Ian Wallace Interpretation:
Dream: You are locked in a life or death battle with some powerful and dangerous adversary. No matter how hard you kick and punch, your enemy seems to match your every move and you find yourself becoming more and more desperate to overpower them. It seems to you that the only possible outcome of the battle is either your death or the death of your opponent. Your attacks on your adversary, however, often seem to have no effect and your opponent spends most of their time laughing at your pitiful efforts.
Meaning: Dreaming of being involved in a life or death battle can indicate that you are being faced with a situation in your waking life that seems to be a threat to your very existence. This perceived threat is often quite trivial in reality and the feeling of life or death is usually caused by your feelings of vulnerability. You often feel that you need to win every argument, no matter how small, in order to protect the more sensitive aspects of your character. Even though you like to present a strong and robust image in daily life, a part of you often feels weak and defenceless. You are desperate to protect this vulnerable area because you feel others might exploit your apparent weaknesses. The reason your adversary matches your every move, no matter how much you fight and struggle, is because you are actually locked in an inner conflict with your self. Instead of appreciating your talents and skills, you spend all your time trying to protect what you perceive as your character flaws. You are desperate to destroy your weaknesses but, in the process, you ignore your strengths and end up feeling even weaker. The battle you are fighting isn’t to destroy these chinks in your armour but to accept them. Your wiser self understands this, which is why it is so amused at your attempts to make yourself appear completely invulnerable to any threats.
Action: This dream reinforces the fact that you always put in your maximum effort as you attempt to achieve your goal. You need to ask yourself if you are applying your effort in the right areas and what force you are actually fighting against. Some of the most powerful fighting methods are Eastern martial arts and these rely on acknowledging the strength of your adversary and using it against them. A key part of this discipline is accepting your flaws and vulnerabilities, and the more that you accept your weaknesses, the stronger you can become.
Background: All our creeds and cultures have foundational stories involving heroes and heroines engaging in battles to the death with seemingly all-powerful adversaries. Although these stories started off as actual accounts of real battles, the life or death battle soon became ritualized in our games and sports. This became prevalent in Roman gladiatorial culture and has now become even more sanitized in our modern-day activities such as boxing and martial arts. These life or death battles now also form the basis of the most popular computer games, where the status and success of a player is determined by how many virtual opponents they eliminate.