Prelabor Nightmare

So I had some of this prelabor off and on during the night, and had a whole string of nightmares spanning from a dog that was all over me, to a serial killer woman with a knife coming into the house, to being in detention in a boarding school and having my belongings seized by the secret police, to being diagnosed with a virulent cancer, to rescuing Tyler from drowning when a strange women snuck in and tried to give him a bath. All clearly anxiety-driven.

The first nightmare seemed to be about the labor, symbolically. In the dream it was pitch black, and I couldn't see. (A recurring fear of mine.) In the dark there was a big dog, and he was excited about me, and kept trying to approach me. I couldn't tell if it wanted to hurt me or just jump on me in excitement, or whether in its excitement it would forget to be gentle and take to eating me after all. I heard Ben's voice reassuring me that it was a great dane, a "gentle giant" and wouldn't hurt, but I was so afraid I would get hurt. And my nervousness was making the dog nervous. (In real life I love great danes.) But in the dream, I wasn't reassured, and thought we don't know what kind of canine it is, and whether it is carniverous. That night, as I was having the dream, Ben woke me up as I was whimpering in my sleep. This happened more than once, as I kept falling asleep back into the same dream, blending Ben's reassurances into his voice in the dream. I knew instinctively that the dog symbolized my imminent labor.