Chasing the White Stag

So I had a dream last night.

The first part was sort of unpleasant but forgettable—I was trying to hide a friend from (the authorities? some kind of security group? They were being led by my old guidance counselor from high school, anyhow) which would have been easier if said authorities was not renovating the house next door.

At one point, we thought we’d gotten away with it. We turned the lights off, opened the windows, and were looking out the window over a field, into the woods. A herd of deer came down, led by a white stag.

“It’s a white stag,” I said to my friend. “Look at that! In stories you’re supposed to try to chase them.”

The White Stag walked by my window, looked up at me, and said “So, what are you waiting for, then?”

Well, never let it be said I resisted the Call to Adventure when it smacked me upside the head.

So I climbed out the window, took the Stag by the hand—the stag was now a rather anthropomorphic creature with wild patchwork clothing, apparently being voiced by Johnny Depp—and the Stag ran, dragging me along by the hand. “Don’t let go,” he said, “and I’ll try not to forget you’re there.”

The landscape we ran through was not, I am sad to say, full of mythic resonance and symbolism. Actually, I’m pretty sure we stopped at a liquor store. But at the end, we were running through this strange city that was built into cliffs? skyscrapers? on either side of an enormous canal, and the far end, where the canal went over a waterfall, we went down into crypts and tombs and the Stag pulled me into a crypt and up a hill of jumbled sarcophagi.

We sat on top of the topmost coffin, while I panted and held onto the Stag’s elbow. “Is this how Neil Gaiman gets his ideas?” I asked, rather plaintively.

The Stag grinned. “Sure. John Stewart, too.”

“…Of course.”

“Nah. They just eat regular meals of White Stag meat.”

“…!”

“Just kidding.”

And then the authorities, who now rather resembled a Shadowrun corp security force, were closing in on us. The Stag gave me clothes, kissed me on the forehead, and ran at them, drawing a very complicated sort of sword.

And the rest of the dream was a chase scene, while I ran through this strange city, which turned into sand dunes which turned into a mall and people gave me rides and I fought off giants with a riding crop and wandered into the Death Metal Office Building (everyone was dressed sort of like GWAR and there was a lot of screaming as I attempted to get to my contact in Accounting.) and it was all very complicated and nonsensical. I woke up as I was running through sand dunes cut with chaparral with the authorities right behind me.

It seems like dreams like that should have a deeper symbolic meaning, but honestly I think it abandoned any hope of that at about the point where we found the liquor store.

6 thoughts on “Chasing the White Stag

  1. Tim the Enchanted Dream Interpreter says:

    This is obviously your inner muse telling you to make a webcomic titled Ursula in Dreamland. Any dream interpreter will tell you that an anthropomorphic stag leading you into a liquor store is clearly symbolism of a repressed desire to make a webcomic.

  2. Al the K says:

    When you go back again (I usually end up in the same locales again, in any case), see if the liquor store has Clicquot Club lime and grab four for me. You can have one and I’ll pay you for all of them next Tuesday.

  3. Amy says:

    I’m seeing a white stag saint with his patchwork robes and ceremonial bottle of liquor, but that’s probably too ready-made. Hmmm. I just realized how absurd that statement might sound in any other setting…

  4. Korbl says:

    I hate to say it because it’s such a Dadaist thing to say, but perhaps sometimes the best meaning is no meaning at all, or at least the best meaning is bringing a little wonder to the life of an introverted, hopeless little soul in a world that is so often bereft of it on a day of a lot of stress (I mean, thank you).

Leave a Reply