This dream takes place along a rural road. If you’ve been on an east coast rural road you know what they are like. Hilly but not mountainous, curvy, sometimes winding, trees but not a forest, homes dotted along the road but not crammed like the subdivisions in town. You see the occasional small farm with cows, dogs roaming free, yards that looked played on. In this dream I was driving along this kind of road. When I say driving I was both in the car but also moving along the road outside of it, you know, as you do in dreams.

At one point I heard a pack of dogs coming toward me, howling and barking up a storm. Being both inside and outside the car I felt both safe and terrified. When they got close I stopped and froze, my attempt to go unnoticed. In the blink of an eye they weren’t attacking me but a cow, trying to bring it down. But it wasn’t like a normal dog attack. If you’ve ever seen a hyena hunt it’s unsettling. Most animals attack and kill but the hyena attacks, maims, and then starts eating while the prey is still alive. I don’t think ill of most animals for killing for food but the hyena, I just don’t know about that one. And that’s what these dogs did, they maimed the cow and then started eating it while it was still alive. It was disturbing.

After a few minutes I started driving/moving again but now the weather was cold and wintery. I knew in the dream it had snowed two weeks prior and the road should have been cleared but it wasn’t There were still snow patches and slick spots all along the road. At one point the two-lane road was forced to one lane because of the persistent snow. I started driving carefully and saw a car ahead coming toward me. As it got closer I slowed way down and just as it was about to pass me I woke up. I never did learn if I passed the car safely or not.