The lion, the witch and the torture

Another dream from June 2010, the 6th to be precise.

I was at my grandparents’ old apartment, and I was in a fight with some kind of witch. She had reduced me to such a bloody mess that I realized it would only get worse if I didn’t call truce. So with great humiliation I said that I gave up – she had won. She was very pleased with this. We both knew that this meant I was under the thrall of the witch and she would make my life miserable from then on. What I was most worried about though was what I’d just experienced: extreme physical pain. So I asked her about the regular torments she would put me through – would they generally be more psychological? Yes, she replied, it would be too much effort for her to torture me bodily very often. So, I asked again, it would be more like ruining my life so that I was lonely and devoid of all happiness? She concurred, and I was relieved to hear this. I could imagine weathering such pains, as long as I didn’t have to experience the physical agony.

She seemed content with what she had put me through, and we both took steps to go to another room. (We were in the hall.) But then we realized that we were both going to the bathroom. What do you want in there? she asked. I said I had to rinse my mouth out. I had lots of blood and pieces of what I assume were my teeth in my mouth. This gave her an idea for further torture, were she with her magic would really start grinding away at my teeth and the inside of my mouth. I was terrified and regretted bitterly that I’d given her the idea.

The dream gets a little hazy here, but at some point we were in the kitchen. Somehow I managed to strike an offensive blow against the witch. I grabbed her and struck her head against the sink so that her head tore off. She wasn’t defeated, but before she could do anything I started tearing her body apart to incapacitate her. Her head was on the floor and she was speaking, but I don’t remember what she was saying. I grabbed the head and tore the brain out in the sink, and started rending it to pieces. It seemed important to disable her brain as much as possible. There was no blood during this dismemberment. I think the only liquid was her slimy brain.

At some point the witch was transforming herself into a lion. The body parts on the floor were regrowing and reassembling themselves into a lion’s body as I was working on mangling the brain and the head. It was apparent to me that the witch’s powers resided in these three parts: the body, the head and the brain, and it was important to keep them separate. During this, I washed my hands in the sink, but also thought that I shouldn’t let too many brain-parts get into the sewage system, lest they somehow reassemble out in the wild.

My male cousin was also a slave to the witch, and he was also in the apartment. I called to him to come help, but he was busy in another room doing something with our grandfather. I called again and again, emphasizing the urgency of the situation. I grew more desperate, frustrated and angry for each time I had to holler at him. This is the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life! I screamed. And I meant it of course; we could be free from the witch! But I don’t remember ever stating explicitly that it concerned the witch. At last my cousin came and saw what I was doing. Well, you have her brain and her head pretty much ruined, he said. He didn’t seem that interested. Yeah, but look, I said, we can’t let her body grow into a lion. The lion looked kind of small at this point, like a big dog, and one hind leg was this tiny stump in the process of growing out.