What are executing dreams about?

I woke up early this morning after having a nightmare that I was having to send my son to be executed via the electric chair. While I don’t remember everything, I remember feeling desperate, terrified, an immense and overwhelming sadness.

For reference, I am a woman in my thirties and my son is 11 years old. He is a good kid, doesn’t get in any trouble, is very soft hearted and emotional. He’s my not only child but he is the oldest. Not sure if it’s relevant but he did stay at his friends house last night but this isn’t an uncommon thing.

I remember my son crying and pleading not to let “them” take him. I don’t recall seeing a certain person coming for him but a sense that there was a group that was coming to arrest him maybe and he would be sentenced to death. I was trying to figure out if I should try and hide him away and runaway with him or if I had to let him go. I was devastated and recall my husband (not his dad but stepdad and only dad he’s ever known) sort of explaining we had to choice but to let him be taken. I couldn’t accept that.

I don’t remember “them” coming for him but I remember screaming and crying watching him be strapped to a chair and begging for me. It’s been hours since I woke up and I am still shaken and spontaneously crying about it. While I didn’t actually see him die (or if I did I do not remember it) I feel as though I did.

What could this possibly mean?? I am close with my son and I have never had any dream or nightmare like this. I have dreamed of myself dying in different ways more than once but never woke up with such fear and anxiety and dread before. I text him to just say good morning and I hope he’s having a good time (I wanted to ask if he was ok but I didn’t want to make him worry why I was asking) and haven’t heard back yet though he may be sleeping still.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I awoke in a plush bed with an elegant frame, only to find a cat with beautifully wide eyes snuggled next to me. It introduced itself as my childhood best friend. Upon this instant, it changed colors. From a tabby orange, reminiscent of my childhood cat, to a solid black, then to an odd turquoise and brown pattern I had never seen before. The cat began detailing our past memories and reminded me of how comfortable it was to know each other. I became concerned that perhaps my friend is dead and this is their spirit reaching out. On that notion, I realized I was dreaming. I do not own an elegant bed, and my walls are not covered in fine art, silky linens, nor do I have the money to afford such luxury. And my friend is most certainly alive.
When I began to think this way, an old lady who obviously owned the house and a little less younger man walked through the painted white door. The cat leapt from my arms, no longer speaking, still changing colors. It's eyes began to glow with an odd light.
The woman asked me what I was doing in her home. The man asked me if I was the murderer. I looked at them and my gaze quickly jumped back to the cat, who appeared to be smiling. I told them I had no idea where I was, then I ran towards them, telling them this cat was speaking a moment ago.
The man became concerned and jumped to catch it, but he could not. The old lady, petrified for a moment, rushed with me out of the room and down red carpeted stairs into an extravagant manor with marbled walls and columns. More fine art accompanied the view on the way down.
We ran until we were in the center of a large room with several people seated around a marble table that appeared to be the same slab as the floor and columns. A silk tablecloth drapes over the slab.
A discussion breaks out about the appearance of talking cats. Soon, we come to a conclusion that if the cats are also changing colors, they may be able to change shape.
When we make this discovery the cat that snuggled me earlier jumps onto the slab, almost to mock us.
The man chasing the cat uses a spear like object to try and pierce the cat. It explodes into a spore like substance with an uncountable amount of spores flowing. These spores flow out a front door into the wind.
The old lady becomes enraged claiming we released not just the one, but a multitude of this creature.
She runs back up the stairs and disappears, never coming back, and unable to be found.
Searching for clues, I remove the silk cloth from the slab and discover a puzzle. After spending some time and solving the puzzle, a stairway reveals itself to a store room of supplies such as food and drink. The room is vast but looks rather barren.
The rest of the dream I spend gathering lucidity between formulating and executing plans to catch this creature running amuck. I found myself being interrupted and unheard yet still attempting to be a part of a group. When I became upset that I must go my own way, I chose to end the dream and write this very account of the dream.

I'm running through a jungle with a brown snake wrapped around me, his head above my right shoulder. We are speaking, but this doesn't seem strange at all. We're laughing and joyful, having a complete blast. Although this first part of the dream is harder to remember, we're basically going through this jungle with the snake teaching me how to swap conciousnesses with different animals. This is to teach me the "lessons" and physical experiences of different creatures while allowing them to spend time as a human to better understand us as well.

We emerge from the jungle and find ourselves looking across a vast grassland. To our side, following along the treeline, is an elephant. This elephant is barely touching the ground with its tiptoes, flapping its big ears and traveling in strangely graceful, gliding hops. Sharing a conspiratorial glance, the snake and I take off toward the pachyderm. Throwing a startled glance over its shoulder, the elephant flees. We take off in hot pursuit!

We're led on a long merry chase, until we finally catch up to him in a dilapidated amusement park. The rides are covered in rust and overgrown with creepers. The elephant heads straight for a small, stagnant puddle in an area of broken concrete. To my amazement, he executes a graceful swan dive right into this shallow puddle and disappears. I run up to the edge of the puddle before hitting my belly and shimmying close enough to peer in. Under the shallow green water is a perfectly circular hole that leads down deep into darkness. As I press my face closer trying to get a look at what's in there, the large gray head of a seal pops out. His penetrating, inky eyes unnerve me, and I scramble back.

His head disappears back into the water just as I hear a creepy little girl giggle behind me. Turning around, I see a girl of about 6 in an old fashioned frilly dress cupping something in her hands. When I ask her what she's got, she opens her hands and holds them up to me, still giggling. In her palms is my friend, the brown snake. He's been chopped into little slices that look like sushi roll pieces. In the center of each piece, there is an eye staring up at me, moving around. I shove the girl away in horror and start screaming "What have you done?" I tell her we were going to bring him back to life after the body swap, but now we can't, she's ruined it. I keep insisting we (I'm not sure who I meant when I kept saying we ) were bringing him back to life and am very distraught. She regards me calmly before adopting the creepiest condescending smirk. She looks me right in the eyes and says, "That's not what you were doing at all, was it?"

I wake in a cold sweat. I mean, seriously, wtf!!! This has got to be the most bizarre dream I've ever had.

Content warning, blood and violence

I had a dream today (I work nights) of voluntary executions...

I was standing in a circle of “people” they had blades and knives for hands, they were tall, oddly shaped and almost sculptural and looked like they were made of paper mache (Im an artist) and in these stockades in a semicircle were people, a dozen or so (women mostly) who had volunteered to be executed or sacrificed as part of their rituals. I don’t remember anything about the deity or deities they were sacrificing themselves to, but I do remember that the blood was the important part of the sacrifice and was collected in bowls in the front of the stockades and that after the first woman was sacrificed i was asked by the second one to perform the ritual, there was fire and bowls of blood etc., I was handed a knife (I still had regular hands) and I slit this woman’s throat, she asked me to and exposed her neck for me to do it, blood poured not only from the wound but also from her eyes and mouth which is what startled me awake.

I’m NOT a violent person, and I’m a woman myself and this dream has really bugged me all day. The sight of blood usually makes me nauseous and the thought of hurting a person or animal totally creeps me out so I have no idea where the hell this came from... it was a massive amount of blood.

I was back at my old home with my parents, where there was an immense amount of conflict and abuse. I saw that a relative that had caused a lot of trouble was back visiting and as I was going to the living room to tell him off, I saw a very skinny and malnourished deer in one of the rooms. It was so skinny and unhealthy that part of its torso was missing and it's white rib cage bones were protruding exposed to the air. My mother was there looking at the deer and I told her cmon there's some business to be handled in the living room. And she was like, "no wait look at the deer we need to take care of it!" I had to pretty much drag her to the living room cause she wouldn't come.

This relative had done some awful things to our family and there was a huge family feud some time ago. I berated him with the entirety of my soul, with the full accumulation of my anger. Some other family members that were there too. Then he called for backup and another cousin showed up, who is equally a despicable POS and he was very angry and pulled a sword at me. I pepper sprayed him to no effect, and he tried decapitating me but the sword just bounced off my neck. My father and uncle were standing right next to him but just stood there watching him trying to kill me. Symbolic for what happened in real life.I rushed him with a knife and jabbed up upwards his jaw and killed him. Then I grabbed his equally villainous mother/my aunt by the neck and executed her the same way. As I held her face with my left hand and with the knife sticking through her nose into the sinuses of her skull, emitting a monumental amount of anger and hatred for all the harm they've done to us, I came to a realization that I shouldn't be doing this. Then I woke up.

I completely cut contact with my family and am living isolated and secluded, to try to heal from all the damage that family has cast upon me. I read that deer are symbolic for spiritual growth, and the fact that the deer was severely malnourished and weak, and then trying to draw my attention from the drama in the living room, is symbolic for asking me to step away from my past traumas so I can finally heal?