There’s a nightmare I have that exists in my head almost as long as my earliest memories. My family and I are on our annual camping trip in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. We are hiking and we get separated, leaving me with my dad and my older sister with my mom. As we are trying to find our way back to my mom and sister, my dad and I get chased by Smokey Bear. Yes, the friendly cartoon bear who teaches people about forest fires. (Only YOU can prevent wildfires. That one.) Unfortunately, I’ll never know whether my dad and I escaped from Smokey’s unprecedented pursuit of innocent lost hikers because I always seemed to wake up smack in the middle of the chase scene.
I’ve tried to analyze it over the years (Fear of abandonment? No bear is actually friendly? My dad is arguably the worst hiker in the family and I am the youngest?) but the dream seemed more and more ridiculous the older I got. Over time, it got replaced with more common dreams like falling, sleeping through my alarm when I was supposed to be running the New York City Marathon, or retroactively failing out of college a decade after I earned my bachelor’s degree. The usual stuff.
