Dreams, night of 11 February 2004 – long!
Feb. 12th, 2004 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saffronhareLast night’s dreaming was terribly realistic and quite startling, so I figure I should write it down. Read more if you like -- just don’t expect coherence. And comments are welcome, but not necessary.
Setting was just as I tend to sleep when husband isn’t home: dog with her chin on the windowsill to “keep watch,” and me sort of diagonally across the bed, curled up behind her so I can open my eyes and see out the window into the front yard if she starts growling. (I know, I’d sleep better if I closed the shade, but somehow we both prefer this arrangement – especially since I’ve started sleeping in my contact lenses and can actually see out the window.) Anyway.
*************************
In the dream, Marley started bristling and growling. I grab her collar and steady her to keep her from barking while I check out what’s causing the upset. Wolves, lots of them. Moving in the front yard, almost dancing, in a circle around a square white candle surrounded by a bunch of smaller white tapers in the snow. While I watch, three other wolves approach from the north, one at a time. They’re big and important, sort of like dignitaries who only arrive at an event once it’s already underway. As each of them approach (maybe a few minutes apart?), they sort of flick their eyes toward me and make eye contact. It’s electrifying. Like they want me to know they know I’m watching, but anybody else watching wouldn’t be likely to catch the movement. It’s hard to say how I feel about being noticed, but it’s not comfortable.
The larger circle of wolves continues circling the candles in a loosely organized fashion. After the third big wolf (they’re all sort of light grey/white and huge), they disappear. And then the candles are suddenly right below my window. They’re lit – and I think I ought to go outside and put them out before something catches fire, but I can’t muster the courage to step outside. I don’t think it was fear of the wolves, because they all seem to be gone. Just a vulnerability to the situation that I didn't like much.
::blink::
Then, somehow, we’re all awake and walking around the house, lights on and everything. It’s dark outside and, from where I’m standing in the kitchen, I see two shapes moving on the house to our north (which is a different house but not, somehow). Two . . . I dunno, gargoyles? . . . sort of reach/grow/drift down and become two men walking. One tall and thin with sort of longish light brown hair and a mustache/beard; one shorter and stockier with darker hair, cut short. Both in casual clothes. They turn and start coming down my driveway to the door. I run to the door and get it open to greet them before they ring the bell.
They have a clipboard and some paperwork for me. Seems I’m to be certified at some level of shape-shifting because "last night's events.” I’m guessing they mean the whole wolf thing. My interaction with the “big dogs” triggered a notice to Shape-Shifting HQ or whatever, so they’re here to give me a rating somewhere above beginner but not yet advanced. I explain that I hadn’t intentionally done something and could they please tell me what I'd done. I thought I'd just watched. They said sometimes shape-shifters just emerge; that’s why the radar works the way it does – to get me noticed and in training before something unintended happens.
The end.
**************************
It feels like a Significant Dream, so I figured I ought to record it. There was a passage of sorts, but darn if I can figure out precisely what happens next.
Oh, and I never did get out of bed to check whether the front door was locked because I was convinced something startling would happen and didn’t have the guts to invite it. Sort of regretting that now. Oh, well. But this morning, pulling out of the driveway, I noticed a circular path worn into the snow on the lawn, just outside my bedroom window. I did not get out of the car to check for footprints.
Setting was just as I tend to sleep when husband isn’t home: dog with her chin on the windowsill to “keep watch,” and me sort of diagonally across the bed, curled up behind her so I can open my eyes and see out the window into the front yard if she starts growling. (I know, I’d sleep better if I closed the shade, but somehow we both prefer this arrangement – especially since I’ve started sleeping in my contact lenses and can actually see out the window.) Anyway.
*************************
In the dream, Marley started bristling and growling. I grab her collar and steady her to keep her from barking while I check out what’s causing the upset. Wolves, lots of them. Moving in the front yard, almost dancing, in a circle around a square white candle surrounded by a bunch of smaller white tapers in the snow. While I watch, three other wolves approach from the north, one at a time. They’re big and important, sort of like dignitaries who only arrive at an event once it’s already underway. As each of them approach (maybe a few minutes apart?), they sort of flick their eyes toward me and make eye contact. It’s electrifying. Like they want me to know they know I’m watching, but anybody else watching wouldn’t be likely to catch the movement. It’s hard to say how I feel about being noticed, but it’s not comfortable.
The larger circle of wolves continues circling the candles in a loosely organized fashion. After the third big wolf (they’re all sort of light grey/white and huge), they disappear. And then the candles are suddenly right below my window. They’re lit – and I think I ought to go outside and put them out before something catches fire, but I can’t muster the courage to step outside. I don’t think it was fear of the wolves, because they all seem to be gone. Just a vulnerability to the situation that I didn't like much.
::blink::
Then, somehow, we’re all awake and walking around the house, lights on and everything. It’s dark outside and, from where I’m standing in the kitchen, I see two shapes moving on the house to our north (which is a different house but not, somehow). Two . . . I dunno, gargoyles? . . . sort of reach/grow/drift down and become two men walking. One tall and thin with sort of longish light brown hair and a mustache/beard; one shorter and stockier with darker hair, cut short. Both in casual clothes. They turn and start coming down my driveway to the door. I run to the door and get it open to greet them before they ring the bell.
They have a clipboard and some paperwork for me. Seems I’m to be certified at some level of shape-shifting because "last night's events.” I’m guessing they mean the whole wolf thing. My interaction with the “big dogs” triggered a notice to Shape-Shifting HQ or whatever, so they’re here to give me a rating somewhere above beginner but not yet advanced. I explain that I hadn’t intentionally done something and could they please tell me what I'd done. I thought I'd just watched. They said sometimes shape-shifters just emerge; that’s why the radar works the way it does – to get me noticed and in training before something unintended happens.
The end.
**************************
It feels like a Significant Dream, so I figured I ought to record it. There was a passage of sorts, but darn if I can figure out precisely what happens next.
Oh, and I never did get out of bed to check whether the front door was locked because I was convinced something startling would happen and didn’t have the guts to invite it. Sort of regretting that now. Oh, well. But this morning, pulling out of the driveway, I noticed a circular path worn into the snow on the lawn, just outside my bedroom window. I did not get out of the car to check for footprints.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-12 09:32 pm (UTC)Elsewise, there's something tagging at the back of my brain having to do with the wolves, but I can't quite peg it. The best I can say right now is that if the overall dream is Significant™, it strikes me as particularly significant that it was wolves rather than, say, stags. For whatever that may be worth.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 07:09 am (UTC)Overall, I'm certain the dream was Signficant. But scratch one item of mystery -- asshole husband (love you, honey) pointed out that Eldest Daughter had been tromping in the snow and was probably responsible for the circle. Darn those ordinary explanations!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-13 07:36 am (UTC)So my question is, was it Noticably Odd, Substantially Out-of-character, or Disturbingly Coincidental? (the incredibly scientific terms I use for figuring whether a random event is an Omen from the Gods™ or a Pizza from the Hut™) I think it may deserve consideration under the third category, but you know better than I whether it was disturbing in its coincidence.
Or you could always go look for footprints :-)
Re: scientific divination
Date: 2004-02-13 02:50 pm (UTC)Re: scientific divination
Date: 2004-02-13 03:59 pm (UTC)Disturbingly Coincidental is something like the radio bit: I ask a rhetorical question of the universe, and lo, when I get in the car and turn it on, the radio is playing a line that exactly answers it. Bonus points awarded if it has a chorus that starts "Maybe it's a sign..." Double bonus points if one of the verses of the song talks about the person getting a "sign" over the radio.
Disturbingly Coincidental is something like the radio bit: I ask a rhetorical question of the universe, and lo, when I get in the car and turn it on, the radio is playing a line that exactly answers it. Bonus points awarded if it has a chorus that starts "Maybe it's a sign..." Double bonus points if one of the verses of the song talks about the person getting a "sign" over the radio. <a href-"http://www.lyricsdepot.com/mindy-mccready/maybe-maybe-not.html">I shit you not</a>.
Noticably Odd: I was down in the Greek theatre on campus once when three deer came out of the woods and walked, slowly and at their ease, around the top edge of the seating area. Not unusual to see one, maybe two deer in the evenings, but never three and never in the daytime. (not restricted to animate beings.)
Substantially Out-of-Character: is fairly close to Noticably Odd, except that it applies to people and what they would normally or rationally do. I keep it in a slightly different category because you can generally ask folks "Why did you do that?" and find out whether there was some completely logical reason, which is somewhat harder to do with beasties.
I'm an idiot
Date: 2004-02-13 07:26 pm (UTC)Re: ordinary explanations
Date: 2004-02-13 07:37 am (UTC)Alternate Explanation: Same as above, but the reinforcement of your predatory nature comes from without, instead of within. Someone's Trying To Tell You Something™.
How's that for no help at all?
Re: ordinary explanations
Date: 2004-02-13 07:53 am (UTC)But, since I'm a polytheist and not a Jungian, I interpret the dream as both Disturbingly Coincidental and Somebody Trying to Tell me Something. I will need to think more. And maybe take some naps – you know, for divination’s sake. As a friend said recently: "my finger still ain't on 'it.' Though it hovers. Yes indeedy, one finger hovering o'er all.”
Whatever gets me to the dance on time, man.