Thread: Dream About A Wolf Sleeping At My Feet

I just re-read the posting suggestions and figured I'd add a little bit more information about myself. The friend that was in the dream just moved back from the West Coast, although we spoke nearly daily while he lived out there. My friend and I get along really well, although I feel he surrounds himself with people who are shallow and too focused on partying. I applied to medical school for the upcoming term (Sept. '13) and did not get in, which has been very difficult.

Intimidating and yet comfortable or comforting, uneasy and yet peaceful. This dream appears to speak of apparent contradictions which somehow work even though they should not. I think friendship is also a significant part of this message: your best friend, your best friend's wolf / dog (dog is man's best friend). So maybe it is a dream about a friendship that should not work but somehow it does, or an apparent contradiction that you are nonetheless kind of in peace with?

As usual if this does not sound right, feel free to discard. Also if you have more details about yourself that could be helpful: what is currently on your mind? What issues are you facing? What is important to you aside from your upcoming studies?

Of course, the fact that you chose to mention your upcoming studies in medical school may be significant: medical school may seem intimidating, and yet it may be a change in life which you are comfortable with, both uneasy about and at peace with your start of medical school. Your new studies will undoubtedly bring you new friendships, however knowledge and learning can also be called man's best friend in a way, and yet knowledge can also be dangerous.

JoannaB,

What you have said has made a lot of sense, and I think there is some more about myself that I can add to help you further interpret the dream:

1. I have always had an uneasy relationship with academia. I always succeed academically but have felt rejected by the academic establishment for my worldview; however, I know that education is the key to success in life so I push on despite my contempt for the close-mindedness of my teachers and professors. I also feel that, while knowledge is beneficial, success and intelligence ostracizes individuals from the group. I believe there is a strong inverse relationship between intelligence and happiness. Also, I took the MCAT on Tuesday, so the medical school admission process has been very prevalent in my mind. (For those who don't know, the MCAT is a standardized test used to compare all medical school applicants. It is akin to the ACT/SAT for undergraduate admissions). My degrees are in biological science, psychology, and history.

2. My friend and I have many things in common, but also come from very different worlds. He grew up economically impoverished while I lived a comfortable middle class lifestyle. I grew up socially impoverished while he was always a popular athlete and fraternity member. We both have gone through hardships and loss in our lives which I believe allows us to find common ground, though our specific experiences have been quite different. We are both huge professional sports fans and also both possess degrees in history, which gives us more common ground.

3. I have had a lot of difficulty with my family recently. They have always been supportive of me, and they would be shocked to discover that I have issues with them; yet I am having the (quite common at my age) problem of them not accepting me as an adult. I know they want what is best for me, but it infuriates me every time the talk to me as if I'm some teenager. My grandparents came over for an Independence Day party yesterday so these issues were also prominent in my mind.

I think your comfort yet unease analysis is spot on with all three of these topics. Let me know what you think given this additional information.

I think this dream may well be about all three of these subjects. That's the beauty of metaphorical dreams, a good metaphor can represent several things that are on your mind. Without a metaphor, you need separate words to describe your academic path, your unusual friendship, and your feelings that your family are still treating you like a child, and yet this dream combines the three into one metaphor that fits all of that: an inexplicably peaceful wolf. I think this dream may be trying to tell you something about yourself, how you react to others: you question authority? Just because something bothers you or is too different from you does not mean you avoid it but rather you face it (you go into academia despite misgivings, you find common ground with unusual friend, you challenge the way your family treats you and do not just take it though you of course do love them but that love does not proclude challenging their assumptions about how to treat you). You are in a formative stage of your life where your personality is evolving a lot, and this dream is telling you: this is who you are, you are an inexplicably peaceful wolf, or at least one who attracts the attention of and is uneasily comfortable around peaceful wolves. Congratulations, I think that's a good personality to be developing.

Thank you, both for taking the time to respond to me and for the complements. Your perspective has been very informative and comforting!