I'm usually quite good at interpreting my own dreams, and when I have a dream with this level of discomfort I usually find that I can attribute it to some real life anxiety I am experiencing at the time, but this one is leaving me at a bit of a loss.
I've had two nearly identical dreams now, the second of which I have only just woken up from, so it's still very fresh in my mind. Both of them have to do with me hiding a dead body, which I have seen other people posting about on this page, but where my dreams differ is that I did not murder these people, I simply found them already dead and decided to take the dead body home.
Dream 1:
I find the body of a pretty young woman and decide to take her home. My motivation is that I simply want to possess the body, the same way a collector wants to possess an object, just because it's pretty. I don't molest the body or do anything sexual to it, I just keep it under my bed and feel good that it's there. Eventually I became paranoid that I am going to get caught with it and decide that I need to get rid of it. I know I didn't murder her, but I'm aware that I'm facing some very serious jail time for tampering with a corpse. In the end I am so paralyzed with fear that I don't even attempt to dispose of the body because I'm too paranoid that it will be discovered once I bury it somewhere.
Dream 2:
(I woke up from this one about half an hour ago)
I am living in some kind of dirty homeless shelter, but it is structured more like a dormitory with individual rooms. The place is filled with wayward souls, most of them young men such as myself.
Sitting in an armchair across from me is a sickly looking man who looks like he has wasted away from some horrible disease. I notice that he has died and my immediate reaction is that I want to possess his corpse. He is shirtless and I find the way his bones protrude from his skin very beautiful. I drag the body up to my room and hide it under my bed. But almost immediately it begins to rot and mummify. I stuff it with rags and wrap duct tape around the limbs, torso and head, so it still keeps that body shape but you can no longer tell who it is under the duct tape.
Just like in the first dream I become extremely paranoid that I am going to get caught and be sent to prison for abuse of a corpse. I work up the courage to share my secret with another man at the homeless shelter, but he thinks it's a joke. He tells everyone else and they all laugh about it before trying to break into my room to see if there really is a dead body in there. I barricade myself inside with the body still under the bed while they all laugh and pound on my door.
I desperately want to dispose of the body, but I can't think of how I could do it without being caught by the police. I feel trapped and scared and regret ever dragging it up to my room. Then I wake up and am beyond relieved that it was just a dream.
Would anybody be willing to chime in and tell me what they think this could all mean?