A bear is the loner of the animal world, which is respected and admired thanks to his massive posture. However, despite the biggest admiration, nobody would like to meet with it eye to eye in his natural environment.
Such a situation may happen in our dream. Wandering in the woods, we may suddenly meet a bear coming our from behind the trees, or we may enter a cave and meet with it eye to eye. We are waiting for its attack, which we will not be able to fend off, we feel our galloping hear and its rate, we are terribly scared…
In our dream, we can also see a bear in the circus or in a cage in the zoo, we may be fighting with it and – to our surprise – defeat it, or – in one of the most untypical versions – dress up as a bear.
How to interpret a dream about a bear?
A bear is the symbol of revival and resurrection, and also of the introduction to the passage of life – mostly because it hibernates in winter and wakes up in spring. Many feminine goddess were accompanied by it, e.g Artemis or Diana, in alchemy it was believed to be the nigredo, which is the darkness before the new stage of life. Because of its strength, it often appears in heroic myths, symbolizing the masculine Sun element.
It can be also interpreted as the wild masculine strength, primitive, wild instincts hidden in us, overprotectiveness and, in the christian context – as bodily desires, evil or even the devil.
If we meet with a bear eye to eye in our dream, and we are standing still, like paralyzed, waiting to be attacked, maybe we put ourselves in the role of the victim in real life too often – we underestimate our possibilities, overestimate the others, consider the surrounding to be a giant bear, we feel endangered by it and insecure, but are marginalizing those fears and they return in our dreams. If we defeat the bear, it is highly possible that we will manage to defeat our fears in reality, or that a big change or a regeneration in our life are possible to happen.
A bear in the circus may mean that we are afraid of being a figure of fun, or that we are ashamed of something we did or said. A bear in a cage is the symbol of the upcoming success.
I dreamed that my family and I and a couple of people I didn’t know were traveling in what looked to be a hand hewned boat on a river. We got out on the bank and began climbing up a large mountain. It was very hot. As we ascended the weather began to change and we started seeing lots of snow and ice. We were following a path parallel to a high, sheer cliff. As we came came to the far end of the cliff the path turned uphill again to take you up that side side of the cliff. About 20 feet above us there was another path running parallel to the top of the cliff. I was leading so I heard the commotion first. A large buck came barreling down the path. It fell to its knees right above me on the path. I saw blood and wounds at the bottom of the back of it’s neck. Then I heard the growling. A huge grizzly bear was running down the path after the deer. I turned back down the hill and quietly instructed everyone to be quiet but make their way back down the the way we came. We made it to the other end of the cliff and the bear came around the corner at the same time we emerged. My daughter and granddaughter, and myself were in front. We froze momentarily while the bear was pounding its front feet into the ground, shaking its head back and forth, and growling, slobber flying everywhere. Then we slowly started taking steps back. All of a sudden we noticed the front of a house of sorts in the side of a cliff. An old lady had already let everyone else in. We made it to the house before anyone was hurt. But then I realized my husband was missing. I was very afraid that he was out there trying to find me and I had the feeling that the bear was going to find him. Then my dream ended before I knew what happened to him.