I found myself in some sort of highland - like a place up the mountains where the cows used to be taken for the summer to find the best feed a hundred years ago. (Sorry, don't have an English translation but it's like a hillside cabin where the youths from a farm stayed during the summer to look after the cattle. Swedish; Fäbodvall).

I believe we are up there to bring home the cows for the season. Strangly there is also an elk and a horse among the animals. Since the animals are running steep downhill something happens and they all start to fall, one after the other, on top of each other in to a muddy stream. When we look down it seems they are all dead, killed by each others weight. Then to my relief one of the cows move and then another etc. and it seems they are all alive but sunk into the mudd and unable to move. It is terrible and we dont know how to rescue them. An older, experienced farmer tells me that in the old days if a cow was unhealty or they could not get it down from the highlands, the tradition was to return and feed the cow for two more days, a little less food each of the two days, and then leave it behind completely to die. He explained that it was unciviliced to just leave it to starve the first day even if it was condemd to die in the long run. I remember finding the story terribly sad and sadness prevails in the dream. He says that the horse should be put down immediately because you should not let a horse suffer like a cow.

After this we walk to a nursery garden, mysteriously placed in the mountains. We are there to look after the place for some friends. I walk into one of the hothouses. I start making myself a boquet of flowers, taking a rose here and a tulipe there - thinking that the owner won't notice a couple of flowers missing when they get back. Every flower I pick seem to be limp with mushy stalks, so when I make a boquet the flowers just hang, half-dead in my grip. All the time I am doing this I fear that the nursery garden owner will come back and surprise me with the "stolen flowers" and think that I normally would take what I want without asking, which is far from true.

I see a contrast in the part about the cows. Cows are a herd animal that is tame or docile and is easily lead by humans, either to be milked or slaughtered (provided they are otherwise treated humainly).

Horse and elk are wild animals. They may roam in groups, but horses buck and balk until they are "broken." They are not easily lead by humans.

Perhaps there is some kind of conflict between your domestic side and your "wild" side. Have you had a recent proposel of marriage or committment? If so, how do you feel about it?

Or the conflict could stem from a family member disapproving of some aspect of your lifestyle?

Animals as symbols

I have had myself a good ponder about the dream and I actually have come up with an intrepretation that seems plausible.

I see cows as docile, soft feelings (meek, motherhood, dependency), horse as sex and the elk is the odd one out (a feeling of not being part of the group, oddness...). They fall, all these emotions, on top of each other into a muddy stream (the great stream - life). In the dream I fear that they have died, but then one after the other come back to life. The older farmer represents old experiences and he also says that "traditionally" (my normal ways in the past) these animals (emotions) would be killed or left to die on a mountain top (=high ground, i e moral high ground). The cows (soft emotions, romantic notions, dreams of motherhood) one would feed for a couple of days and then leave to starve, but the horse (sex, power) is always killed instantly. The elk,is not even mentioned - I guess the odd one out, the wild animal, will survive on the mountain without any help.

I believe that the hothouse and the flowers represent something that I desire that looks beautiful - but when I try to take, it it turns into something rotting in my hand, because I take it without permission.

I believe that this dream is about me being in love with a forbidden man who is married, and me killing my emotions - as always before- because they are not permitted. What do you think?

quote:
"What do you think?"

Wow! I think you're right on! I was close, but no cigar.

You know your own mind and your analysis of the dream symbols is brilliant.