I am in a lecture hall. We had one that was carpeted and very large. I am alone and high up somewhere where I can see all of the lecture hall but there is garbage everywhere. There are coke cans, empty dirty burger boxes… you name it. I am trying to walk through the garbage and I notice a closed food box like Kentucky Fried chicken meals come with. I look at it, I get curious, I pick it up and open it. There are 4 kittens in the box, lined up on their side and all of them look dead. They are all different colors and all of a sudden one of the kittens just gets up jumps out of the box on to the floor and starts casually strutting through the garbage finding places to step with ease and gets out ouf the lecture hall…. I wake up.

In that moment I had no idea what this dream could mean and what it had to do with my panic attacks but I wanted to share this with the psychologist and see what he thought. Of course I wrote it down.

I sat in front of him and shared the dream. This was our second visit. He said something like “do you remember last week you told me that you could handle anything if you only knew what you were dealing with?” I said “Yes.” “Well…” he said the cat that jumped out and navigated through the garbage is you…..” I remember a smile come on my face. I remember how good I felt… I remember thinking I am going to learn this stuff. This was the beginning of my long journey with dreams and the puzzle that is me.