BEARING MY SOUL

I dream every night and remember snatches of the dreams. Sometimes the dreams are recurrent with some minor variations.

The other night I dreamt that I was being chased by a polar bear. Yes, a polar bear.

The setting was familiar. Familiar in the sense that I'd been there before - in a dream.
It is a setting that pops up from time to time. It is a river bed meandering through mountains. It is probably related to some of the tramps (mountain trekking) I've done in the past in the Wararapa region (Orongorongas, Tararuas) and in the South Island (Mount Cook, Queen Charlotte, Awatere etc.) The tramp starts off OK but inevitably rockfalls and difficult passes make the going hard. Sometimes the end of the river valley (going upwards!) culminates in the sea and needing to navigate across a deep bay with pounding surf (make of that what you will).

Anyway, in this most recent dream the valley was a glacier valley and the mountainsides were ice cliffs. Rounding a bend I saw a polar bear perched atop of a hill like a leopard waiting for prey.

It spotted me and leapt down and chased me.
I ran back down the valley trying to get away before .......I woke up.

What the fuck was that about?

I looked up a book we have 10,000 dreams interpreted (I bought for a dollar at a book shop sale) which tells me that:

"Trying to run away from a dangerous animal is indicative of the dreamer's struggle with his animal instincts which may be threatening or damaging to aspects of the dreamer's life."

Whaaaa...? When I was a kid I used to have a recurrent dream of a tiger and or a lion chasing me. I used to jump out of a window, run around to the front door with the lion or tiger chasing me. It was an endless loop until I woke up. Was I worried then about my animalistic urges?

Maybe the polar bear was just wanting to make friends.