Lions & Jaguars Rampant

Last night, I had a vivid dream that possessed three main elements:
1. Chasing
2. Church people
3. Camp

Synopsis: Big cats (primarily lions, with a few tigers and jaguars) chase me and other people (primarily from church) around the camp I attended through junior/high school.

This is notable because for the first time I recall, my dream mostly consisted of things I had recently and consciously been thinking about to some extent. While I don't agree with a lot of dream interpretation, I think dreaming is a powerful realm of the unconscious and is a tool of problem solving. The latent content of this dream seems fairly obvious to me, based on the struggles I've had lately.

Usually, though, my dreams involving wild animals/chasing seem far fetched and unrelated to my conscious life (like the the only other lion-ish dream I recall having), more like adventure-horror films than stuff of significance. The other vivid wild animal/chasing dreams I remember from the last few years:

### Giant komodo dragons chase me from downtown to my neighborhood, where I and a few imaginary neighbors go to elaborate lengths to escape the lizards of unusual size by climbing fences, telephone poles, and rooftops. The komodo dragons could talk.

### Oversized nutria (a species prevalent around my Oregon college) chase me around a semblance of my campus, where I take shelter in the academic center. An imaginary professor, who happens to personally know the English-speaking nutria king, takes me to make negotiations with the talking R.O.U.S. Unfortunately, the nutria king cannot control his subjects, who continue to attack my peers and professors on campus and around town. Most of the dream takes place at night, which is an unfamiliar dreamscape for me.

### A wolfish beast chases my roommate around, trying to seduce her to marry him. Entranced, she agrees to meet him that night, when they will run away. Somehow, a few random personalities from my campus and I find out about the wolf. Then we discover his nefarious intentions to kill her. So we finally find my roommate, lock her in a boys' dorm, then set out to find the wolf, who tries to get into the dorm. Think Beauty and the Beast meets Phantom of the Opera meets Lady in the Water. Yes, the wolf could talk. (This also partially takes place at night; interestingly, I can only remember three dreams, including these two, that involve the dark. I've had all of them in the last six months.)

I also had an interesting dream this last semester that took place in my hometown. It involved leaf-zombies invading. (No, I didn't know what leaf-zombies were before this dream, either. They are vague human-like creatures that lay in wait as piles of leaves in street gutters until they swirl up into their humanoid form.) I was at Sharis, across town from my house, with some friends. When the televisions informed us of the invasion and warned us of innocent-looking leaf piles, we set out in a friend's car to get away, but I insisted on going home to warn my family. Somehow, I managed to get halfway across town without being eaten (er, consumed by a pile of leaves...it's an odd, non-violent way to die, I guess) by the leaf-zombies, although I saw several other people eaten. I met a nice older fellow behind Walgreens, who gave me a magic dollar bill (yes, you read that right) which would protect me from the autumnal creatures before he sacrificed himself to the leaf-zombie lurking behind the drugstore so I could proceed. With the magic dollar bill, I made it home safely and tried to convince my parents we could escape to the country with my pecuniary protection, but they told me to calm down and continued reading the paper. Talk about an anti-climax.

Interestingly, the third dream involving nighttime also involved a few people from college, as well as the building of my old church. And a dark forest, which I've never dreamt about before. And a human antagonist, instead of animal--a thief/possibly murderer type who broke into the church and then chased my friends into the forest, where I followed, looking for some imaginary child. I'm sure there's some sort of meaning there, particularly with the darkness-college connection, but it isn't an obvious one. I can't think of any significant problems that relate specifically to college or the people there; in fact, I love the community there, and it's fairly isolated from the problems of the world, personally and globally. So maybe it represents something, but I do not know what. I'm a journalist, not a psychologist.