dream about a burgler, a baby & armor

"so last night I dreamt that I was in my apartment looking out onto the street, unlike in real life, in my dream my apartment faced a busy street, full of people. I noticed a boy/man at the door, I thought he was just peeking in, but then I realized that I had left the door unlocked and this is what he was noticing. He saw me running for the door and burst in before I could stop him. He smiled and started toward me- I screamed and grabbed a phone and started to call 911. He told me it didn't' matter, he didn't care. he proceeded to slowly follow me around the room and I described by situation to 911- I don't think he ever really touched me- he got bored of scaring me and left.

My parents of course found out this happened, and told me I was careless to leave the door unlocked and I would have to live with them for awhile (I think this is a direct representation of a conversation I'd had the day before about Britney Spears being put under a conservatorship, lol- and maybe also a tie to my "over-nurturing" mother :) I had my own room in my parent's house, but I had to take care of someone else's baby. Weird.

My mom took me shopping, we looked at jewelry- she hated everything I liked ,and everything I liked was way expensive. I bought nothing, because what I wanted was this giant necklace made of different pieces/shapes of brilliant red stained glass. It fit over my chest like beautiful armor, covering me from neck and shoulders to mid torso. My mom thought it ridiculous. I loved it. It was $11,000.

I also remember a part where i was running- I love running dreams because you feel so free and you don't get winded, you can run forever! I was running and nothing was slowing me down (usually I can't actually run as fast as I'd like in dreams) but I realized that my back hurt, and although I was running swiftly, my right leg was out of joint and not even touching the ground.
This odd realization made me want to stop running, even though it appeared the reason I was able to run so fast WAS this unique leg problem,.. I was having a hard time with this in the dream- do I keep running or fix my leg? Why fix it if it HELPS me run? Will I cause permanent damage to it overall if i continue?

that's all I can remember- hope that gives you something to analyze ;)" - Krys, 27

Thank you, Krys, that certainly gives me plenty to work with! First things first, isn't it interesting how so often when we dream we are in our home, in reality we are in a completely different place? For myself, it seems that there are a series of places I tend to dream about over and over, for example, two houses I lived in as a child, and my ex boyfriend's house. None of these three places is realistically portrayed in my dreams, for whatever reason, the associations these places have in my mind make their representations look very different in my dreaming world than they would look in real life.

It is the association that seems to shape the place in dreams, for example, the house of my Ex is huge, dark and confusing, complicated with long hallways leading to unused rooms. This is not unlike the ways in which the opposite sex can confuse a person, and in this case I associated the resident of the domicile to the geography of the place. I think you may be doing the same thing in your dream, Krys.

Your apartment is a direct reflection of yourself in your dreams, as is your body. In this case, your apartment is facing a busy street and apparently prone to a sort of invader. I suspect you are grappling with some issues of identity, mostly centered around the way that the world perceives you. It seems that your home is the place where what is public meets what is private- and you've forgotten to lock the door!

The young man who enters your home seems to reflect the anxiety that many women have of being overpowered by a man. However, it's important to note that this man seems to have no intention of harming you- scaring you is quite enough for him. Perhaps he's a symbol of someone unwelcome who is rooting around in your life, or invading your personal space for their own gains. Regardless, you reach out to authority figures (first the police, and then your parents) to aid you, but they do not come through for you. Instead, your parents seem to blame you for leaving yourself open to attack and then they demand that you come home.

It sounds like you have a complicated relationship with your parents, certainly at least with your mother. Your conversation about the coservatorship of Britney Spears may well have influenced the turn that your dream takes next.

Your parents allow you to have your own room, but require you to nurture the baby of an unknown mother. Having your own room may stand for something as simple as having your own thoughts, or opinions, things your parents cannot take from you. In a sense though, the room is something your parents have given you, as is the baby. The addition of the baby to your dream adds another layer. This may be a simple reflection of the desire of most parents to be grand parents. The baby could also be emblematic of a dream, or a hope that you're nurturing. The care of the child could also be a reminder for you to be more selfless, or to take on responsibility in a more graceful way.

Now the jewelry shopping. Most women love to shop, and it seems that this is the case for both you and your mother. Instead of being able to enjoy the experience together, the two of you disagree on what to purchase. The item you desire most is an odd choice- a sort of red glass armor, priced way out of your budget.

Red is commonly associated as the color of passion, life, blood and sexuality. It's glass, so it's hard, but it's also fragile. Your mind is choosing some interesting symbols for the thing you desire, creating this object with which to cover your body with, a fierce but delicate body armor in the tones of life itself. I suspect that this body armor leads back to the original scene of the dream, in which you grapple with the way the world perceives you. If you had this beautiful and expensive armor, you could be protected in some way from the slings and arrows of the world.
For whatever reason, your mother dislikes the armor. Perhaps she doesn't think red is quite your color. Perhaps you believe she doesn't trust you to decide for yourself, or perhaps you know that your mother wouldn't want to buy something so deeply subconscious as red jeweled body armor... only you know what you hope that armor is there to protect you from!

The fact that the cost of the armor is so memorably high means that it's out of your reach... though not necessarily out of your mother's purchasing abilities. But just because a parent has something to give, be it money, advice, love or trust, doesn't mean they will provide it. Her motivations in your dream as well as in life, are likely to remain a mystery.

Now for the final portion of your dream. As we've discussed, dreams about your body are like dreams about your home- direct reflections of how you see yourself. In this case, you are dreaming that there is something wrong with your leg. Legs are the appendages that keep us standing upright and enable us to move. They are the things that get us where we most want to go.

In this final portion of the dream, you are running in much the same way that a person would if they were flying in their dreams. Often times, when a person is running in their dreams they are being pursued and feel a sense of terror. That sort of dream about running would be a reflection of anxiety. Instead, you run in this dream with an enormous sense of freedom, though you never seem to be able to go fast enough to please yourself. While trying to get where ever it is your going, you look down and notice that your leg is dislocated, but that the injury isn't impeding your progress, if anything, it's helping.

So let's quickly tie these two ideas, you're running well and you feel strong, but your leg is dislocated- this indicates that you have a goal in mind and you are focused on achieving it, but something about the way you're getting there is flawed. At least it looks flawed! Although you can see that things aren't how that should be, you are making progress. What's interesting here is that in the dream you feel no pain from this injury, so it is your intellect rather than your emotions or your body that forces you to question whither or not the injury is a bad thing.
In your life, you are making progress and meeting your goals, but something about this looks very wrong to you. You have to ask yourself over and over "is this right? It's not supposed to be this way, will I damage myself permanently if I keep going like this?"

When a person has a series of dreams in short scenes like this, they are often unrelated to one another. Here, the first two scenes are solidly related by similar emotional content and themes, and it's possible that the last two are as well.

thank you for sending me your dream!