THE DREAM I was in the woods at night with my brothers. My younger brother asked me to cut his head off, I think because he was feeling so useless. So I had him pinned on the ground as I worked through his neck with a machete. Afterwards, I felt horrible and wasn't sure how I was going to explain that to my family. Then, the Chinese Army ran over us. Hundreds of troops literally ran over us. We tried to hide by laying down in leaves, but they weren't too concerned with us. They might have circled us at one point, but overall, they weren't too concerned with us at all and just kept going.

GUESSWORK This dream occurred the night after the dreamer seriously questioned what it would be like to just cut his family off. He was starting to feel how they were a drain on him. His little brother was had the worst of it as a child and was typical of the family's dysfunction.

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 dreamer felt his brother was typical of his family problems and was sick of his family's dysfunctional behavior. In the dream the dreamers brother admitted how useless he was. This could represent this dysfunctional behavior.
2. The dreamer had been thinking about his brothers and family in general the night before so the dream could relate to these thoughts.
3. The dream deals with the dreamer having to explain his own actions towards his brother. This could represent the dreamer asking himself how he could cope with cutting himself off from his family.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to a relationship - the dreamer had been thinking how his family were a drain on him. His brothers were dysfunctional and full of problems. The dream seems to deal with the following themes
- explaining his actions towards his family
- the dreamers relationship
- his brother and family being useless

If you weave together the different themes you find that they capture these thoughts -"Cutting myself off from my family is not so easy. They are so dysfunctional and useless. But they are such a drain I have got to just go ahead and do it"

See how key feelings, the type we might write down in diaries, translate into dream symbols