Animal dreams

[EmpNapoleon]

I've asked 31 people what is the first dream that they can remember.  Astonishingly, 26 have mentioned some animal or another.  Most were running from this animal while screaming for their mothers.  In my dream, when I was 4 y.o., I was running from a gorilla.  Others have mentioned dogs, lions, wolves, snakes, etc.

What is the first dream you can remember?  Can you think of an explanation of why there is usually an animal involved?

[маразм1]

I've asked 31 people what is the first dream that they can remember.  Astonishingly, 26 have mentioned some animal or another.  Most were running from this animal while screaming for their mothers.  In my dream, when I was 4 y.o., I was running from a gorilla.  Others have mentioned dogs, lions, wolves, snakes, etc.

What is the first dream you can remember?  Can you think of an explanation of why there is usually an animal involved?

when I was little, I had a "peter and the wolf" record with a giant almost life-like wolf's head on the album cover.  It had a shiny nose, and an open mouth with a glossy tongue. 

I had a dream that me and my dad were going down the road, along a field.  there's a chicken wire fence on the left of use.  So, I'm skipping a long, my dad makes jokes, I'm having fun, then I look to the right, and when I look back, my dad has disappeared. 

Well, as a child, I often would stop and look at something--a statue, I dunno, something.  I'd look for several minutes, and when I looked back, everything would change, people would have gone ahead and it's like magic "poof". 

So my dad is gone, and I start panicking.  Then I see a hole in the chicken wire fence, like somebody cut it with wire cutters.  And ... a wolf comes out of there.  I ask him "are you a wolf?"  and he responds "yes!  awoooooooooo!"  and I wake up.

[cx]

What is the first dream you can remember?

The earliest dream that I can remember? I can't even remember the dream I had last night.

[BachQ]

My animal dreams are not for publication ....... 

[greg]

My animal dreams are not for publication ....... 

why am i not surprised? 

i can't remember the first dream i can remember! that's hard....

[Kullervo]

I had so many night terrors when I was younger, I don't remember most of them, but do I remember being upset by a certain dream about a church that was painted black. Since I was raised in a Baptist household, my church (which happened to be white) was a happy place for me. Since this was a dark church, it represented the inverse of all good things.

Aren't dreams strange?

[greg]

lol, if i saw my church painted black in my dreams i'd just laugh. I think that's like a rule, that Baptist churches are white...

[orbital]

The earliest dream that I can remember? I can't even remember the dream I had last night.

Sometimes that's a good thing :

There is the story of Jung and this patient who visits him telling him that he cannot remember any of his dreams. Jung does some suggestive therapy urging him to remember the dream that he will see that night and asks him to come visit him the next day. The man, as Jung suggested, comes back the next day and tells him that amazingly he does remember the dream that he had the night before. And he goes on to tell the dream: He is in the attic of a four or five story house, and as he descends the stairs to the floor below he sees time going back. By one floor down he is a child, one more floor and it is a century earlier, when he descends to the ground floor he sees a prehistoric world with cavemen and ancient rituals. Jung stops him right there and says 'You sir, please do not ever remember another dream. There is so much in your unconscious that even I may not be able to sort it all out '" 

I do remember a recurring dream from childhood in which I was living with a stepmother. She was this very beautiful blonde woman. We were living in a multi story old house. In the dream she was always entertaining some guests, and I would come down, sit at the stairs and listen to them. She would catch me every time and shout at me to go back to my room  I saw that dream very frequently for a while.

[val]

I had some dreams with animals. But the animals were cooked and ready to be served.

[EmpNapoleon]

Thanks for your contributions.  But for this psychology project, I have to take a stab at why 27 out of 32 people had animals in the first dream the could remember.

[greg]

maybe it has something to do with going to the zoo when you're a kid? That's when you really learn about animals, after that you don't learn nearly as many new animals. So I think the fact that you're learning about so many animals, since there are so many, has something to do with it.

[EmpNapoleon]

maybe it has something to do with going to the zoo when you're a kid?

Perhaps.  I'll use this.  I want to steer clear from Freudian sexuality or Jungian archetypes.  Your explanation is clear and light, and that's what I like.

[greg]

good! you can never go wrong with the advice of a Poopy Flying Monkey! 

[Renfield]

Thanks for your contributions.  But for this psychology project, I have to take a stab at why 27 out of 32 people had animals in the first dream the could remember.

Did I just hear one of the words that summon me?

To be more serious, I suspect you would be better off alluding to some sort of metaphor, though not necessary a Freudian or Jungian one, than using the "zoo" excuse.

For such a number of modern humans, whose lives are far from jungles and the constant threat of animal predators, to encounter animal representations of the sort you mention, any sort of attempted explanation must account for the fact that they are usually running from them.

In other words, let the zoo rest, I say, and focus on primal fear, if you don't want to say "id". Perhaps a simple instinctive urge to flee an animal they consider a predator, whose figure they've imprinted through a random sighting? (Mind you, that's not the same as the "zoo" explanation, but it does allow for the occurence.)

Anyway, though, I'm not being very scrupulous here: I'll admit the Freudian explanation, or at least one linking anxiety to the instinctive reaction of an animal (homo sapiens) to a potential predator (wolf, lion, etc.) is one I find most satisfactory indeed.

But if you do want to veer from it, keep in mind that "clear and light" explanations, though wonderful when encountered in logic, more often than not are not the case, for the human mind. Too many criss-crossing neuronal networks, for most "light" theoretical explanations to float. But you can always go experimental!

[karlhenning]

My animal dreams are not for publication ....... 

Not even the dream of the purple panda in d minor?

[EmpNapoleon]

Primal fear.  Thanks Renfield.

[Renfield]

Primal fear.  Thanks Renfield.

"Always glad to help."

P.S.: Now give me proper citation, in that project!


Edit: I think that, for the sake of clarity and consistency, I should note that any hypothesis of "primal fear" is inherently Jungian. Because as a premise for its validity, it presupposes the existence of a collective unconscious. And that takes us back to Jung.

[greg]

i had a dream of a lion chasing me a few months ago, it was pretty long and wild.... and very symbolic

anyways, it's more like a mixture of primal fear and the zoo. There's 2 parts to the dream- the animal, and the running away. If the kid has never seen any animals before, how is he going to dream of an animal? It's just a form of fear manifested into something that can "get them", and it's likely to be an animal since around that time they go to the zoo or learn about many different types of animals for the first time.
Even if they have never seen an animal before, the primal fear thing is just something that every has, so it comes out in dreams often. The most common type of emotion in dreams is said to be anxiety, so often it involves chasing or something. So if the kid has never seen an animal, then the object of fear will just be something else.

[orbital]

I've read somewhere not too long ago that our sleep cycles are still based on primitive human conditions (at least theoritically). The reason we knowingly or not wake up a few times during our sleep might be because of some genetic leftovers from our past where we had to wake up to look around for danger frequently during the night.
I think it is just a theory but not a bad one, for scientists AFAIK seem to agree that we do not need to have those cycles -for physiological reasons, at least.

[karlhenning]

If the kid has never seen any animals before, how is he going to dream of an animal?

Is nothing in a child's brain, before his own senses feed in information?