I have dreams sometimes about being persecuted as in people are chasing me trying to kill me because of the group I belong to. Sometimes I know what group it is, this is usually jewish and during World War II, and other times the dream is vague and I have no idea why the people want to kill me.
Last night I had one about running from the rulers (or they may have been invaders) of a particular town. Some of the members of the town liked me. It was where I grew up and the “bad guys” were gathering all the unwanted people into the local school to then have them sent off to camps or prison. I was trying to hide from them in the school and ran into the kidergarten room. My old kindergarten teacher saw me. She was with two boys who she tried to distract from looking my way. One of them also saw me but said nothing. They went into a secret door and were gone. A man leading the search for my people/group came in and passed where I was hiding under some clothes. My friend came in and accidentally knocked the clothes over. I said- hurry up and help me fix this before he finds me. My friend couldn’t get it to look like it did before so he said- Lets put a picture of Buddha on top. He will be looking at it and not at you. (Ok personally I think that is a terrible idea and I don’t know why it should have worked. But we are talking about a dream here so of course it worked.) The man walked back by and didn’t notice me. Then everyone began to leave the school. It was a war and since a school is not as safe as standing around outside everyone went outside. I knew if I left the school they would find me so I decided to take my chances in the school. The teacher told me to hide in the cubbies and I did. While I was looking for leftover food two soldiers came in. One was obviously about to lose his cool and go crazy. The other one kept trying to calm him down and get him back outside. I was so scared they would find me. At one point I had dropped something and they said- what’s that noise? but they decided not to investigate. Finally they left and the dream ended.
In my other dreams I am normaly not caught, but if I am about to be caught I will wake up because I am too afraid to find out what happens next. In the dream I’m really scared but I think I also ultimately know it is a dream and can end it before facing any violence.
I also want to add here that the reference to Buddha makes this dream unlike any of my previous dreams about anything. It probably is just random and doesn’t mean anything, but it sure is wierd. I certainly can’t give it any meaning beyond the general theme of persecution being tied to religion.