THE DREAM This past week or two I've had more than one dream about being sexually assaulted and or kidnapped. This is the most recent one. I can't remember how it started, but I do think my recent ex boyfriend was there and my family. From what I remember I was at a grocery store and in the movie rental part. There was a friendly man helping me choose a movie, but there were only a few movies in the whole store and it was so frustrating because he kept trying to make me rent a movie I didn't want. My friend came in and asked what I was doing and that everyone was looking for me, then he went back into the grocery part of the store. The next thing I remember is the clerk being kind of manipulative and some how I ended up in a car with him (it was night time) and right when I was in the car I was nervous and trying to reach for my mace without him noticing. I told him I wasn't comfortable with going anywhere and he locked the doors. I tried to spray him with my mace, but it hardly had any effect and I got out of the car while he rubbed his eyes, but he was right behind me. We were still in the store parking lot, but it was empty and the only light was from those orangish yellowish street lights. There was a neighborhood right next to it and also kind of a main road, but no one around. He tackled me in the parking lot trying to rape me and some how I would manage to get up and try and run and I remember basically taking a beating and trying to fight back. Eventually I got a good run while he was still on the ground. The whole time I was trying to yell help, but I could barely get it out and no one could hear me. I have asthma in real life and in my dream I was so scared because running really gets me, but I just kept running. I was on the main part of the road and saw one car behind me and contemplated waving it down, but didn't know if it was him so I ran into a neighborhood and looking for a house that I could get help in, they were all asleep. I kept trying to yell for help, but it was like I hardly had a voice. There were a few sparse houses with dim lights on, but they still looked asleep. He was still chasing me from a distance and I finally just chose a house to run into and I looked all through the first floor for a bedroom to hide in until morning because I didn't want to scare them and have them turn the lights on so that he would know where I went. Some how though I ended up downstairs and a girl was there asking who I was and I told her I needed help because some guy was trying to attack me, she thought I was a liar. Coincidentally, it was his house. He came down the stairs and I tried to hide in an empty room in the closet that had no door, while the girl just sat there. He came in the room and I remember my heart beating and he had a rifle and shot me a couple times and I was still alive trying to play dead, he shot me again, I tried to crawl out of the closet to the other room and he just walked over me and shot me two more times. That's how it ended.

GUESSWORK During the past month the dreamer had suffered severe turmoil. She broke up with her boyfriend who she thought she would marry. She found out her 5 year old cousin fighting a cancerous brain tumor only had 4 weeks left. Her brother was in serious car accident and shouldn't have lived. Three days later her little 5 year old cousin passed away from cancer and her ex boyfriend decided to not go to the funeral with her. She has missed so much school she thought she would lose her scholarship.

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. The dream features rape. That could associate with any situation where the dreamer feels abused. In this case it has a much wider meaning. The dreamer has had several problems which are wearing her down emotionally. She feels abused by life as a constant stream of real problems present themselves.
2. The dreamer yells for help. That a symbol for her emotional state. She wants to scream about her troubles but has had to bottle it all inside herself.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to the dreamers problems during the past month. The dream deals with the following themes
- Feeling abused
- Wanting to scream but unable to

If you weave together the different themes you find that they could capture this thought that the dreamer was thinking at the time-"I have had an awful month. I just want to scream! I feel abused by the world!"