1: A PACK OF TROUBLE

A pack of hounds zooms by me. I've known them for a while. They used to be led by a dog so smart she could even talk, though she wasn't the biggest or strongest... The pack was wising up. To keep up with humans, you need a top dog who's clever--male or female.

But they got tired of following her. Too much work, having to learn new tricks! They ignored her and went back to following traditional leaders--the biggest. Well, the meanest. And, lately, the dogs with the richest masters... Hey, they have the best toys!

And I think these dogs are headed for a pack of trouble.

NOTES

• Have I been sniffing after money and social status lately, instead of wisdom? A whole pack of Americans seem to be, all of a sudden.
• Female pack leader: I was starting to think American men actually were learning to listen to women. What a naive pup I was. Back to machismo! No bitches are gonna rule this pack!

2: GORILLA CAMPAIGN

Now I go among the dogs and wolves hiding in the woods of the city's parks. But I start finding gorillas too! Mutant gorillas with very big brains, about 1000 cc. They can't talk aloud, but they all know sign language, and understand spoken English too.

Elaborate political intrigue--the imperial power occupying our city either doesn't know about them or doesn't want to recognize them as people.

So they form a gorilla movement.

And I decide to help. I feel more at home with the gorillas than among humans.

NOTES

• Gorilla guerillas: probably from David Brin's THE UPLIFT WAR.
• Gorillas have more class: In the news, Fort Bragg was SHOCKED by the San Francisco Mime Troupe's latest play, on Zapatista guerillas protesting NAFTA. People called them traitors. For putting on a play! In Fort Bragg, they defend the Constitution so fiercely they got no time to read it.

Now I'm in a busy cobbled square, workmen bustling by, horse-drawn wagons. It's about 1900 by the look of things. The British Empire, somewhere in the Mideast? With delight, I spot my first camel.

Run into a little girl, only about four years old, who's wandered off from her family. She's extremely gifted, and does this a lot. Takes me quite a while to lead her back, since I too kept getting distracted by the sights and sounds. Both of us exclaimed in wonder at four perfectly matched horses pulling a wagon--in step. I read their equine body language as easily as human. They're dancing in step, not out of training but to amuse themselves, AND to show off--they're a little vain. Again I respond to them sexually, as if dancers in a chorus line.

When I find her parents, her dad scolds her but sounds resigned. They're used to it, with her. Lucky she's so precocious she can handle herself alone pretty well. He looks like a British civil service worker. The family must move a lot.

NOTES

• Dancing horses = dancers in the intro to the Drew Carey Show, which I saw before sleeping
• Camels = compromise? (Mark Twain: "A camel is just a horse designed by committee.")
• Independent child running off = I did this at age 3. Told my mom I was going to the store, but she didn't believe me--it was half a mile off, across a busy four-lane highway. I knew the lights and crosswalks--I got there fine. On my way back, I was picked up by a cop sure I was lost. He and my mom referred to me like some stray animal. Insulting! In the dream, the parents recognize she's precocious, not a typical four-year-old. Or maybe they're just resigned. Anyway, these sides seem more reconciled.
• The horses spontaneously organize a harmonious dance = reassurance that top-down management is usually unneeded. This message was brought to you by your brain stem. "When your frontal lobes freak, we're here for you."

4: A LEGGY FILLY

In a flowering meadow, I see a young mare, rearing up. She's a beautiful little filly, with extraordinarily long legs for a small horse, and a slender waist like a dancer. Legs as long as a very young filly, but without that angular gawkiness.

She looks sexy to me.

A friend notices my gawking and laughs "Of course you're attracted to ponies of that breed! They have long strong hind legs and pronounced hips because they were bred to pull plows and wagons alone. Just like ballet dancers, their hind legs developed the most. And you're a leg man."

Oh.

NOTES

• Is she from That horse-chorus line? Silky, my anima, who often appears in dreams as a mare or mare-girl, has been growing up--and getting individualistic. Here she looks young, but left the team in harness to stand up on her own!
• Hind legs = grounding, individuality, "standing up and being yourself."
• Time to let her run things? Aw, why not? My ego's been uneven at best--gives in to conventionality.
• Young but cute: I saw Party of Five on TV. The youngest sister, Claudia, the musical one, is gifted, precocious, thoughtful--in a house of flakes (her big sisters look sexy but they all act like idiots). I got a crush on Claudia and felt like a pervert. One TV critic called her the family geek, the only unsexy one. Since brains can't be sexy--at least on TV.

SHARED THEMES

All four dreamlets urge me to let intuition and emotion steer my life more. I was, for a while, but I've slid back lately, as the first dream of the dog-pack warns. The alpha female in "Pack of Trouble", the gorillas organizing in the parks, the stubborn, independent gifted girl and the horses choreographing a dance from the bottom up, and the little mare/filly with the strong legs standing like a human girl--none are adult humans. Yet they're all decisive--stand up for themselves.

They also, as a group, are mostly female--are the dreams hinting I'm repressing urges I think are too girly, for fear of being laughed at? But the dream females are all very strong characters. Let others laugh! Go ahead and be sensitive and femme and weird if you want. Stand on your own hind legs!

They're strong enough.

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