One of those "weird dream" posts

[hrj]

So last night I had one of those vivid dreams that feels like a "meaningful dream" concerning a paraplegic eagle.

There I was, with all my falconry gear, flying a golden eagle. It was really tame -- sweet personality. (Completely unlike your usual golden eagle personality.) And somehow the eagle got tangled up in high-tension wires and ended up amputating both its wings at the elbow. And I'm standing there with this mostly oblivious eagle with raw (although not bleeding) stumps of wings, and the severed wings lying there on the ground. I decide, "I have to take it to the vet hospital at U.C. Davis for treatment," but realize that I don't have a license to be keeping an eagle. (I think in the dream I didn't have a falconry license at all, but if it had been something common like a red-tail I could have bluffed my way through.) I briefly consider that the bird isn't likely to survive anyway, but decide instead that I'll blythely assert that some random person dumped the wounded eagle on me and I'm just performing the rescue. So I put it into a cardboard carton for transport and drive off to the veterinary medicine school at UCD, arriving some time in the wee hours of the morning when nobody is there. The dream sort of petered out at that point, with me in a dim, empty lobby carrying a wounded eagle in a cardboard box.

It definitely has the look-and-feel of an anxiety dream, although it's not one I've had before and the interpretation doesn't seem to be obvious. Birds of prey usually figure in scenarios where I feel like I'm letting down an authority figure (remnants of my experiences at the UCD bird of prey center). And attempts to conceal or disavow responsibility for dead bodies usually represent a long-term project that has been left undone too long -- although in this case the body isn't dead. I suppose the eagle could be the house remodelling, but there isn't really any significant authority figure involved.

Hey, at least I'm sleeping well enough to be able to remember dreams.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

If they figure in the scene that you feel you're letting down some authority figure, maybe the injury is an attempt to reassure your own control and vision (but not fully wanting or being scared of that; hence the attempt to get to the vet so that you'll appear to be doing the right thing)

Of course, I'm a lousy dream-interpreter.