What's Cooking?

If you find your dream baffling, here's an idea. Ask questions. Make a list of the questions that your dream evokes, and let one lead to another. Then spend some time thinking about them. You'll learn something as you go through the process. Today's dream is an example.
The Dream: I have a little creature, supposedly a pig, but with the attributes of a toddler. It's very sweet and acquiescent, but is meant to be dinner. I have put her on a tray and am about to put her in the oven (alive). I get more and more upset at the thought, and finally I say to my husband, “I can't do it!” I am distraught, and he says it's okay not to cook the creature.

She turns into a little girl, and I tell her that I will take her home. In time it occurs to me that it might have been her own parents who sold her for food. In any case, she says she doesn't want to go home, she wants to stay with me. As time goes on she turns into a little horror and her sister appears. I don't remember what they did, but their behavior is so bad I begin to wish I'd put her into the oven after all.

Interpretation: This dream was triggered by an article in The American Scholar about raising sentient beings (animals) for food. The cover featured a cute pink pig; the dream creature, before she turned into a little girl, was pink.

The odd thing about the dream is the creature's change from a sweet, passive acquiescent little thing to an impossible to control little monster. Are these the unacknowledged feelings I had toward my own children as they grew? Or is the horrid little girl my own willful “animal,” the force that I couldn't bear to have baked out of me, but have no idea what to do with? Or perhaps her behavior is a reaction to her position in society, a helpless girl at the mercy of others?

My conclusion from these questions? In the process of being “civilized” the little animal we are at birth (the child) reacts with uncontrollable bad behavior, inwardly if not outwardly: the beast in Beauty and the Beast: the not-yet-tamed outlier within. At this (rather late) stage of life I must acknowledge her. Once I do, she will sustain me; she'll become the "food" of a richer self.