"This dream was the first time I successfully managed to evade them without incident or chase, and infiltrate their ranks."
Dream Night of August 25/26th 2014 -
First scene - Staying the night at an old friend's house (though it's a combination of the layouts of real houses I'm familiar with). Who this friend is and who is in the house keeps changing. It's late, but we aren't tired, so we play. Except, we are tasked by some disembodied teaching force to present a speech to the class. It could be on anything, something you learned recently, or are interested in.
My turn is going to come, but I haven't put together a presentation. I've ran into this dream theme many times before, but not recently. This one shook up the trend though.
I accepted I needed to put something together, and trusted it didn't need to be perfectly organized or even on topic. So I started searching for materials in the kitchen. I found baking glitters, lego landscapes, a ton of granola bars. I pause and ask a woman from my college who is there if I can have some of these boxes, saying that my family would go through a whole case in a few weeks. She didn't confirm with words, but had given me the go ahead a moment earlier to use them for my project.
I told my roommates/playmates that this would be a fun hands-on activity for them. I envisioned needing to smash the granola bars into bell-shapes.
Next, I told Chris to turn on a TV channel, anything, Friends is likely on. Sure enough, the first channel he turned to was Friends. "Okay, leave it there." I commanded. Then I closed the blinds and took off my pants I think.
An old, old friend of mine, Halsey's, "parents" walk in. They are actually the parents of my old friend Kristin, and I recognize this in the dream, but think of them as Halsey's and this as Halsey's house.
They look at my various project stations: lego land on the kitchen counters, bars and decorations on a table in living room, TV on, my pants off? I explain we were doing our presentations, as if they knew what that meant. They were tired and wanted reign of their house again. One of them shoved the legos aside that I so meticulously setup, another laid back and changed the TV station. I pleaded in my mind that they wait, but outwardly I watched it happen.
Then Chris decided he was too tired to stay up anymore and was going to bed. He departed to a bedroom, and was left mourning my near triumph at throwing together a damned good activity on a whim. It was not my house, so I chose to leave and let them have it to themselves again. "Are you leaving?" The mother asks.
"Yes. I can't do the presentation now."
"Oh. Was this stuff for your--" she points to the lego mess pushed to the edge of the counter.
"Yes. It's okay. This is your place. And my audience is too tired to hear it anyway."
____
Next scene: I awake into awareness standing on the back bumper of a parked Volkswagon, overlooking the chaos of the town around me. I'm filled with apathy and surrender, like nothing I do mattered anyway, so why bother trying. The wolves have invaded the town and are chasing and killing people in the streets. Localized house fires are ablaze. I can see for a few miles in a 270 degree radius. A few wolves chase some locals across the lawn I am parked at. I tell my female
sidekick we need to move on.
I hop down, unafraid. "Don't run." I tell her. "Jog slowly as if you're not afraid." Against her body's impulses, she slowed with me and did a funny, slow jog to move place to place. The idea was they only caught your fear when you expressed it in a desperate run for your life. The wolves ran all around us, pursuing other subjects of interest. They paid us little mind, a few even ran with us for brief intervals.Across the street, at the base of a hill, a woman was being toyed with by a pack of wolves. They were biting at her arms and hair. She was a goner.
"Let's go to that woman." I told my sidekick. "Hey, they're attracted to your attempts to run. Do a slow jog up the hill and we'll follow along."
She obeyed, and the dogs left her alone. We caught up to her quickly and made our way up the hill on the road. No cars were on the streets. The wolves attacked so suddenly that people could only run, and then get torn down.
Other wolves climbed the hill with us. We reached near the flat top to see large bones and carcasses picked clean, stacked on each other, lining the now dirt road that runs even along the flat top. The bones create a wall between the grassy knoll and the road. No human has seen this. We have stumbled upon their lair. My sidekicks panic at the sight, but remain together. I find a clump of raw meat on some bones and mimic the ritual I'm seeing in the pack off to my left, tearing off strips of meat and chew ravenously.
"What are you doing?" One of my companions whispers. I turn to her to show her my crazy, hungry beast impression, but I do so with such exhaggeration, it is humorous. It's meant to be believable to the wolves, though.
What I would call lower ranking wolves that come up the hill, pass by me with space to spare, giving me the respect of one of their alphas. They did not discriminate just because we were humans. My intentions and personality mattered, and as far as they were concerned, I was another uncontained beast delighting in the pleasure of freedom and the hunt.
My friends decided not to partake in the ritual. Overwhelmed by the discomfort of their location, they ushered me along. We had successfully seen their homebase, infiltrated, gained position, and survived.
___
To try and fall asleep last night, I found myself watching video after video of the rescue and recovery of dogs found at dump sites and sewers, starving, diseased, hopelessly fatigued, and scared. Before that, I watched videos of unprecedented wild animal rescues and their displays of gratitude and compassion. I watched in amazement at the reunions of wild animals with their human saviors. A gorilla and his rescuer, a lion and his rescuer, a polar bear and his human best friend, a grizzly bear, a pack of wolves. Then, I watched reaction videos of surprise reunions with soldiers coming home to their unsuspecting families and children.
As I lay in bed dehydrated from a good long cry, I wondered about wild animals and how difficult it seemed to befriend territorial, wary, aggressive, predatory creatures. How nerve-wracking must it be to know this creature has the power to kill you. How afraid would I be to not make a wrong move. Such a relationship is so fragile, yet most profound.
I thought about these human and beast pairs because I often fantasize about meeting intelligent aliens in the wild regions of Earth, stumbling upon their camouflaged homes and wandering grounds, and how silly it is to think they would have any interest or ability to interact productively with us. Those videos made me wonder about those impossibilities and the amazing capacity for compassion, loyalty, trust, and empathy even wild animals can have.
Then, I thought of the animals I've seen in my dreamscape. Tigers are always represented with shy, defenseless personalities, quite a contrast to what their physical presence demonstrates. Wolves are always depicted as aggressive, flanking, and savage. Is this how I think of these creatures?
This dream was the first time I successfully managed to evade them without incident or chase, and infiltrate their ranks. When I don't care so much, I succeed. I worked together with my fear... a strange, but effective relationship.
____
From another dream about killer wolves: "I have seen large wolves a few times in my dreams, which I do not know how to interpret. They were usually in guarding mode, ready to attack. And they were fearsome. They killed members of my team, but I switched consciousness to the only ones who escaped the forest to a paved road."
Read other aggressive canine dreams:
Spells Against Dire Wolves
Cannibalistic Dog
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