Blue_Opossum

Night of August 25, 1977. Thursday.



This is a description of the most intense fully in-body nightmare I have had in my lifetime (almost as vivid as a typical fully in-body lucid dream though I am not lucid in this one). Even so, possibly the only vivid in-body nightmare that had residual energies on my mood (in “coloring” my day) for more than a day or two as well as very realistic imagery and perspective. It seems to fit in with the idea of “anniversary” dreams. It relates to how my dog disappeared after I was in the hospital for a couple days a year earlier when he apparently ran off looking for me. It preferred my company over anyone else’s. It was a mixed breed but part toy spaniel and showed up at our house as a stray. No one had claimed him.

In my dream, I find myself seeing the small dog sitting on the floor of my room in Cubitis. I am mostly looking west the entire time. I am very surprised and happy to see him, but something seems a bit “off” about the atmosphere or mood of my dream. I call out in an odd eerie sustained voice,“Joooe…”

I pick him up and he seems small and vulnerable but then something completely unexpected happens. He jumps up from my arms and bites into my entire face somehow with a strange growl. I actually feel the intense pain sweep over my face and when I look down again, I can feel that some of his teeth are still in a few different areas of my face. I am still holding him much the same way at that point. He now looks quite savage…or at least as savage as a toy spaniel can appear, and I can see where several of his teeth had come out - and I also have a vague idea that this may eventually cause his death and so I feel additionally sad upon this fleeting thought. My face feels wet and hot. There is an intensity which makes it seem like a real event even after waking. However, it is not that logically rendered because, being such a small dog, he would not have been able to cover my entire face with his open mouth.

This was actually one of the only dreams I had where he appeared after he disappeared in real life. Being an “anniversary” dream, it was unusually intense with regard to emotion and self-reflection. It was likely relative to the suppressed or “hidden” guilt I had concerning his disappearance and not knowing what happened to him (thus his in-dream behavior implies “the worst” if only in my imagination) even though it was not really my fault that I had to spend time in the hospital for a couple days for the operation on my right thumb. He was a “house dog” but this was the first time he just took off (on the second day I was in the hospital) when someone else opened the front door at my family’s house.

This was also one of the only dreams that seemingly took me by complete surprise in its outcome.