A rape dream often links to associated feelings of "powerlessness" and "humiliation" which the dreamer felt strongly in a quite different setting the day before.

THE DREAM I was watching a girl get raped and the guy that was raping her just kept picking and hurting her. He had raped her so bad and beat her so much that you really couldn't even see her face and her body was all covered in marks and bruises. She was crying and kept screaming at him and hitting him and telling him to stop, but he just kept hurting her. I remember seeing him biting her and waiting for a reaction from her and then would just get this satisfying look and bite her again. You could tell just by looking at her that she was in so much pain. I remember saying at one point why doesn't she get up and run away? There was a voice that said back to me in response because she is in to much pain to move. I felt very sad for her but at the same time felt like she should have done more to get away from him. One other thing that I remember is that it was kinda dark and they were in very shallow water it looked like in some kind of pipe kinda in a wooded area. I remember seeing a moon. I remember it being dirty (there was mud and stuff).

THE REALITY The previous day the dreamer had been visiting her in-laws family. The dreamer felt quite annoyed at the behavior of her sister in law. The dreamer has two beautiful little girls and is extremely proud of them. Her sister in law has two little twin boys. But the dreamer felt continually annoyed at the behavior of her sister in law. She seemed to constantly take attention away from her beautiful daughters and instead spotlight her twins.

It was just little things that kept annoying the dreamer. She noticed that whenever her children are playing with some toys then the twin boys are always wanting to take over and have that toy instead. Yet when its the other way round her children are told to let the twins have the toys. So really they were being treated differently.

THE INTERPRETATION Through experience we can see that many dreams link to something that happened the day before. When we know what to look for it is often easy to interpret dreams. The day before this dream the dreamer had something on her mind that really was eating away at her. Her sister in law had been drawing attention to her own children and taking the limelight away from the dreamers own two beautiful daughters. But how can we see a link between reality and the dream symbols of rape and torture?

Dreams will link to the very essence of our thought. Here the dream seems to have a particularly crucial moment. This phrase sticks out "I remember seeing him biting her and waiting for a reaction from her". Often a dream will slip in a particular phrase which is packed with meaning. The previous day the dreamer did indeed feel as if her sister in law was goading her and was waiting for a reaction. This shows that this single thought was crucial to the dreamers behavior. She indeed states that she did not act when her sister in law was treating her children differently. That the dreamers children were being overlooked and ignored.

Perhaps the rape can be seen to make greater sense here. The dreamer did feel as if her sister in law was doing something very wrong and was spoiling the occasion. The family get together was tainted by her sister in laws deliberate actions.

When we get caught up in the heat of a situation we can often exaggerate the importance of something. It builds up inside us and maybe the rape shows the true strength of feeling that the dreamer felt. She felt just like the girl - unable to act in the face of something terrible. The dream captures the essence of her feelings - the situation was eating away just in the way the girl was being picked on.

Symbolic Meanings
RAPE : "The dreamer feels that her sister in law was behaving badly. It was unfair. This was a peaceful family gathering yet deep down the dreamer sensed some evil intent within her sister in law. In reality the dreamer was proud of her beautiful daughters and wanted to show them off. Yet the whole situation was spoilt by the actions of her sister in law."
JUST KEPT PICKING: this symbol shows how this real life situation had just been nagging at the dreamer. Picking at her in the same way that the rapist picked on her child.
WAITING FOR A REACTION : The dreamer felt her sister was behaving badly and was picking on her children and waiting for a reaction from their mother.

DREAM MEANING The dream captures the following feeling within the dreamer - "I really get wound up by my sister in law. She always tries to draw attention to her children. Her children are always treated differently. I notice these things. But I don't like to say anything as it would make me seem like a bitch. ".

See how the dreams meaning is linked to the symbolic meanings discussed earlier