Rabbit Dream

Early on New Year's Day, I woke up from what I'm calling a Rabbit Dream.

There is, as you might imagine, a rabbit involved. I’m still working out what. if anything, it means. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was in my apartment (in the dream), and some little critter was rooting around in my living room. I've had a mouse or two, so I didn't think too much of it. Not ideal, but perhaps business as usual in New York. Better a mouse than a roach problem...!

I could hear it skittering a little, and then suddenly I saw it – not darting across the rug, not cowering in e corner – sitting calmly on top of my kitchen table. It wasn't a mouse at all – it was a rabbit. One of the velvety brown ones found in gardens worldwide. The kind you feel a little guilty about hating, because they remind you of Peter Rabbit. The kind that make you stop and silently stare for a long moment.

That's what we did, me and the rabbit. We stared at each other, both completely still and holding eye contact in my living room. And then I woke up.

I'm idly interested indream interpretation, as a way to tease out something in your subconscious. Purely recreational, on par with my vague interest in astrology. I do have a little dream interpretationbook that I got as a high schooler - pocket-sized and very cute, sort of a dictinary of common dream occurrences or items, and what they symbolize. Complete bunk, of course. But I did pull it off the shelf and look up a couple key terms after the dream had stayed with me all day. My first try as "bunny" – no entry. "Rabbit" --nothing useful. If you dream of many rabbits, you will have children. Blah blah blah. A white rabbit, something else vaguely Wonderland-esque. Nothing about my common garden-variety brown rabbit. In a way it's nice, though. It's not so easy to categorize and dismiss when I'm forced todo my own thinking.

No answers yet, by the way. But I do feel like it's somehow a good sign for the year ahead. I'll keep mulling it over in the meantime, with the unexpectedly beautiful phrase "rabbit dream" bounding around in my head.