Thursday, December 15, 2011

Pachyderm Dreams

Although I realize few things are more boring than other people's dreams, I nevertheless want to mention a dream I had the other night, which was this:

I was on Market street, stuck in traffic, which, it seemed, was being caused by the fact that a large herd of elephants had gotten loose and were running amok downtown.  I couldn't move the car, and my only other option was to get out, but I was very concerned about being accidentally trampled - so I decided to just stay in the car as I assumed they would not try to crush my classic 80's BMW (which are pretty sturdy).

However, I was interested in the elephants, so I rolled down the windows, which seemed safe enough.  They began to file by.  They stopped and sort of tried to check me out by feeling around the car with their trunks, since their eyes were higher than the car.  It was like meeting a blind man; they sort of snuffled me with their trunks - not threatening, but kind of cute and tickly and fun, even.  There was a little slobber, but not too much to be grossed out by.  One elephant would snuffle around and move on and the next would come by.  It wasn't unpleasant.

Finally, the last elephant was feeling around my neck, and I was wearing this very large piece of amber.  Now, earlier in the day, in real non-dream life, I had admired a co-worker's large amber necklace.  In the dream, the elephant began tugging on it.  I could tell he wanted it.  So, ok, I let him have it.  Elephants, they say, have long memories, and amber (fossilized tree resin) is often associated with age - insects long ago trapped in amber and that sort of thing.  So I figured, maybe this bit of amber belongs to this elephant.  Anyway, he pulled it off me, and that was it, but I was sort of sad to miss any more curious affectionate snuffly elephant connection.

And then, last night, I dreamed of baby woolly mammoths, only to wake and wish I could look at a picture or watch a video of one - only to remember, they have been extinct for some tens of thousands of years.  I googled "baby mammoth" and found out that a perfectly preserved 40,000 year old mammoth calf was discovered in 2007 by a reindeer herder in Russia.  Lyuba, as she is called, was found with her skin and organs in perfect condition; she even had a little fur left.  So, you can kind of see what a baby woolly mammoth looks like.  Kind of weird.

Anyway, those were the dreams.  Maybe tonight will be rhinos, hippos, boars, pigs or even a tapir.  One never knows.

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