I knew I'd have to write these sometime...
I've had, over a few years, some unusual disturbing dreams in which living things are tortured or slaughtered.
The most recent has me feeling incredibly horrified!

I do not know where it took place but it is dimly lit and I seem to be hiding behind some crates or cages. There is a black cat sniffing around. Some unseen being flips the cat over and uses a nail gun, with very large nails, and uses it to attach the cat to a wooden crate by putting a nail through the anal-genital area. I am gripped by the scene, I can look away but there is nowhere else to go to to get away from the sight. Howling, screaming, murderous sounds assault my ears. A second nail is put through the cat and the sound, the sound is horrible. The cat is stretched by it's limbs and all of a sudden a blade-like item saws up through the wooden crate and splits the cat in half up to it's mid-section. Internal organs fall out, blood pours, I feel incredibly disturbed and wake up.

It was so, so awful...I've had similar dreams that left me feeling sickened by the sights I saw, but this one beats all.

Are the living things that get hurt in your dreams usually pets, like cats?

A pet can represent a part of you that needs to be cared for. It's something that is very basic and instinctive in you, because it is an animal, but at the same time it is vulnerable.

I don't know if the fact that the cat in the dream is black has any significance. It would depend on what you think of black cats. Do you associate them with evil or bad luck, or are they just cats?

The dreams could be about a part of you that feels that it has been tortured emotionally, or it could be about a desire to punish some part of yourself.

Not pets specifically, but domesticated animals seem to be the norm.
I have had 6 cats (at the same time) and the black one, the only one still living, is my favorite. Black cats are not evil or unlucky.

I don't think black cats are evil, either. (I love all cats.) It's just that if you did think that way, they would have a different symbolic meaning in your dreams.

do you have anyone ,,no names, that make you feel you need to justify your pets at home? If so this could be telling you that they threaten in some way,they are making you feel guilty about what you are doing but yourself you know are doing what you think is best