. It is easy to see how the bird is symbolic of her brother in law. The bird is barely alive and barely moving. That represents his final stages of cancer. 2. The dream is an emotional dream and so just mirrors real life. The dreamers brother in law is in the final stages of cancer. That provides a moment for reflection. You look back both at the cancer victims life and at your own life.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to the the dreamers brother in law who was in the final stages of cancer. Its easy to see how the dream deals with the following themes:
- Ill health where you are so ill that you lose all your colour and vitality.
- A feeling of sadness

If you weave together the different themes then you find that the dream could easily capture this following feeling - "My brother in law is in the final stages of cancer. He used to be so healthy yet now he has lost all his vitality and is barely alive."

The dreamer did not understand why the dream had a sense of guilt with it. Its difficult to know what this relates to but if we start thinking profoundly then our thoughts can be very deep. We believe that we should be doing more even though we know we have done as much as we can.