The dream and the lion

I've decided I absolutely must start keeping a dream journal. I've said it a hundred times, but it always seemed like just another thing to keep track of. So I keep putting it off. But then there are times, like in the early hours of this morning, that I dream so vividly, it leaves me feeling as though someone is giving me these little gifts.

I almost always have incredibly real dreams if I eat just before I go to bed. Some are good, some not so much. Last night, I had a huge bowl of ice cream before turning in. Yes, I know, unhealthy on so many levels. LOL And this morning (I knew it was morning because I awoke before 3:30 to use the bathroom) I dreamed with so much detail that it stayed with me all day.

In the dream, I slayed a lion. We were at a sort of safari park, the kind you can drive through, like the one at Six Flags in New Jersey. In the park, there was a huge playhouse that kids could go into and climb through and then exit by sliding down a slide on the side of it. I watched kids coming down the slide, when I saw a full-grown male lion approach the slide, where the kids were exiting.

I screamed, over and over, but as in many dreams we have, no one could hear me except me. The lion approached one brown-haired girl, who froze in terror. I could see tears fall down her cheeks, but in her state of fear, not a sound came from her mouth. There was something wrong with the lion too. His face was white. I knew there was something wrong with him. He was sick. (I have no idea how I knew this.) And I knew he would slaughter this child if no one did anything.

The girl then turned toward me and the other parents and then the lion did as well. And then I moved. I grabbed a steel pole from somewhere and sprinted toward the lion, like a pole jumper. The lion ran toward me, roaring as he came. I was afraid, but not enough to freeze up. I knew he would kill me in a heartbeat.

****Just a small warning here that this part is a bit graphic. But this is how it happened in the dream.****

The lion was about 10 feet from me when he leapt at me, roaring, and I shoved the pole into his mouth and as deep into him as I could make it go. It was about 6 feet long, and it went in up to about five feet. (Yes, impossible, but it was a dream.) He fell instantly to the ground. But he didn't die right away. Someone handed me another pole, and as the lion started to rise up again from the ground, making gurgling noises this time, I slammed the pole down into it's side, killing it. There was no blood at all. And in the dream, I was glad I was able to save these kids.

When I woke up, I was shaking. I'm still not sure what to feel about it. But it was so clear. I have to start writing all of these down, because I've had some whoppers.