Now before I go on here,it seems as good a place as any to give some thought to this dream.

Many writers I know keep a dream journal or notebook by their bed.I've never became anything nearly as obsessive about writing as to do that.Neither am I anywhere near as obsessive about dreams.I could be very wrong about this,but I don't view dreams as having special meaning,at least most of the time.But dreams in the Bible certainly had meaning,which is what leads me to say I may be wrong.The only trouble is,you can go to a book of dream interpretations and find as many different ideas as there are authors,so I have no idea which ones to believe.The best theory I can come up with on my own as to what dreams mean is that they have their meaning largely in whatever connotative meaning the dreamer assigns to their various symbols.And I admit,that is a completely unscientific theory.As for science I'm not convinced that it can interpret dreams,though it may well be able to suggest what the purpose of dreams are.But in terms of the ultimate meaning of a particular dream,I believe that is beyond science.

So what is this dream of the Deadwater Creek about?I don't want to dismiss it so quickly as I might be tempted to do.Why does it recur,though infrequently?First it is connected to a place I know,a place that in some sense is me,a part of my deep history,most of which predates my actual life.Secondly,it shows me that place in a way that is surreal,not at all grounded in what the place is really like.another mystery.I ve come to think of as the way my mind reveals ancient and deep reality to me,though in a way I can't understand intellectually.

The dream:I am walking in the creekbed of that place I know of as Dead Creek.Only it is not the same place as the real Dead Creek.Sometimes I am walking upstream and sometimes downstream.I've always believed the moon to be full though I never see the moon.The night is always bright though.There is never another person in the dream.Sometimes there are foxes and owls.The creek is full of fish.I am looking for my grandfathers old house,or sometimes the place where the creel enters into Eel River Lake.But I never get there before waking up.

The interpretation:Dead Creek is familiar but in so many ways a mystery.So is the dream.The creek is a sort of cleaned up version of the real one with clear water and banks that are not overgrown.Traveling either in it or beside it is not difficult.Rivers I tend to associate with journeys,and water with sustenance or life.That it is well lit is surprising to me,but the moon is all about light.It's not the light of day though.But the light is sufficient to see me through the journey,but doesn't always provide as much light as I might like.Owls are a night sound,though I'm not sure what they could symbolize.Wisdom perhaps,though they could also be interpreted as a predator.They swoop down silently and kill effectively.Though this dream never causes me fear at all,so I tend to see the owl as being a benevolent figure,almost paternal,in a transcendent sense of the word.Foxes are another creature I don't understand in terms of the dream.Foxes in the real world I tend to associate with pleasure,in the sense of  their being a pleasure to encounter and observe.They,in reality, often appear in unexpected places including most of the large cities I've lived in.They belong to the night.Many think them to be quite shy,though in fact they are very inquisitive and will approach very closely.It takes some time to get to know them and you never seem to get to know them completely,which seems to be consistent with the way the dream ends.I should note that of the few recurring dreams I've had,foxes occur in at least two of the others as well.So I suppose I could ask if this has some function to unite or harmonize two or more dreams.

So what does it all mean?I really don't know.Only the idea of looking for my grandfathers house makes much sense to me.In my waking life I've often thought that it might be interesting to do a sort of an archeological expedition of the site,should I ever be able to find it.In fact I've no idea if his house could be found or not.Only that,in the dream it never is,and perhaps that is the whole point.

I only know that from time to time I dream of the Deadwater creek.I'll likely stay fairly contented to not understand this dream in any deep sort of way.I can wonder about it without any real need to know.And maybe someone will read it and be able to gain some insight into what was going on in the dreamers mind.