Recurring dream.
I’m outside on my way somewhere—not in a hurry, but there’s somewhere I have to be. A cat is walking beside me and keeps going for my ankles, my shoes, trying to provoke me to fight. It’s pouncing over and over latching onto my arm and biting my hand when I try to whack it away. I push on its head and tell it to stop. I’m just annoyed and try to keep going.
I keep warning it, saying no, but as I go on walking, it won’t let up. I’m irritated because I’m not antagonizing it in any way. I’m just passing by and I’m annoyed that it has this problem with me.
WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?
Seeking professional advice from anyone around me that would listen, here are the possible interpretations:
1. Some inevitable attack is recurring in my life and I am unwilling to properly confront it. It’s annoying, but not enough that I stop in my tracks and face it. The issue that is represented by this cat is trying to get my attention; demanding to be dealt with.
2. I have something I need to let go. I’m holding on to something causing me pain.
3. The problem is actually much more threatening than I am registering in the dream—it shouldn’t just annoy me; it should make me fearful. Whatever the cat represents is a wild animal that is gradually becoming more dangerous the more I push it away.
4. I recently hurt my ankle (in real life) and the painful, little scratches I get on my ankle from the cat in my dream is my subconscious making sense of the real hurt I’m experiencing consciously.
5. Because I’m walking outside in my dream, I’m contemplating future change, future shift in locale or occupation or stage of life and this cat represents all the obligations of the present that would threaten my arrival to that new place—there are things or people in my life that are telling me to not move on or else I’d leave them behind.
6. I’ve needed to make a dentist appointment for months and it’s this annoying little task I keep procrastinating about. The appointment is the cat; the cat is the appointment. I’m annoyed that it won’t go away.
As with so many dreams, this will probably all be as clear as day in retrospect.