Dream Journal - April 4th, 2021

I dreamt I was walking through the neighborhood I just moved into about three months ago. The walk down the road turned into a walk through someone’s property. It was a narrow walkway through rows and rows of animal pens. There were all sorts of animals, in particular lots of sheep, but there were also a handful of wolves and at least a couple of lions. At one point I went through an unlocked gate on the left only to realize that it was taking me into one of the pens. Thankfully it was empty and thus I wasn’t in any danger. I continued instead straight through a tall gate to another set of pens. But then the walkway between the pens hit a dead end it seemed. In any case, it wasn’t clear how to continue. It was just animal pens full of animals on all three sides.

Then a man about my age came walking methodically from behind me, leading at least three sheep behind him. The man was thin with very short hair. He was a bit unkempt and rather unattractive all around, wearing plain brownish clothes that were quite dirty. I imagine he didn’t smell nice. He also didn’t seem particularly friendly. He said nothing, made no indication of even noticing me. He ducked under the fence on the left and began to slowly and methodically lead his sheep through a big empty pen. It seemed this was a way through. I followed him with the sheep.

At the far edge of the pen we had to crawl through a series of fences and so I was down on my hands and knees right alongside the three sheep. We moved quite slowly, with some sense of ritual. There was some underbrush we had to crawl around, otherwise it was mostly thick dry grass and rotting bark that we were crawling through. We made it through shortly, clear of the animal pens. I came up last behind all three sheep, just as we intersected a well-trod path that had more greenery around it, with tall bushes and trees on either side.

The man and the three sheep were a little ways ahead of me when I came across another man lying on the edge of the trail. To my horror, he had some kind of sharp instrument, a chisel perhaps, lodged in the side of his face. He was bleeding and evidently dying. He had short blonde hair and a more pleasant looking face than the other man, and was much cleaner. He was wearing a leather outfit, or perhaps some armor, as he seemed like a soldier, or squire, the way he was dressed. I was horrified at this scene and couldn’t figure out why the man leading the sheep hadn’t noticed this man and stopped to help. Then I had the thought that maybe the man leading the sheep was the one who did this to this poor man.

I pulled the chisel out of the man’s face and it was clear he was about to die. But I strangely felt he had something important to tell me, some wisdom or advice for me. So I asked him, what do I do? With some difficulty he replied, “Stand up straight.”

Then he died. And I woke up.