What's In A Dream?

So, last night, I dreamed of taking care of a puppy. Weird, I know. I woke up this morning and could still vividly remember me tending to the tiny creature…I remembered wrapping the puppy in little blankets…yeah, it sounds crazy and ridiculous. And, it is. But here’s the kicker: the last time I dreamed about newborn puppies, or caring for a puppy or some other fuzzy animal was several years ago. And, if my memory serves me correctly, it was around the time I was either trying to get pregnant or already pregnant.

Now, I admit that I’ve toyed with the idea of getting pregnant again. I mean, come on people, I’m not getting any younger and I figure if I’m going to take the pregnancy plunge again, perhaps it should be sometime within the next year.

So, in light of this puppy dream last night, I started thinking and reflecting upon the last few years which then led me to backtracking down memory lane to a little more than 3 years ago to a time when my husband and I decided to get a puppy. We got this little puppy not just because we wanted one, but deep down, I think we got it just to give the whole taking care of a little creature thing a test-run before we embarked upon the task of taking care of a little baby, or in my case 2 babies.

I’m not alone in this approach. I’ve known several other girlfriends who have done the exact same thing – got a puppy, or a kitty cat or some other little critter to love and care for – before getting pregnant and starting a family. And, I’ll have you know also that interestingly enough, I recently had started talking about getting another puppy again a few weeks ago. Yes, we still have our first puppy – Tukker, and she’s great – but she’s no longer a puppy. I mean she’s house-broken, mostly well-behaved the majority of the time and certainly doesn’t have that cute little puppy breath anymore. (Oh, come on, you know what I’m talking about – who doesn’t love puppy breath?) And, more importantly, she’s pretty self-sufficient and doesn’t really need me other than to let her outside, feed her and hang out with her while watching t.v. at night. But, a puppy, that’s a different story – it’s cute, snuggly, playful and is in many ways just like a new baby.

And, now we come full circle - back to the dream I had last night. If I dreamed of caring for a puppy again last night, does this just mean that perhaps I’m interested in getting a puppy or could it mean something more? Could it be the precursor to me actually wanting to get pregnant again? Hmmmm, who knows.

Just for kicks though, I looked up on the internet on some pregnancy-related/baby web sites some keyword searches of what dreams might be associated with starting a family; and oila, lo and behold, according to one web site, “to see a puppy in dreams symbolizes a blossoming interest in getting pregnant” and “to see a litter of puppies in dreams is indicative of the amount of time that an idea of getting pregnant has been developing” and the site goes on to say “look to the number of puppies in your dreams to give you some further insights”.

Heh. Very interesting. While I don’t put a lot of stock whatsoever in dream interpretations, this was a pretty fun exercise to do today and it really did get me thinking. I guess I’ll wait and see if I have any more dreams in the days to come about a puppy, or perhaps in my case, since I’ve been a mom to twins, I should pay far more attention to precisely how many puppies might be appearing in my dreams.