I am with Nadia M. I am showing her my grandparents’ backyard, & the small pinewood forest behind it, which exists in real life, but now, in the dream, has been cut down because of a pine beetle infestation. From the backyard I am showing the clearing to Nadia & explaining the beetle problem. It’s wintertime so the clearcut is dusted with snow, & we are viewing it from the other side of a thick wall made of packed snow. I don’t know why this wall is there.

We spot animals in the clearing that look like small red weasels, but they disappear into the brush. Then we see two bears—a mother & her cub. Excited, & only slightly cautious because of the snow wall between the bears & ourselves, we move closer to get a better look as they move far ther into the clearing. But then we hear a loud, low growl come from the other side of the wall, & we know instantly that the father bear is directly across from us—issuing a warning to get away from his family. The growl is that of a huge animal, & the wall is only made of snow after all, so Nadia & I are scared, but kind of giddy too—excited at the danger. We run away to watch from afar.

Then we see that the snow wall has a swinging wooden gate built into it, & a young man dressed like a cowboy suddenly comes jumping over the gate, all cocky, not afraid at all. He’d been on the other side with the bears, & doesn’t look rattled in any way. I think about how he’d jumped over the gate instead of opening it. He studies us from where he stands & seems annoyed, scornful, that we are afraid of bears.