Dreamed I cut my arm off (not as gross as it sounds)

[Ms Grace]

This is a weird one...not as gory as the title suggests...

I was out in public and, for some reason that makes no sense to me now I'm awake, I decided I needed to cut my left arm off. Out comes the hack saw (which I conveniently had) and proceeded to saw it off at the elbow. There was no pain and no blood, in fact it was as if my arm was dead wood, unneeded, brittle and dry. Mission accomplished I felt pretty proud of my achievement even though I knew people would think it an odd thing to do to myself.

Then I realised I had too many small things to carry, more than I could manage with one hand! D'oh! I started to panic, "had I made a big mistake??" Not to be defeated I rolled the items up in a large cloth (which I again conveniently had) and used my severed arm as the pole to carry it over my shoulder hobo style.

Again I thought that was pretty smart but as I walked "home" (not my real home) I started to worry that my father wouldn't understand why I cut off my arm and that there was now no way to undo it. I was still glad I did it though! And that's all I remember!

I can only presume this was a dream about SRS, with my "dead wood" arm a bizarre metaphor for my dinky...not that I'd ever be able to sling it over my shoulder, it ain't that long. Certainly, concern about other people's and my father's reaction is pretty spot on.

[awilliams1701]

I think you're right. The first thing that came to mind was are you sure its your arm you cut off and not something else.

[awilliams1701]

I actually dreamed I got to walk my dog in the very outfit I'm wearing in my profile pic. In other words as Ashley instead of Allen.

Of course then a small airplane crashed nearby and aliens were throwing grenades at the survivors. Believe it or not this is actually related to events that happened on friday. There was a small plane that landed in the army base I work at that wasn't supposed to land there. Being a geek of course is where the aliens came from. Not sure about the grenades.

[Hideyoshi]

when I was a kid, I dreamed that i ripped out one of my eyes and threw it on the ground

then I went to my mom and said MOM I NEED A NEW EYE

and she cut one out of black construction paper and gave it to me

and I said NO, A REAL EYE

then she said '->-bleeped-<-' and I woke up

[Ms Grace]

If she'd tried to sew in a button you could have sued Neil Gaiman for stealing your dreams to write Coraline!

[stephaniec]

This is a weird one...not as gory as the title suggests...

I was out in public and, for some reason that makes no sense to me now I'm awake, I decided I needed to cut my left arm off. Out comes the hack saw (which I conveniently had) and proceeded to saw it off at the elbow. There was no pain and no blood, in fact it was as if my arm was dead wood, unneeded, brittle and dry. Mission accomplished I felt pretty proud of my achievement even though I knew people would think it an odd thing to do to myself.

Then I realised I had too many small things to carry, more than I could manage with one hand! D'oh! I started to panic, "had I made a big mistake??" Not to be defeated I rolled the items up in a large cloth (which I again conveniently had) and used my severed arm as the pole to carry it over my shoulder hobo style.

Again I thought that was pretty smart but as I walked "home" (not my real home) I started to worry that my father wouldn't understand why I cut off my arm and that there was now no way to undo it. I was still glad I did it though! And that's all I remember!

I can only presume this was a dream about SRS, with my "dead wood" arm a bizarre metaphor for my dinky...not that I'd ever be able to sling it over my shoulder, it ain't that long. Certainly, concern about other people's and my father's reaction is pretty spot on.

I think we have a similarity . I've had dreams almost exactly like that. In my dreams though I'm afraid to go to the hospital because of their questions. I usually end up sowing it back on myself. I do a pretty good job too.

[Jess42]

Ms Grace and Stephanie. You subconcsious is telling you something. The arm represents a part of yourself that you are ridding yourself of. Probably in this case your male self or identity. It is subconscious symbology. Stephanie, quit trying to sew the thing back on.

[stephaniec]

Ms Grace and Stephanie. You subconcsious is telling you something. The arm represents a part of yourself that you are ridding yourself of. Probably in this case your male self or identity. It is subconscious symbology. Stephanie, quit trying to sew the thing back on.

probably a good idea

[Jess42]

probably a good idea

Sometimes we can't help it. Like I said dreams come from the subconscious and very few people can control what they dream about. But dreams are 100% symbolic. Most people can't even remember dreams unless they are rucurring dreams and then usually if so, we need to pay attention because it is the subconscious mind trying to tell you something.

[awilliams1701]

I've only accepted being trans for a month, but before I did I had a re-occuring dream where I got to be a girl for a day. The dream got more and more frequent. It eventually became my choice where I could flip between the two genders. The dream has been re-occuring for about a year. After I accepted it and started being myself, the dream stopped.

[Carrie Liz]

This is very interesting. Especially because I myself had a LOT of dreams about limb amputation back in high school. (As well as dreams about cutting off a certain other body part.) There was never any blood in mine either.

So maybe there really is some weird connection...

[AnneB]

I am constantly having a driving wrong way on the interstate dream, with no way across the median, to go the other direction.. I have this dream, for the last couple weeks, at least every other night.

[Monkeymel]

I've done a lot of dream analysis with my therapist (Freud based) as I can often write pages after I wake up. The key is often not directly the images our subconscious brings up; but feelings, sequences of events, who appears when.
I dreamed a lot of being a mermaid under water - less after my transition. Breath hold was ways easy and natural - but I still needed to come to the surface to breathe. Was this about swimming of accepting my feelings and no longer being over loaded?
Cutting off arm may be about SRS or just a weird way of cutting loose / unneeded emotional baggage / stress. Trying to do too carry much forwards and just simply wrapping in a blanket rather than sorting the most important aspects.

If dreams plague you then a therapist could help. Sometimes my feelings after I woke could influence my whole day. Which was not good...

[Jess42]

I've done a lot of dream analysis with my therapist (Freud based) as I can often write pages after I wake up. The key is often not directly the images our subconscious brings up; but feelings, sequences of events, who appears when.
I dreamed a lot of being a mermaid under water - less after my transition. Breath hold was ways easy and natural - but I still needed to come to the surface to breathe. Was this about swimming of accepting my feelings and no longer being over loaded?
Cutting off arm may be about SRS or just a weird way of cutting loose / unneeded emotional baggage / stress. Trying to do too carry much forwards and just simply wrapping in a blanket rather than sorting the most important aspects.

If dreams plague you then a therapist could help. Sometimes my feelings after I woke could influence my whole day. Which was not good...

Most definately. I am more on the Jungian side though. A dream journal is an extrememly good idea. There are books out there that have all the symbology of representations of dreams. Usually it is a general representation but the thing is that the representation to you may be a totally different meaning.

I am constantly having a driving wrong way on the interstate dream, with no way across the median, to go the other direction.. I have this dream, for the last couple weeks, at least every other night.

This as a guess and in general to me would be that you feel like you are going against the flow and are scared apprehensive or nervous about it. Unsure of the way you are going.

Me personally I dream about water a lot. Water is a representation of the inside whether in a spiritual sense or emotional sense. Everytime I dream of a smooth as glass body of water, I am usually in a pretty good emotional state and at peace internally. When I dream about rough or stormy water, I am headed toward some type of emotional or internal turmoil.

[awilliams1701]

I had one last night where I was cutting down massive wooden posts (think telephone polls but 2-3x bigger around) and eventually I was chopping wood.

[AnneB]

Jesse, but I don't know which is the conflict, staying/reverting, or going forward transitioning? Which is the flow I'm going against? 

[Suziack]

I was out in public and, for some reason that makes no sense to me now I'm awake, I decided I needed to cut my left arm off.     Out comes the hack saw (which I conveniently had) and proceeded to saw it off at the elbow.     There was no pain and no blood, in fact it was as if my arm was dead wood, unneeded, brittle and dry. Mission accomplished I felt pretty proud of my achievement even though I knew people would think it an odd thing to do to myself.

Then I realised I had too many small things to carry, more than I could manage with one hand! D'oh! I started to panic, "had I made a big mistake??" Not to be defeated I rolled the items up in a large cloth (which I again conveniently had) and used my severed arm as the pole to carry it over my shoulder hobo style.

Again I thought that was pretty smart but as I walked "home" (not my real home) I started to worry that my father wouldn't understand why I cut off my arm and that there was now no way to undo it. I was still glad I did it though! And that's all I remember!

LOL, I couldn't make up stuff this funny, if I tried!   

I am constantly having a driving wrong way on the interstate dream, with no way across the median, to go the other direction.. I have this dream, for the last couple weeks, at least every other night.

Holy Cow! Those sound like a frigg'n Nightmares!


In studying premonitions, I learned that the significance of a dream that is especially compelling is not the entire content of the dream, but what is included in the dream, termed, a 'Time Stamp.' The time stamp gives you some sort of clue - visual, audio, emotional, whatever - to tell you when the premonition will come to pass. Now, don't think that I run around looking for these things, or that I experience them very often - I don't, and rarely even pay attention to my dreams.

But for instance, I dream that I'm sitting in my living room on a recliner, when I suddenly find myself buckled into the seat of a jetliner flying through the air. The plane crashes into another plane and the seat is thrown into the sky with me in it. I look across and see a mouse buckled to a seat and falling with me. We both hit the ground, but I'm not dead. I get up and see the mouse, severely injured, and I feel like I've lost my best friend. Suddenly, it starts snowing, and I look up and taste the snow on my tongue and lips. Well, in real life, the next day there is a prediction for snow in two days. Two days later, I go outside, look into the sky and taste the falling snow on my tong and lips. Then, I realize that this is the time stamp. I think about the mouse and the feeling that I'd lost my best friend. Then, I run to my dog and watch him with careful observation, realizing that he's sick. I take my dog to the vet, who is able to save him from an extremely slow acting rat poison that affects the liver, but which is treatable only because I got my dog to the vet, in time.

Premonitions, time stamps and dreams.

[Jess42]

Jesse, but I don't know which is the conflict, staying/reverting, or going forward transitioning? Which is the flow I'm going against? 

If I would dare to guess I would say society. I mean you get on the road and other people are going one way and you're going the opposite direction. What you should do is still up to you to decide there are really no rights or wrongs but something in your subconscious is probably making you feel like you are going the wrong way. Society has beaten us down, not accepted us, makes fun of us and so on. This sticks into the subconscious mind. You may subconsciously feel scared, apprehensive, unsure that you are doing the right thing maybe even a little guilt depending upon how you were raised and exposed to certain ideals. I think that may possibly be the conflict. Not that you are actually going the wrong way in life.

An example of myself. I do go against the flow. I have dreams sometimes of rafting down a raging river with a large group of people, never been rafting a day in my life, and I start feeling sick and sort of disgusted. I turn and start paddling back against the strong current of water. BTW water again. I try in vain and now I am going backwards and I paddle as hard as I can. It takes a little while but I start making progress and everyone else keeps going down the river and I am starting to go upstream. Against the flow. I find when I have that dream that I start feeling like I am falling into societal traps or forming a group mentality with others. The whole four years I was in the Military this dream would come once a week and sometimes twice. I believe I dreamed this because of the uniformity of the military and supression of self identification and having to look like everyone else caused the dream. The closer I got to getting out, the further upstream I was going.

Like Suziack said. Pay attention to certain aspects because dreams can be premonitions too. I had a dream one night that I was driving along and hit a power ranger, from the TV show. The very next day I was going to make a left hand turn with my signal on, actually five signals on a tractor trailer and I am paying attention to the turn and in the middle of it I heard a thump on the truck. I looked down and saw what popped into my mind as a power ranger's head. A motorcycle had tried to pass me while I was making that left hand turn and I was actually looking at the guys helmet when it hit the side of the truck and his bike slid under it. If not for that dream and the funny feeling all day leading up to that event that something was gonna happen, there is no doubt in my mind that the guy would be dead because he slid right in front of my drive axles and the sound actually sounded like the normal pops and sounds if the fifth wheel gets a little sticky and needs more grease. BTW the accident was not my fault. Never try to pass anyone on the left if they are making a left hand turn especially with all the signal lights working.

[Suziack]

This is a weird one...not as gory as the title suggests...

I was out in public and, for some reason that makes no sense to me now I'm awake, I decided I needed to cut my left arm off. Out comes the hack saw (which I conveniently had) and proceeded to saw it off at the elbow. There was no pain and no blood, in fact it was as if my arm was dead wood, unneeded, brittle and dry. Mission accomplished I felt pretty proud of my achievement even though I knew people would think it an odd thing to do to myself.

Then I realised I had too many small things to carry, more than I could manage with one hand! D'oh! I started to panic, "had I made a big mistake??" Not to be defeated I rolled the items up in a large cloth (which I again conveniently had) and used my severed arm as the pole to carry it over my shoulder hobo style.

Again I thought that was pretty smart but as I walked "home" (not my real home) I started to worry that my father wouldn't understand why I cut off my arm and that there was now no way to undo it. I was still glad I did it though! And that's all I remember!

I can only presume this was a dream about SRS, with my "dead wood" arm a bizarre metaphor for my dinky...not that I'd ever be able to sling it over my shoulder, it ain't that long. Certainly, concern about other people's and my father's reaction is pretty spot on.

So Grace, It looks like we've got a pretty good start at  helping you analyze  your dream! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but could you tell me how you'd feel about having a future of being a full time Hobo?

Have you figured out the Time Stamp?

[~Evelyn~]

Sometimes I have dreams about talking to myself in the mirror. No not me I'm talking about the male me or what I would look like as a guy if I was and hadn't gone through transition. For the first few encounters I had no idea who this guy was till I saw a tatoo on his left arm, a tatoo that I usually draw on my arm in class when I get bored, I still do it from time to time. And the guy in the mirror had the same one. So I figured this must be the voice in my head I hear from time to time. Usually this happens when I had a really rough day, and at night I find myself talking to him in my dreams, once there was a few days when I was at my lowest and he stepped out of the mirror and hugged me. I'm still trying to figure what does this all mean but currently ive got nothing. Id love to hear what you girls think about this.