Dreamin' Man: Elephants, Giraffes, and Mummies

I had an interesting dream last night.

As the vision coalesced into a meaningful image, I found myself back at Mosaic. This time the office space was completely different. The office now occupied a two-story space open in the middle with a second-story mezzanine. The setup of the room mirrored the middle room of the Von Trapp home in The Sound of Music or the main sitting room in Giant. (See below.) Unlike the mezzanine in these other movies, the stairs to the second level weren’t visible to view. They had been hidden back behind a wall, as if they had been added to the outside of the building and enclosed as an afterthought.


At any rate, I stood on the mezzanine looking East. Sunlight poured in through the second story windows and lit up the entire room. In fact, so much light came in, I remember wondering if the eastern end of the building was open to the air. When my eyes wandered to the west, the western horizon was backlit with dark menacing clouds. The angle and intensity of the light suggested Spring.

On a side note, it may help to understand that the interplay between light and shadow in the weather has always fascinated me. Naturally, my favorite times of day have always been the hours surrounding sunrise and sunset, when the contrast between light and shadow is most acute.

There are two clear ways in which this fascination impacts my mood. First, a horizon enshrouded in storm—the promise of the storm even more so than the storm itself—strikes me as inherently hopeful and invigorating. This remains true unless or until I can see the sun tugging at the corners of the storm promising fair weather in the wings, which bookends the storm with more sunny drudgery.

All this leads into my second point. A clear, cloudless day with the sun boring down from overhead triggers a descent into my emotional nadir. Sometimes the stark, unfiltered light of day has a way of revealing the harsh unyielding aspects of life that filtered light can blur.

In any event, as I stared around the office space. It suddenly dawned on me that I was new both to the location and to the company. There I stood, staring at my cubicle. All the while, pending tasks were pressing in on my conscious mind. All this had the effect of creating a constant low-level sense of anxiety. And yet, someone, somewhere held in reserve the key tools I needed to begin work.

In keeping with my original experience at Mosaic, I soon traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia. Once in Vancouver, I climbed aboard a helicopter that rose up from the eastern shadows into the sunlight and headed west over the Strait of Georgia separating Vancouver from Vancouver Island.

Below me, the channel appeared more like a river in size and depth. Snow blanketed both banks of the channel although my attention was drawn primarily to the western bank, Vancouver Island. Unlike in Kirkland, Spring was just gaining momentum in Vancouver. Large ice floes coursed southward through the channel. And there, waist deep in icy-black water just off the western bank roiled hundreds of trumpeting and stamping elephants and giraffes. The whole scene was gripping and terrible. Their features seemed so sharp, the colors and proportions so dramatic, and their aspect or visage so intent.

Inland from the western bank, a plain stretched out for several miles leading up to some imposing peaks completely draped in snow. Few clouds marred the clear sky. For the most part, it remained clear and bright with the sun coming from a southerly angle as it might at midday during the winter. For some reason, the vividness of this scene left me with a deep impression. The colors, the animals, they all seemed so striking so tangible in an inexplicable sort of way.


As the helicopter flight continued westward we hovered lower and observed water courses meandering inland like fingers grasping at the island’s shore. On the ground below us we could see the snow melting and patches of brown surfacing. I remember approaching the rear of a large two-story frame home just inland from the shore and which was built around the turn of the 20th Century. The weather had long since stripped whatever paint had graced the walls, polishing the clapboard siding to a dull gray.

Below us, a child mechanically played or worked in the amid the two-foot snow that still blanketed the back yard of his home. Intermittent patches of icy water punctuated the snow field. Submerged below the clear water pools lay a bed of sodden wild grasses compressed from the weight of the snow.

The helicopter moved rapidly over the river and then lower to within 20 or 30 feet of the ground as we approached the child. Just north and a ways east of the house, the bank cut inland at a northwesterly angle. At about that same point and only a few feet north of where the child moved, stood an ancient Cedar completely devoid of foliage. The bleach-white skeletal remains defiantly clawed the sky. The helicopter veered right and north to miss the tree, temporarily blocking my view of the boy.

Then, just as we approached the north side of the home, I looked down to see a middle aged woman who lay almost prone on a wooden platform of sorts just off the back of the home and some fifty feet from where the child worked. While not much older than mid forties, her skin appeared so jaundiced, emaciated, and tight that she could have been mistaken for a mummified corpse.

After passing the home, the rest of the dream descended into a blurry heap. But three more scenes stand out clearly in my memory. First, we landed near a trading post on the island. I remember looking out the trading post into a sunlit yard. The sun shone so brightly that from my vantage point deep within the poorly lit room, I could only see individuals and window frames silhouetted against the bright backdrop. After that, I returned to my office in Kirkland. Dad, Carver, Ellie, Grace and I were together. The image of the elephants and giraffes stamping in left such an impression on me that I needed to show dad. But before I could show him, Carver needed a new diaper. We never found the diaper.

The dream eventually faded to a close with Dad, Ellie, Carver, Grace, and I standing on the Eastern shore of the Vancouver channel staring at the Elephants and Giraffes on the Western bank making all their commotion in the water. Behind the animals, the sun illuminated clouds and filtered down onto the snow-capped peaks below.


Now, how about endowing this dream with some meaning? Rachael pointing out that the Serengeti fauna probably suggested a connection to my current employer. Taken with the overt link to my former employer, it seems probable that this was a stage on which anxieties real, imagined, subconscious, irrational, etc. performed. Don't forget the archetypes: rivers, mountains, snow, and ice generally carry broad symbolic value. Do we have any Daniels in my audience of one? Any budding dream weavers that want to take a shot at casting light on this night vision?