dream about menstruating

This was an odd dream. There was a dead girl. She was African. She was menstruating when she died. I was supposed to perform a postmortem. But the dissection room became a bathroom with a dirty toilet. The dead girl was gone, and as I was getting changed into my laboratory clothes, it was me who was menstruating. There was all this blood running down my thighs (sorry guys!), and I had nothing proper to wipe it up with or contain it, although I did try to contain it.

Presumably I was the dead girl, but why African? And why menstruation? I think it's the first time I've ever dreamt of that.

A few suggestions that spring to mind . . .

Dead girl - and old part of yourself, the anima or female part of the psyche
African - what do you think africa symbolises? war, destruction, famin or colourful, adventure, mother of humanity?
Menstruation - shedding of the female life force, moon, cycles and rhythm of nature, fertility or loss of??
Postmortem - The need to re-examine, retrospective investigation into something that has passed.
Dirty bathroom/toilet - feeling distaste for some part of our lives, need to get rid of something which we feel is no longer of any use or 'dirty'. General discomfort over 'psychological waste' which we keep and which needs to go.
Wiping up blood - attempt to stem or hide this natural process, feeling embarrassed at your femininity??

Just a few ideas to keep you occupied

Milfoil said:

Dead girl - and old part of yourself, the anima or female part of the psyche

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Thanks, Milfoil. This is actually a recurrent dream image.

Milfoil said:

African - what do you think africa symbolises? war, destruction, famin or colourful, adventure, mother of humanity?

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Not sure here. The girl could have been of the diaspora as well, West Indian or African American. Through my studies the history of slavery, the Middle Passage, cultural hybridity, uproting on the negative side - those things come to mind.

Milfoil said:

Menstruation - shedding of the female life force, moon, cycles and rhythm of nature, fertility or loss of??

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Maybe my body clock ticking. This is a diffciult image.

Milfoil said:

Postmortem - The need to re-examine, retrospective investigation into something that has passed.

Dirty bathroom/toilet - feeling distaste for some part of our lives, need to get rid of something which we feel is no longer of any use or 'dirty'. General discomfort over 'psychological waste' which we keep and which needs to go.

Click to expand...

Again, these are recurrent images. Discomfort over psychological waste rings a bell.

Milfoil said:

Wiping up blood - attempt to stem or hide this natural process, feeling embarrassed at your femininity??

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Yes, maybe, something I feel i need to contain, something that I might find shameful, something I perhaps don't remember but my body wants me to remember? Would tie in with the postmortem theme.