04/29/2018

I dreamt that I was in the middle of a veterinary hospital, waiting for my turn to see the veterinarian in charge about the injuries that my dog sustained. I felt a wave of jealousy when I saw a couple holding a Maltese. One of the attending nurses was enamored by Maltese and chatted with its owners. Much to my surprise, the dog was able to respond in human language and explained the circumstances that led it to meet its current owners. It had something to do with being adopted as a stray.

My neighbor - a middle-aged couple - came with me because they knew that my parents were out of town and I couldn’t drive. My dog suffered from broken legs and a paralysed spine for reasons that I didn’t know. I just found him on the balcony with a pile of sand bags next to him.

The next scene involved the three of us in a discussion room with the veterinarian and his lawyer at the opposite end of the table. I believe the lawyer acted as the mediator, but not before giving me all the documents about duty of care and tort-related matters. I remembered seeing on the paper that he did not exactly owe a standard of care to the dog because it was not a human. He was unwilling to operate on the dog because I didn’t have pet insurance and the extra cash to pay for it. We struggled to arrive at a mutually-beneficial outcome for everyone involved… and I noticed that he started to wash his hands off the responsibility as well.

I was so upset with his indifference that I lashed out at him in angry tears, but was restrained by my neighbor who ended up absorbing the physical blows. His wife panicked at my actions and yelled ‘Jack’. The more I hit him, the tighter he held me as if to stop me from hurting either one of us.

I woke up with a massive headache and a pair of aching optic nerves after this dream. My eyes were not rimmed raw, but it felt like someone had placed a burning heat pack on it. With that being said, I immediately knew the theme of this dream, which was suppressed anger.

Way back when before the college and university enrollment, our family used to have two Maltese-Shih Tzu mix dogs. One was cream-colored and the other tri-colored. I’d like to think that the subconscious sent the cream-colored one to acknowledge the anger that I feel towards the world, but knowing my dreams, it is not as simple as that. By sending the tri-colored one, it is probably the subconscious wish to reach out to it for comfort. The situation that I landed myself in have left me on the edge for most of the time. I don’t like the deck of cards that I am playing with because I feel that there is a sense of unfairness. Its broken legs and paralysed spine could just be the symbol for my sorrow. My mind wants to call for help but my heart knows that it’ll never be answered in this materialistic world. My heart’s broken, but there’s nothing to repair it per se.

In the dream, I was already a law student, which made me angry with the lawyer and the veterinarian. My understanding of tort law is that a doctor owes a higher standard of care than the average person because of his skills and training as a medical professional, although there are not many cases of pet owners suing their vets if something goes awful.

I couldn’t see the facial features of ‘Jack’ in my dream, but based on his body language, it might be a representation of someone in reality. Someone who silently cared for me but never knew how to express it in the right manner.