The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized as the sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment, and in the uninterrupted struggle both of individuals and of humanity.
~Alfred Adler
.Our unconsciousness is like a vast subterranean factory with intricate machinery that is never idle, where work goes on day and night from the time we are born until the moment of our death.
~Milton R. Sapirstein
.The moon is high over the forest, but little light makes its way through the thick boughs of evergreens. The pack is running tonight. Their numbers are rarely the same sometimes seven, sometimes nine. It is always an odd number and they are never on the hunt. They are summoned.
.The scene shifts. The shaman sits before a fire in a clearing. The smoke curls up into the inky blue night sky. A few stars are visible, but the shaman does not look up. He is waiting. He can hear the paws on the forest floor even at this distance.
.The pack can sense they are close. They speed up managing to avoid every tree in their path, plunging through shallow streams effortless on their way to the shaman.
.He waits patiently, never moving. Not even when they break into the clearing. The wolves study the shaman with disinterested yellow eyes. They do not wish to be here. Suddenly, the flesh begins to melt from the shaman and slowly his bones appear and he crumbles into nothing more than a heap of ivory.
.Some of the pack begins to advance on the marrow filled treat. They may not be hunting, but they will not turn down such an invitation. Then those who do not wish to partake turn against their own to defend the bones. The defenders are often outnumbered and snarling and biting. If the succeed the shaman begins to regenerate. Slowly sinew and flesh knit together into a being. he takes a piece of burning wood from the fire and scares away the members of the pack that would have done him harm. Then he sits down with his defenders and the night fades away.
.This was the dream I had over and over as a child. I usually woke up in a cold sweat when the shaman began to decay. It really was feature film quality. One night I forced myself to watch it all. That's when I found out about the pack dividing itself over the remains and the shaman's regeneration.
.There always seems to be one dream that reoccurs to a person that is theirs to interpret. My dad had one with cats and spoiled milk; mine was the wolves.
.I finally sat down and figured out what it all meant. Whether you believe in dream interpretation or not, I must say that I have only had the dream maybe twice after I figured out what it all meant. That's twice in near ten years after having it nightly or, at the very least weekly, as a young girl.
.The shaman represented me as a whole. The pack: my self-image. The wolves that advanced on the bones were all my doubts and fears. Every part of me that beat me up and told me I was no good. That I should be swallowed hold and destroyed because there was no purpose for me. Every mistake I made in reality there was a voice in my head ready to devour me with criticisms. The defenders were that bit of confidence I always had, the last bit of hope. For a very long time that bit of me was outnumbered by the self-loathing. Finally, that part became stronger to the point it could overcome the adversary.
.
This dream was my mind's method of telling me to layoff myself. I needed to be scared witless in my sleep to see it, but eventually I did. I still hold myself to an overly high standard; just not nearly as bad as before. When I do start to get over bearing the dream will float to the front of my subconcious and remind me to back down for the time being.
