Bears running freely through the camp

Bad dreams!  Scrooge might have had the most noteworthy ones, but mine are right up there.

Imagine going to a Boy Scout camp and there among the boys and the trees are bears, “running freely through the camp,” And perched here and there where I least expected them?  Mountain lions!

I was supposed to remain calm and act like it was normal.  If I didn’t the implication was that they would revert to their most heinous natures and attack me!  I went into the only cabin but knew that if I closed the door the bear was stronger than I was and could get in anyway and if he did, he would be angry and attack me.  When the bear wandered off I closed the door and turned around to see three mountain lions lying around inside with me!

The strain of remaining calm and unafraid was enormous, so when I was offered the chance to do a presentation I jumped on it and a woman took me into town to get some props from her apartment.

Her apartment was in a huge dilapidated building whose halls were crammed with extraneous living accoutrements from all the people living there.  She left me in the hallway and went up to her tiny apartment.  When she returned she brought me a sweater and a small suitcase with props.  The sweater was too small, but I took the case down to the street where it turned out it to be a convertible car, packed, so I could carry it.

I was walking around the compacted car trying to decide how I would do my presentation when my mother began telling me exactly how I should do it which was not what I had wanted to do.  I couldn’t imagine how to do it her way and finally just gave up and walked away from it all.  I opted for going back to the camp and facing the bears and mountain lions.  When I got there a man I volunteer with, now in real life, tried to tell me they weren’t really there.  I wanted to believe him, but as soon as he left, I discovered the bears and lions really were there.  He just hadn’t seen them.

Lots of conflict in this dream, but it is honestly like a small time capsule of the first sixty years of my life.  Today that conflict is mostly relegated to and contained within dreams and for that I am grateful.