The Why & The What

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Before awakening this morning, I was immersed in a vivid dream. In the dream, my wife and I were back at our Texas home. We were in the backyard and the light seemed to indicate that it was around dusk. While we were sitting and talking, something  –moving so fast it was a blur — came into our vision. It sped past us and crashed into the window near where we were sitting. My wife and I jumped up and ran into the house. The interior of the house seemed immense, and we made our way down the halls and corridors until we came to the bathroom adjoining our bedroom.

In real life, the bathroom had a shower with glass doors but no tub. In my dream, it had a tub and a metal track along the edge of the tub where sliding glass doors had once been. And inside the tub was a deer, probably a yearling from the size of it. The deer was craning its long neck and looking around. As I stared at the deer. I could sense strong fear and disorientation, but also an overpowering sense of loneliness. I felt as if I were about to start weeping, and the deer looked into my eyes at this point and I could sense that the deer was about to start weeping as well. I thought, I wonder if it will cry aloud, or just cry silently? and then at that point I awakened.

I lay there for a little while, listening to the steady breath rhythm of my wife as she slept, and I replayed the dream in my mind, still moved at the vividness and clarity, still affected by the potency and immediacy of the emotions I had felt — and sensed — while looking down at the little deer. After a while, I arose quietly and went out to the kitchen, where the dogs met me. They galloped to the back door and I let them out and went to make coffee.

While waiting for the coffee to brew, I scanned some local news and weather. The local news had an item from up north that turned me to stone in my chair. It was an item about a deer in a town in Michigan that had crashed into a home and sought refuge in the bathtub.The deer had cuts on its face and refused to leave until extracted by authorities.

The picture in the article showed the bathroom, which looked nothing like the one in Texas or in my dream. But the tub had a metal track attached to the rim, where sliding glass doors had once been. The deer in the photo looked just like the one in my dream.

I have spent the morning trying to figure this out. Why on earth would I dream such a dream? Was it some weird sort of precognition? If so, why would I dream about something related to an animal in a place with which I have no connection? Perhaps I heard this news item while dozing in the recliner last night. Perhaps I received the story on the radio as white noise and it didn’t register in my conscious brain. I don’t know. It’s interesting that my first reaction was to start trying to find ways to explain the dream away, to rationalize the coincidence, to make it graspable and sensible.

And perhaps there is nothing to be grasped. Perhaps it can be explained away. Or perhaps it is a pure mystery. Perhaps I should go take a walk and focus on the crimson stalks of the dying pokeweed plants and the russet tones of the changing mountains instead of ruminating on a small ruminant cowering in a grimy suburban bathtub.

Perhaps.