THE DREAM My family was driving towards a bridge that links one town to the other. It is a bridge from my childhood days. My husband was driving and as we approached the bridge I saw a young 18-20 year old girl with a shoulder length blond ponytail. She standing in the middle of the bridge pulling off her shirt. She already had her pants off and I was afraid she was going to completely strip so I told my son to cover his eyes. My son asked "why?" which caused my daughter to start asking "why?" as well. I gave some answer and then focused on this young, attractive girl, shapely, and physically fit girl. I thought she must have gone mad and felt it was such a waste and shame of a youthful life. As we approached the bridge, my husband slowed the car down so he would not hit her but he did not stop. He had every intention to just keep moving forward, not letting our plans be hindered, and to get to the destination we were going to. But when we got to the bridge I saw there was not 1 but 2 young attractive girls acting this way. And I also saw the girl was not actually stripping. She had on a camisole type of shirt under the shirt she took off and she was wearing short, tight, bloomer type of shorts under the pants she took off. She was taking off her clothes to get more comfortable as she was stopping the people who went over the bridge, pulled them from their cars and would strip them. The 2nd girl who was in the right lane close to the entrance of the bridge was in the process of holding someone down and stripping them. Then as we drove by the first girl, I saw her face was raging, and I realized she was not crazy at all but angry over something and was trying to make a statement by protesting this way. Yet her raging face made her unattractive, I thought. Then I saw the 2nd girl toss over the bridge into the river the person�s clothes she was stripping, and then I saw next to her a mound of clothes yet there were no people so it occurred to me that these girls may have been throwing people to their deaths over the bridge since this was a rather high bridge, but I did not know for sure if that was what they were doing. Then as we drove on across the bridge I realized if these girls had not been preoccupied, they surely would have rampaged our car and assaulted us in this humiliating and dreadful way, yet neither of them seemed to even notice us in their fury. Finally we crossed the bridge and I felt rather shaken by the whole incident and called the police.

GUESSWORK The day before the dreamer made the decision to put her dog to sleep. Her beloved dog was suffering from cancer and during the night she started howling with pain. The vet refused to put the dog to sleep because Japanese people do not put animals to sleep (the dreamer was born in America). She felt a lot of anger to the vet because of his incompetence and his lack of compassion. This made her think of other bad experiences with vets.

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. In the dream the dreamers children are questioning her in the same way as in real life. Her daughter thought putting down their dog was murder.
2. The dreamer was covering her children�s eyes. This represented the need maybe to have shielded her children from this whole difficult incident. In seeing a naked body this was something inappropriate for the child. In knowing their pet was to be destroyed this might obviously upset them.
3. The young girl about to die was young and attractive. This was "such a waste". This is in contrast to the loss of life with her dog who was in unbelievable pain.
4. The protests of the girl could either represent the real life protests of her children or the dreamers own rage against the vet.
5. The dreamer ends up wanting to call the police. This could relate to the dreamer wanting for this issue to be ended. That is either in the sense that the children stop their protests or in the sense that the dreamer wishes for her dog's suffering to end.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to a major incident the day before. The dream deals with the following themes
- A need to shield her children from something inappropriate
- A life that is worth living
- strong protests
- Her children questioning something
- a protest that is not noticed

If you weave together the different themes you find that they couldcapture these thoughts -"I told my children about my intention to put our dog down. Perhaps I should have just gone ahead and done it. I could have understood their protests if the dog was young and fit and healthy. I didn't have to tell them. I could have just told them that our dog had died! Then that would have shielded them from all the questions of morality."

However, the dream could have some other meaning. The girl stripping and protesting is difficult to interpret.