Dream of: 23 December 1987 "Outside The Church"

communicate with your peers

Two friends from my late teens, Mike Walls and Steve Buckner, were playing cards with me at a card table set up outside a church. I had been having some revelations and I now recalled that years ago, I had been involved in some murders in which I had killed several people by beating them to death with clubs. Since Mike and Steve had also been involved in some of the murders, I decided to bring the subject up to them. Pointing to each of them, I said that I had been involved in one murder with each of them. Mike said, "Listen to him," as if trying to pretend he didn't know what I was talking about. But he knew. They both knew. I went on to say that besides the two murders I had committed with them, I had also committed a number of other murders by myself. I felt as I were permitted to talk with them about the subject, because they couldn't tell anyone else.

Suddenly we heard a sound nearby, perhaps around the other side of the church. We immediately disbanded and tried to take off running. Mike started one in one direction. Now, instead of Steve, the other person was a black-haired woman who reminded me somewhat of Birdie (my girlfriend from 1968 to 1972). Suddenly we were all cut off by a number of large dogs which looked like wolves which came running from around the side of the church. They were all dark in color. Several were actually as large as a man. One of the larger ones was coal-black.

Mike was cut off over to the side. I told the woman - who was near me - to slowly back up to me. She did so and together we backed toward the church and toward a pile of sticks from a fallen tree. I told her to move toward the sticks so I could get one. After I was finally able to pick up a large stick, we backed into a corner beside some steps leading up to the church. I pulled the woman (dressed in a long black cape) around behind me where she cowered.

The wolf-dogs were close to us, and were showing their teeth and growling. I almost seemed to be having some mental communication with them and I somewhat understood what they were after. The matter had to do with the earlier murders I had committed, as well as my having also somehow betrayed the wolf-dogs. I had tried to put it out of my mind, but I had once belonged to the wolf-dogs in some way, and then I had abandoned them. Now they had sought me out.

I imagined I could swing the stick at them, and I formed images in my mind of my doing so, but I doubted that swinging the stick would do any good. Somehow the wolf-dogs seemed invulnerable to me, and I knew they could easily overcome me if they did attack.

Some of the wolf-dogs had climbed onto the steps of the church behind me and were standing just above my head looking down. One of those was very large - about the size of a man. Suddenly it occurred to me to try something different. I began talking very soothingly to them and calling them, "Boys."

I even reached out my hand to pet the fur under the necks of the ones which were standing over me. All the animals reacted the same way: they immediately stopped growling and began docilly wagging their tails. They seemed to want me to pet them.

I realized they were really demanding that I join them and complete some kind of commitment I had with them. I could sense this communication from them. And actually I would like to do just that. I didn't want to just act like it, but I really wanted to do it. Doing so, however, would be difficult and would entail extreme sacrifice. I didn't know how to do it. Yet it seemed as if I really had little choice in the matter if I wanted to survive. I continued talking, saying things like, "Boys, how ya doing boys."

Dream Journal Commentary of March 8, 2015

The Dream Journal is more like a church than it is like a pack of wolves. Yet the idea of a pack-mentality seems to fit well with the concept of the kind of mentality which is needed for shared-dream communication. Communicating with animals in dreams seems somehow similar to communicating with other dream-journalists through dreams. Both are mental communications which require the concentration of at least two parties.