Do you dream about bears?

Messages you receive in your dreams may be the exact reassurance you need.

Bears seem be something many people dream about. When these powerful beasts began showing up in my dreams on a regular basis, I got curious and dove into studying dreams in earnest. I took classes, joined dream circles, and read lots of books. Still, the bear dreams came, and still I did not understand them. None of what I was finding in dream dictionaries or Jungian interpretations felt right to me. 

I turned to my spirit guides and asked for their help. They told me that I first had to come to understand what a dream really is. Despite all of my work in the spirit realms, I still mostly thought of dreams in the way the psychology field does…that they are one of the ways our subconscious minds works things out. 

My guides explained to me that dreams are the realm of spirit in all its forms. Every dream we have is spirit communicating with us. Some dreams come from the Divine, some from ancestors, some from guardian spirits and guides, and some from the spirits of the land. Dreams are a primary way that spirit speaks to us, and each of our dream languages are unique.

Knowing this shifted my relationship with dreams. It was like the difference between listening to my own mind chatter and being in conversation with a good friend. Only this particular friend speaks in images instead of words, has a flair for the dramatic, and thinks it’s fun to be cryptic.

Once I began to understand this dream language of spirit, a whole new world opened up to me. I made a practice of asking for guidance on a particular issue before going to bed and, without fail, the answer would come that night in a dream. (Seriously, give this a try, it’s amazing!)

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Back to the bears

After the shift in my relationship with dreams, I ended up in a dream class taught by Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of a wonderful book called “Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreams.” Jill explained that, although we each have a unique language with the dreamworld, there are some archetypal patterns common among most dreamers. She said that, in some dreams, we might encounter what she calls The Guardian of the Temple. (Personally, I think of it more as The Steward of The Sacred Space, but I always have to make a thing my own.) This is a noticeable—usually very powerful—character in a dream that is often near a doorway, gate, window, fence or other type of portal. She went on to say that, in her research, she found that these Guardians are very often BEARS.

Immediately I went back through my dream journals and found that the bears had, indeed, been at some kind of boundary place: a cave entrance, a fence, a door, a hole in the wall, a trailhead, etc. And every time, I had either run away in fear or simply stopped and stared at the bear. The thing I didn’t do was go through the portal.

I often say that awareness fuels the power of choice, and this is apparently true in the dream world too. Now that I knew that the bears were marking an important portal, the next time I dreamt of one was a completely different experience.

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I was in a time of upheaval in my life and when I went to bed that night, I didn’t ask for guidance in my dreams. I asked for reassurance. 

In the dream that came that night, I walked towards a big hole in a fence and I could see a trail on the other side leading up a hill. While I was looking at this, a HUGE grizzly bear came through the fence. I was startled, but didn’t run. The bear behaved differently than in past dreams. Rather than staring back at me, it came to me and climbed on my back. It was an intense moment. I could feel the bear’s warmth and smell its animal-ness. Its breath moved my hair as it smelled my head. For a split second, I was terrified, but then something changed inside me. Since I was powerless against this massive being, I simply became resigned to whatever was going to happen. The fear melted away and in the next moment, I merged with the bear. I fell back into it and became the bear. It lasted only an instant, then the bear wandered away.

I looked at the hole in the fence and knew I had just undergone an initiation with the guardian of that portal. I would now be able to go to the other side. As soon as I stepped through, it began to rain. The rain was warm and golden. In the rain was a voice that said, “I created a world for you to love. Let everything you see be a reminder of how much I love you.” I felt held and safe and deeply comforted by the rain itself.

The message I received when I went through the portal was simple but profound. It was the exact message of reassurance that I needed.

My belief nowadays is that when we are approaching a shift—an initiation—in our lives, we will begin to dream about portals and their guardians. When we are ready, we will pass through the portal and begin to integrate what is on the other side. The guardian helps us know when we are ready.

What are your experiences with bear dreams? What have you learned about what they are telling you? Tell me all about it in the comments below!