Cactus
A plant adapted to dry country, defended with spines — life that has organised itself around long shortage.
A cactus in a dream is the dream's image of life that has organised itself around long shortage. The cactus does not pretend the desert is not the desert; the thick skin, the stored water, the defending spines are all answers to what the place actually gives. The dream brings the cactus when something in your life — a person who grew up under scarcity, a working pattern shaped by years of having to defend a small reserve, your own habits around a long lean season — is the shape that the dry years carved. A cactus flowering briefly after rain is the dream affirming that even the defended life keeps a capacity for bloom. A cactus broken open and the water taken without consent is the dream noting that the long-stored reserve has been forced, and what was kept against the desert is now spilled into one easy afternoon.