2003-08-13 - 1:52 p.m.

We don't have any air conditioning at my house and it has recently gotten unbearably hot, especially when you share a bed with someone. Last night, in the heat, I dreamt of Sibera and frozen tundra, white hills of snow, very very cold weather, with a hidden secret mystery treasure somewhere under the ice and some kind of a mystery conspiracy plot of African people there . . . how strange! The cold must have been my own wishful thinking. . .

Last week, or maybe two weeks ago, another of the strangest dreams of my life -- in this dream I was living in a stone castle with Leslie and Chrissy and Larissa and for some reason I had invited this man to live with us, I took pity on him, and befriended him - The others trusted him based on my recommendation and he moved in, but turned out to be a very bad person and we wanted him out. In the dream I felt guilty I had misjudged him and personally vouched for him.

He had brought with him 2 big brown round bears, and several rats. In a dream about a week previous to this one, I dreamt I killed a rat with my bare hands, and it was vicious and difficult to do. In this dream, we ended up being chased around our home by this man and his animals and having to fight back. I killed 2 rats at once, one in each hand, by snapping their necks. Then a bear attacked me and I killed it by clawing my hands through its chest. Afterwards, I felt so empowered! After the animals, we chased the man away -- I think we killed him, but I'm not sure. In any event, he was gone for good. Actually, I think we took on the rats, then the man, and then the bears third. But it doesn't matter the order, I guess!

After all that we were so very happy! We felt so relieved and joyous! Like we had been through the challenge of a lifetime and survived! We decided to throw a party to celebrate and drank beer and called our friends and then as we were explaining the whole story to them -- it hit us what a traumatic experience it had been and we all started tearing up about it. Dean came to the party and when I started telling him about it I burst into tears, and couldn't stop crying, it was like a river that wouldn't stop flowing --

We were in his car, which in the dream was a convertable, and when we got almost to his house I realized I had been deeply wounded by the bear, my leg was ripped open and I was losing blood rapidly. Dean took me to the hospital, and that was the end of the dream.

After the dream I had a deep and abiding sense of the importance of Dean in my life, as a true companion, a figure of comfort and understanding and compassion in my time of need . . .

The other realization came after talking about the dream with Larissa -- she suggested the Bear (that I had been living with peacefully but not happily for quite some time before the incident) represented some part of my past, an intense emotion I had been ignoring, pretending it wasn't there, living with -- that i was finally able to deal with after working up to it (by acknowlodging my ability to express rage, and practicing on the smaller issues - the rats) I like that idea, it seems fitting -- especially since in the dream the immediate release after killing the bear was so wonderful, and then i didn't feel the pain and sorrow at what i had been through until later . . .

So the question becomes, what what The Bear in my life?