I have had a lot of disturbing dreams in my life, because I have complex PTSD, and sometimes insights into my past and current situations and progress in healing come in the form of dreams. Some of them have been extremely scary or disturbing, but also incredibly insightful. This one is very disturbing so please stop reading right now if you are sensitive to that. I did have a recent traumatic event and I think this could have something to do with it.  In this nightmare I was with someone, and I can't remember who the person was or even their gender, so it might not be relevant who they are, but rather the fact that I was not acting alone may be important.

It was fairly dark but not nighttime, so possibly dawn or dusk.

We were in some sort of structure that was not fully enclosed, like an open garage or carport or something like that, except it felt isolated like it was in the woods or a mountainous area. I think it had water in it like a stream or a pond, and maybe even boats.

I can't remember exactly what the situation was but there were other people involved, feels like it was maybe double or more so I think around five people. The other people were close by but not right there with us, and I could hear them but couldn't see them.

The two of us were in danger, and it had to do with the other people nearby. It feels like we were possibly going to die and there were not many options. We also may have done something that we thought was wrong and that it would be problematic if what we did were known. I have a sense of that but I can't remember that part distinctly so it may not be the case.  

Also there were bodies of dead, I cannot remember how many, in the structure with us. It may have been as few as two but I think there were more. The bodies were gray and pale in color and I feel like the bodies may have been in the water which was very cold, because they were wet and cold almost like a fish that you just pulled out of a river.

The two of us had a frantic discussion which was whispered because we needed to not be found. I cannot remember why, but we made the decision that what we needed to do to survive was to cut the fingers off of the dead people and we had to do it quickly.

We had scissors and frantically started cutting.

I woke up in the middle of cutting the fingers off because it was so gruesome and it felt so so wrong to be doing what I was doing. I felt like I was violating the bodies of the people who had died. And even though there was no blood, the cutting through both flesh and bone left an indelible mark on my senses. In fact, it seems to me like the person was not actually dead and they could feel me cutting their body and were trying to scream but couldn't.

In addition to the trauma from the gruesomeness of the task, there was trauma from moral injury because it felt so very very wrong and selfish to be violating a person's lifeless body like that, to preserve my own life and possibly to allow me to get away with something that was wrong. Or actually it may have been that I was covering up for the other person with me. I do not know if they did something wrong and I was an accomplice or if they were the ones who did it and I was just there or if I did something that I felt was wrong as well. And maybe there was no prior wrongdoing.

I mostly just remember the moral struggle of it. Cutting the fingers off a dead person in a survival setting felt very very wrong and gruesome. I hated that I was violating a lifeless body like that, and it felt extremely selfish to do that to another person's body to save myself and the other person too. Especially if we were covering up for wrongdoing.  What the hell does this dream mean??