Dream Interpretation: Helicopter Attack on a Baby
Dream Description (from Mahsa):
“I dreamed I was in a place, most likely with my daughter, who in the dream was just a baby. We were running away when suddenly a helicopter without blades, a helicopter that flies without propellers, was trying to attack us. It was as if the main target was the baby in my arms. It targeted us with a green light. At that moment, something in my hand fell. I started to run with a group of people. I saw a door and put my hand on the doorknob. As I opened the door, that thing exploded, but neither I nor my baby was hurt. I sat in a corner, holding my baby’s ear tightly under my arm and covering the other ear, holding our heads close so we wouldn’t hear the sound. Then I said, ‘Let me close her ears tightly so her brain won’t be damaged later.’ The rest of the dream seemed to be my sister-in-law’s dream. She was thin and disheveled. There was food in front of her. She was saying something, like she was accompanying me until the bombing. She was with me even while eating; she was standing straight and stiff. Afterwards, she followed me when the explosion happened, as if pointing with her hand.”
Dream Interpretation Analysis: Anxious Defense of a Budding Identity in the Face of Threat
This dream embodies a deep crisis in the supportive and defensive processes of identity, a concept analyzed in psychology under the subheading “Vulnerability of a Nascent Identity in the Context of Systemic Threats.” The presence of the baby, as a new and highly sensitive element, reflects parts of oneself or one’s life that have only recently taken shape or require intense protection—such as a new belief, a significant psychological change, an important personal goal, or even a new role (motherhood, new self-acceptance, or value transformation).
The external threat (the mechanized and unusual helicopter) represents the organized and vengeful power of a system or environment in the event that such a core deviates from its self-made (or socially/familially imposed) rules. It is clear that the type of threat is not a random event but a reaction to a transgression—within this narrative, the control system seeks to challenge or eliminate the presence of the new and sensitive part. This situation is the mental embodiment of a controlling force that uses warning, suppression, or instilling fear and anxiety to target the natural growth path of vulnerable personality components.
Adopting behaviors such as “running away” and “taking refuge at the doorway” indicates an attempt to survive in an insecure environment. However, the dreamer’s protective strategies, although not leading to physical destruction (the child was not hurt), require raising the level of anxiety and worry and engaging in extreme reflexive actions (closing ears, controlling harmful stimuli for the child’s mind in the future). At a psychological level, this reflects emotional/cognitive defense systems that, instead of creating resilience and tolerance for failure or threat, lean toward isolation, filtering reality, and chronic worry about subsequent harm.
The presence of the thin, disheveled, and low-energy sister-in-law clearly indicates the ineffectiveness or weakness of social and familial support resources. The individual is alone in the crisis, or their witnesses, even if physically present, are not sufficiently effective. This image is often presented in psychoanalysis as a symbol of the “absent witness” or “damaged supporter”—that is, a supportive presence that itself needs help. Furthermore, excessive care of the infant, preventing natural growth and tolerance of developmental failures (closing the ears to completely avoid long-term damage), causes the emotional-cognitive growth of this nascent part to be disrupted or, at the very least, experienced in a perfectionistic and anxious manner.
The main psychological issue in this dream is the defect in the system of healthy coping with external threats and the lack of collective/familial resilience in the face of identity change or nascent components of personality. Overt threats (such as the revenge of the control network) are not merely external but are a metaphor for the controlling inner voice or experiences related to psychological risk thresholds—which seek to suppress or eliminate vulnerable and newly identified parts. Moreover, unrealistic and extreme protective behaviors reinforce worry about the future and weaken adaptability.
From a therapeutic perspective, this dream indicates potential for growth: despite the threat and weakness of the support system, actual protection has occurred, and the child has been kept away from serious harm. The capacity for growth and maintenance of the new and sensitive part requires rebuilding social support networks, increasing tolerance for negative emotions, training in gradual and controlled exposure to stress, and repairing beliefs that make the acceptance of harm and healthy passage through crisis impossible.
In summary, the central problem of this dream is the deficiency in managing emotional-psychological risk and acute anxiety about the consequences of experiencing threat. The potential solution lies not in the complete elimination of threats or filtering of experience but in cultivating resilience, gradual exposure, and building real support (internal or external). Successful future treatment requires appropriate self-compassion training, healthy collective support, and practicing the approach of tolerating failure and confronting harsh realities in a safe and measured manner.
