[Couchcarrot]

Two night ago, I dreamed that I was helping an obviously decaying corpse
Into the back seat of a patrol unit. (I'm am retired from law enforcement).

This corpse was missing some of his body, and oozing slime, and I was
Worried (in the dream) that I was not making him comfortable enough
While seating him in the car. I know this dream doesn't make much
Sense, but I haven't had any other nightmares about the job since retiring.

What could it mean? I retired eight years ago.

[albear]

Hmmm, maybe repressed memories about a person who you met on the job who has now passed away and you feel that you could have done more for while they were still alive, and hence in your dream your trying to make it up to them by treating their corpse nicely.

[Alder]

Don't feel bad. That dream would have creeped me out, too! (And just between you and me, that's saying something--I have a lot of out there dreams).

If you aren't having other disturbing dreams, this one may just be random neuron firing. Some insignificant thing that you barely noticed awake--the look of a restaurant, a sound, a smell--may have triggered something. Of course, if you now try not to worry that you'll have dreams like that again, then you will. Because, of course, "trying not to worry" is the same thing as pushing the thing you are worrying about down into your subconscious, which is where your dreammaker lives. The idea of the "dreammaker" is one of the few things Freud said that I think actually holds water--it's a little sausage grinder inside your head, and anything that happens to fall into it gets chopped up, twisted around with a bunch of personal and/or cultural (or universal archetypal) symbolism, and produced as a dream. Anything and everything can fall into the dreammaker, be it fleeting impressions of the day, things you read or see on television, distant memories, archetypes that we all carry around in us, and psychic impressions. In particular, whatever doesn't get picked up and dealt with by your conscious, rational, waking mind is left overs that the dreammaker gobbles up, like a faithful Labrador who's only too eager to eat whatever you leave on your plate.

So it can be pretty hard to find an interpretation for one isolated dream. I like what Albear came up with. Imagine a dial, where we can set how literal of an interpretation to give the dream. If we start with Albear's interpretation at say, level 5 of literalism, we can dial up the interpretation to something very literal: Perhaps you actually encountered a decaying corpse in your career, or helped in the investigation of a missing person who was never found. Or you tried to save someone but couldn't, and have always regretted that you weren't able to help in that case.

Or we can dial it down to something less literal, where the corpse is simply emotional "baggage" that you are carrying, that may have nothing to do with your career, but you feel you should put it to rest in some way. I find it interesting that in the dream you weren't worried about getting your prowl car messy (I recall from a certain Mythbusters episode that dead bodies aren't good for a car's resale value), but rather about making the corpse comfortable. On some level, the corpse was still alive, conscious. At least, it was alive for you. Not dead and buried. Not to mention you were being rather noble and selfless, worrying about the corpse instead of yourself. Just as we would expect a good police officer to be. Not everyone would have had that reaction. Kudos to you.

It is entirely possible that this skeleton came out of someone else's closet, rather than your own. It may not be something from your past nagging you. Maybe it's something from the past of someone close to you that is nagging him or her, but you just picked up on it in conversation.

It is even possible that this is a real ghost, a deceased person who was having trouble getting to the place he or she needed to be. Very kind of you to give the poor soul a lift. Maybe your kindness was all it needed to be on its way. Now, ordinarily, you wouldn't have that sort of interaction with a ghost unless it was strong enough and clever enough to break into your reality (and most ghosts don't have the strength or brains to tie their own shoes), or unless you are the sort of psychic/intuitive person who is able to access its reality. However, the dreamworlds are tricky places, and even someone who ordinarily lives solidly in the ordinary state of consciousness might occasionally wander into some of the more interesting areas of our universe on an off night.

Ultimately, just take a deep breath when going to bed tonight and tell your brain thank you for the interesting dream, and that you trust it that whatever it needed to work out was successfully worked out, and your oozy friend is now properly and respectfully buried in holy ground and is resting comfortably and at peace. And tell your brain that if it has something more to tell you on the subject, you trust it to do it and you will be a good listener.

Blessings.

Alder