Hi,
Just after midnight last night I woke up, terrified after a nightmare. I had only been asleep for about an hour and it is fairly unusual for me to dream that "early on" in the night. It was a very clear dream, almost like a film:

I was down by the harbour, in some kind of night club on board a ship. There were two men who started following me (and someone else who was with me). They were very smartly dressed in white smoking jackets and they had guns. (I wasn't partiucarly scared at this point - it was mostly like a film; a regular chase in a thriller of some sort. It all took place at night, so the entire dream was in semi-darkness.)

We ran across a square, hid in a restaurant, ran out the back etc. Finally we ran to the docks and jumped on board a speed boat, instructiong the surprised speed boat driver to help us flee. He helped us and raced off to another part of the harbour. There we climbed on board a big yacht. There was a dinner party going on at the top deck of the yacht, but at first the dinner guests had not noticed that we we had climbed aboard on the lower decks.

Suddenly we (the speed boat driver, the second person with me and I) heard a terrible racket going on upstairs. The people who was looking for us where crashing the party. I remember jumping into the water to hide. I seemed to spend a lot of time swiming along the hull, under the boat etc. So did the speed boat driver.

Suddenly he screamed and was dragged down under the surface - and he vanished. I was swiming in circles around the ancor line trying to stay out of sight from people on the yacht. The water was freezing cold, like it would be this time of year. Then all of a sudden I felt something pulling me, dragging me down under water. I set of at great speed, tugged by some kind of jet engine (like a motor that pulls you forward underwater??) straight out into the sea, leaving the harbour. I couldn't see much, just water rushing past my face. I could hardly breath. Finally I stopped. I was half way under a motor boat. I swam to the surface and got a quick glance of some one sitting in kerosene lamp light on the rear deck.

I instantly knew I was betrayed and that this person was the "second person" who had been with me earlier and that HE was the bad guy - not the people chasing me. As a reflex I dove under water again, and there was the speed boat driver, intangled in a net and full of sea weed, staring eyes; He was dead but he was still screeming; "Distressed! Distressed".

Here I woke up. I was very scared and actually had to get out of bed for a while. Strangely enough, the man had actually screemed the very word: "distressed" - in English -in the dream, although English is not my first language.

Hi Karin,

For someone who has English as a second language, I must say your written English is superb!

I can see why that dream frightened you. There's a lot of symbolism in it, but what intrigues me the most is "Distressed!" There's a joke that I've seen on greeting cards before where it shows a woman who is stressed. Her hair is sticking up and she has an anguished look on her face. You open it up and it shows a big slice of cake and she's all happy and it reads: "Stressed is Just Desserts Spelled Backwards."

The point is, do you think the word distressed, or at least it's letters, could be part of an acronym or palindrome? You may have seen, read, or heard a similar word that appeared in the context of the dream.

Also, are you in reality running away from something? Do you feel betrayed by someone?

Stressed??

Hi and thanx for the compliment! (Altough I know I cannot spell English very well ;-)

I must admit that I had also started to think of other meaning of the word "distressed". "This" and "stress"? "Des" and "Stressed" as in the opposite to stress (like desinformation etc)? Or maybe it is actually the true meaning of the word; a message saying that I am in fact distressed, although I mainly feel nothing at all.

I have also been thinking about the jet motor, dragging me along underwater. If the sea is to symbolize deep emotions in this context, what would this jet engine be that rushes me through it? It is possible that it symbolizes the intensive treatment that I am undergoing. I am on "sick leave" and undergoing Chiropractor treament because my back and several other parts of my body decided to pack it in about a month ago. This chiropractor treamtent deals with releasing emotional tension that is harboured in the body.

I suppose I am betrayed. I am a bit of a workoholic (an understatement) and I always feel betrayed by my own body when I fall ill and the body does not obey the mind. The other person is probably another part of me, who drags me out "to seas" instead of letting me get on with my business. But there could be many interpretations. I am mostly surprised by how frightened I felt when I woke up. I even considered getting dressed, leaving the house and drive off to a friends'.

Merry X-mas!