Deer skull headed creature shows me objects

Alright so a bit of background, this is a dream I had around 2 years ago when I was camping at a provincial park in Manitoba, Canada (Which is also where I live). I still remember it clearly as it felt important.

Interesting point - the few dreams I've had that have somehow felt "different" or significant always start by me waking up in the same environment I fell asleep in real life. This was one of them, I dream I wake up on the tent floor in the morning as if I was waking up normally.

So I wake up still half asleep and there is a creature standing next to me in the tent wearing a thick coat of brownish feathers that goes down to the ground and a deer skull head. (Note: I felt this was a person dressed like this like a kind of shaman or something, not an actual inhuman creature)

I am not scared and have a sudden feeling of greatfulness and respect, as if it's an honour to be visited by this man/creature. He doesn't say a word but hands me 3 objects:

- A piece of deer antler
(around the lenght of a ruler)

- A human hand
(this was a real flesh hand, but no blood and no feeling that it belonged to any person that had it chopped off or anything)

- A white quartz crystal (a couple inches long)

In the dream I remember these objects all had a specific meaning that this creature conveyed to me without speaking and I understood all of them, but when I woke up all I could remember was that the deer antler represented something good, the human hand something bad (I think I remember a sense of fear, like something bad would happen in the future) and the quartz a sort of neutral balance.

Then he left and I woke up for real in the tent, with a fealing of awe or greatfulness to have been visited by this shaman

I've thought about this dream a lot and even drew the creature, I've been trying to figure out or remember the objects' symbolism but no real success, so I thought I'd ask for opinions here


More info about me
- around 20 years old
- french canadian/métis cultural background
- religious beliefs complicated but open to many concepts
- I feel very connected to nature in general, collected feathers and animal bones since I was young, etc.
- I don't usually have dreams like this with clear object symbolism, this was odd

Well, this got long, so a bit of a disclaimer on my part: this is always difficult; I think dream interpretation is ultimately up to he/she who dreamt the dream and the value of said interpretations may well change over time. Also note that any analysis I make of symbolic aspects are of course "coloured" by my own life experience, background, and knowledge. The symbolic value of an object depends on those things and more; and is a large part of why we construct our own symbolic meanings for any given object or concept, whether we realise it consciously or not.

So, I'd say it's up to you to really decide on what they truly mean, especially as I do not relate directly to your background. :)

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The deer's (partial) antler could represent masculinity (or lack thereof) in some sense. The length of a ruler is somewhat vague (a foot, a yard, half metre?) but the length may not be important in itself? I would also take note of the fact that the dream character handing you the objects would have had antlers themself based on your description. And so I wonder how the antler you were handed related in size to the ones of the dream character's head. In this sense, the object could be relating more directly to the character passing something on, possibly relating to stereotypical male experience, but possibly not. There can be a positive connotation there in itself, the transfer of knowledge or experience, etc.

The human hand, having no apparent implication with any specific human being but still having some type of negative association, according to your description, could be representative of the fact that human hands at large are responsible for many things, both good and bad. It is easier to be frightful of the negative consequences of human actions (or inaction) because likewise it's easy to feel like the negatives outweigh the positives, but regardless of the larger statistical facts, on a personal level this is about our own perspective on life. The negatives of one human hand can also be outdone by the positives of another human hand, or sometimes, a collective of such hands.

A note I'd like to make which links both the antler and the hand, is that both of these items relate directly to their respective animal's social life. In the cervine social sphere, males engage in locking of horns for a few reasons and likewise, in the human social sphere, hands are used to greet, taunt, aggress, help, comfort, etc. Both the horn and the hand are important for their own social structures to be able exist in the way in which they do exist.

But "wild" animals act out of instinct much more so than humans do, in general. So whatever animals do, instinctively, it could always be perceived as being neutral or good, simply because that's the natural order, in a manner of speaking. Humans on the other hand (not a pun) are capable of making informed choices and are also able to suppress natural instincts and even suppress natural needs. In a way, all of this countermands natural order and so could be considered either neutral or bad, because this "power" enables human hands to make choices that are, in a sense, either unnaturally harmful or even helpful. A possible counter-point to this, is that this perspective of good, neutral and bad in a natural context depend wholly on accepting a premise that humans and their evolution/position in the natural world is not "natural" and "defies" an existing natural balance.

The quartz crystal, being of an apparently neutral connotation may simply be a more literal interpretation of the item; quartz is a translucent stone that can be used as a prism and in a sense this could go back into "perspective", about how things are seen through a prism, perhaps a prism of neutrality in this case. I would also make a personal observation that quartz crystals have a great deal of importance to modern human life, as the use of quartz has been technologically essential for quite some time now.

There are only two more things I want to make note of.

In this dream, had you not been human, or some other creature with comparable grip capability (but arguably with your human mind anyway), you would have been unable to receive or appreciate these gifts at all. So in a sense, they only have meaning because you are human; the character that gave you these items may have been a force of nature, or an agent of nature as a whole but likewise, the character would seem to have a human component to it that, in my mind, seems essential here. The counter-point I'd make to myself here is that of course because we are human and we are in human contexts a lot of the time, we are more likely to make even an agent of nature be relatable to us by having them be human within a dreaming context.

The other thing is that both I and you may be assuming that the character was male. I don't know what personal importance that may have to you, but had this been my dream and based on your descriptions, I would also have been able to consider this character genderless or a mix of genders, as their deer head would not be a definitive element alone for me. Also worth noting that in many cultural/symbolic contexts, nature is considered female.

This is a dream of clarity. Unlike most dreams this didn't arise from biases, expectations, and feelings with in you. However the understanding it was trying to give you would had been related to those things. You have two good options to understand this dream: reflect on what you felt those things meant to you, or have a dream of clarity again and find a character that will relay the meaning to you.