Thinking about dreams and how they intersect with life

Dreams — mostly I haven’t given them much thought because I don’t usually remember my own dreams.

When I do remember them, the memories are choppy and not plain or they’re startling enough to be nightmares. Such was the case recently that got me thinking about dreams on the conscious side of my 24-hour day.

I was startled awake about 5 a.m. the other morning after a dream produced a terrifying enough image in my brain to wake me quickly and completely enough to leave fragments in place.

I was in a really deep winter snow, quartering a slope on a somewhat packed trail delineated by a cable marking its edge. On the down-slope side I started noticing deer or elk bedded in the snow and looking at me from just a few feet away, as I struggled up the trail. One particular specimen with a magnificent rack stopped me in my tracks. As I stood there, I noticed that a wolf was lying next to him and when he noticed me he growled and tore into the hindquarters of the animal.

A wolf that close … boom, that woke me right up.

Most of the nightmares I am able to remember in the morning have been ones in which I was being terrorized by wild animals. This was the first wolf — mostly it’s been bears and mountain lions. Wolves in my dreams are new but I guess not that far-fetched considering my history of animal terrors. But weirdness continued several hours after I awoke.

Later that day I was watching a movie during a dramatic scene on the edge of a canyon on a summer day. A main character suddenly notices a lone wolf just feet away down the rock slope. It only appeared for a quick moment in that one scene.

The other main character in the film was a 1930s fantasy pulp writer struggling with a death in his life who wound up taking his own life. That set off a little reflection of my dreams. No, I’m not suicidal but the parallels got me thinking.

One thing I have noticed since my wife died a year ago is that I occasionally have dreams with her in them, something I never had during the 40 years we were married. I woke her up with my animal terrors and after another dream of my brother, who at the time lived 700 miles away. That dream ended with the image of a glass lamp at my bedside levitating and then suddenly falling and crashing into pieces, waking me in a cold sweat.

Topping it all off, the next night after the wolf dream, when I turned on the talk radio station my wife was fond of listening to at night a dream expert was interpreting dreams for callers. I couldn’t listen, but I did toss and turn until 3 a.m.

Maybe dreams and real life do intersect in some way. I don’t think anyone can be certain because I think most folks’ dreams are so foggy. I wish I could say I’m not going to let that question keep me up at night but it’s too late.

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman

Tiptoes to my room every night

Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper

“Go to sleep, everything is alright”

— “In Dreams,”

Roy Orbison

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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