Dreams?

[Keinai]

I've been having the same kind of dream over and over again since the beginning of the month.

I'm in a Croatian forest (I don't know exactly where but nowhere near a city or people) and I'm always next to a European Gray wolf, and we're standing or walking together. The wolf is female and she has brown and grey fur with some black points and streaks, and white on her chest, stomach, and most of her legs. Brilliant yellow eyes.

Sometimes I stroke her back or her ruff and when I wake up my fingers feel warm (my house is fairly cold at night) and like I just touched my dog, but she sleeps downstairs.

I don't really think I identify with wolves very strongly but they say you can't really pick your power animal, it comes to you. But I'm not sure if this wolf is my totem?

I don't know, it's very confusing.

[anoni]

Memories get changed based on your expectations, it's very hard to remember dreams and most people who are 'remembering' dreams are simply piecing together random fragments of information and creating a story that wasn't actually the dream, but a false memory of the dream.

You may not be having this dream continuously, you may instead be having dreams which, when you wake up, expecting to have this dream, you believe you had this dream. It's possible that you are indeed having the dream ofc, but it's just something that could be potentially happening too.

[Keinai]

If that's the case, then I'm asking if anyone could help me interpret what I at least think I experienced.

Where did you get that information to begin with--that people sometimes do not dream what they think they dreamed?

[anoni]

It's sort of an induction based on the concept false memories which basically say that you generally recall, incorrectly, your past experiences. That, coupled with the idea that most people immediately forget their dreams, implies that most dreams are themselves false memories. Also the most popular theory of what dreams are today is that they are the result of signals in your brain leaking to the conscious when your brain repairs itself in your REM cycle. So it's like, your brain is repairing itself and strengthening synaptic connections, and in order to do that it needs to fire those synaptic connections and sometimes those signals leak to the conscious side of the brain and thus you start imagining things, your brain (after you dream) tries really hard to interpret the random signals and thus you get a dream.

[Keinai]

Ah, okay. Sorry, I just like it when people cite their information.

But do you have any idea why my REM signals were interpreted almost exactly the same way for about half a month?
Do you even believe dreams can be spiritual or is it all scientific logic to you?
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be rational instead of spiritual, I'm just curious as to why you're telling me my dream isn't actually my dream instead of helping me understand the content.

[MrRazot]

Why we dream is still under a lot of question and there are many theories as to why we actually dream.
Why not necessarily being spiritual experiences, they're still effectively projections of the self concious.

The idea of interpreting dreams goes a long way back and is also largely spiritual and we could interpret it as that in a few ways  depending on different cultures: Wolves in Europe usually represent victory but in Asia they'd represent something along the lines of protection.

Totemism is also a very Native American thing and you could totally see this dream as having relation to some form of a totem or spirit animal.

Generally I would suggest you interpret the dream how you want to, but I found this site you could check out.
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/totem-wolf-symbols.html

[Keinai]

Thanks for your help. ^^