A New Idea - The Mouse, Falcon, and Snake Dream

August 21, I had another odd dream. It was the first dream I have ever had where I was a different race. As usual, no one I know was in the dream; they were all brand new characters.

It's a bit long to describe, and the dream itself was a bit bizarre to talk about, but I'll give you a rundown; my spirit animal guide/totem was a mouse, my friend was a hawk or falcon, and my grandmother was a snake. There was another man, a bit creepy of a character, with long black hair and a shrewd, pointed face. For some reason, my friend and I got in a fight, and he challenged me to a battle that night. We'd transform into our spirit animal guide/totem and have at it at midnight. In the heat of the moment, I took him up 0n it.

I went to my grandmother to tell her what had happened and to learn how to transform into my animal. She reminded me that I was a mouse and didn't exactly have a chance against a falcon. I felt very sick; completely forgot about that part. heh. Well, she taught me how to transform--it was really cool to watch her shift into the form of a slender snake--and I was able to effortlessly slip into mouse form--but the thought of going up against my friend was a scary thought.

Midnight came; I stepped into the backyard of my house. Looking up, I saw my friend and the creepy man with the pointed face perched on the peak of my house. I couldn't see their features; they were just sillhouettes against the full moon. My friend saw me, though, and without any preamble or introduction, he shifted into a large hawk with red feathers lined with gold. I had an advantage in the dark, but it still made me tremble at the thought of going up against him.

I turned into a mouse and sat hunched on the ground, a lump in the grass, shivering with fear.

Long story short, I never fought. I ran. My friend was impatient and kept missing. The man on the roof shouted advice and corrections, so the hawk got better and better each time he struck. I knew I was going to die.

As I was hidding huddled under a bush, however, my grandmother came and told me to turn into a snake. I told her I couldn't; a mouse was my form, not a snake. She told me to do so anyway. I tried, and, to my surprise, I succeeded. I was a long, slender black snake, and the crippling fear I had felt as a mouse was replaced with calm and careless confidence. As the hawk struck again, and was able to strike back. He was caught off guard, and shaken by the sudden shift in fortunes, he was reluctant to attack again. We worked something out and got over our differences, and were good friends once again.

The man on the roof was furious. He hated my friend for turning on him and swore that we would both be killed and transformed, there on the rooftop framed by the full moon, into a reptilian demon. It was quite frightening.

But we defeated him--not sure quite how, it was a dream and I was apparently tired of battles in my backyard--and we never fought again. In fact, we collected a group of other people in tuned with their animal spirit guide/totem to fight against people like the man with the pointed face, who would try to use us for their own evil purposes.

This sounds like a pretty good short story to me, and I plan on pursuing it. I'll be doing research on animal totems/spirit guides, nature worship, and shamanism. Can't pursue this idea until I have more knowledge on its main basis.

~TSF