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Wolf Dreams: What Do They Mean?
by Richard Wilkerson, Dream Educator
Wolves have fascinated and intrigued us since, I would guess, our first encounter. While the meaning of your wolves in your dream are a deep mystery that only you can know, I can mention a few stories and beliefs about wolves that are part of our collective culture. These images may be used to explore the meanings of your dream.
The Romans and Egyptians saw the wolf as a creature representing valor, and made the wolf a guardian of many sacred temples. Joseph Campbell points out that these guardians serve a universal function around the world of protecting the unprepared from entering the sacred temenos or space.
In this sense, the sacred space is that area reserved for what Rudolph Otto calls the "Numinous" or the powerfully Holy, and it is terrible for those who are not ready, but a great transformational place for those who have been prepared. In modern civilization we don't make people enter these transformational places unless there is a good reason.
Alcoholics & drug addicts, for example, enter via therapy to gain the power to change their habits. The therapists, like the Guardian at the Gate, are often seen as monsters who ask us horrible questions we don't want to talk about. However, after undertaking the journey, we see the wolves (and the therapists) as allies and supporters of our newly gained awareness.
There is a book out that is fairly popular called The Women Who Run With Wolves. It is an example of a new movement in feminism that ties in with ecology and earth based neo-paganism.
I mention this here not only because of the delightful wolf and goddess symbolism that make up the book, but also the idea of recovery of the feminine animal. Too often it is the man that is seen as having all the beast characteristics and energies. In the Goddess movement, there is an attempt to recover the natural and animal in the feminine.
If this were my dream, and I had these dreams when I was a young woman, I would be tempted to investigate the natural and animal characteristics I had when I was younger that I might draw upon now. Especially those parts of myself that at the time I thought were a little beastly and ugly, but that now I might have or make a place for them in my life.
Good luck with the dream and thanks for sharing it with us!
About the Author:
Richard Wilkerson is general editor for The Internet Dream E-zine, Electric Dreams, and director of DreamGate, the Internet Communications and Dream Education Center. He writes the Cyberphile column for the Association for the Study of Dreams Newsletter.
Revised 04/27/2009 by Marlene M. Maheu, Ph.D.
ive had this dream a lot, and i'd like to know what it means.. any answers?
so i was in a really familiar woodsy area. I had some sort of weird spaz attack and passed out. i woke up a few days later as a wolf! at first i was really scared and didnt know what to do. but i had a strong feeling to go north, i followed this feeling through the woods into some sort of a medow. in the middle of the medow was a tribe of Lakotan native americans. The cheif turned to me and said 'welcome sister. we've been waiting for you' i was a little scared, but felt like i was in the right place. so i padded up to the tribes members and sat within the circle. they told me the story of what happened to me, and that Carlos [R. Carlos Nakai] had blessed me with his blood and the great guardians that run through it. they told me that i had to travel to the northern border of the Lakotans land to find my spirit guide, and that spirit would show me the ways of the wise protectors. I did as i was told and ran through the night ot the northern border where i found a tepee. I went inside and was surrounded by a strange familiar scent. there was a medicine woman sitting by a fire that made a thick black smoke. she said to me 'rest young warrior.. let the spirit guide come to you when you're at your weakest, only to help you grow stronger' i did as she told me and layed down on the soft grass floor. as i watched the flames dance and change color, the smoke began to rise into a giant bird. the bird of smoke came at me with its talons, picking me up by the scruff of my neck. it flew me into the heavens where i met the great spirit. The great spirit told me i was put on this great earth to save my brother wolves from the biggest threat to all creatures. the white man. once the great spirit told me what i had to do, i was taken back down by the mighty smoke bird to the tepee of the medicine woman. i then awoke with a new feeling of strenght and will. she said 'now you must fofill you destiny and save our brethern wolves.' with that i leaped out of the tepee and ran to the nearest wolf den. i ran to all wolf dens within our territory and left only the nusrses to take care of the pups. every other wolf and i faught a mighty war against the rule of the white man. we faught for 6 days strait with no rest until we had killed the last white man. with that we celebrated our victory and had all of our land back with no restrictions to our territory. all wolf packs and native tribes became one and we shared our land equaly.