It started with the sound of breathing. In the dream, I was deep in a forest, dense, green, and strangely familiar, though I had never been there before. The air felt thick, not with danger exactly, but with expectation. I couldn’t see it at first, but I knew something was watching me.

Then I heard it: slow, steady breathing. Not threatening. Just present. Close. And when I turned, I saw the bear.

More Shadow Than Threat

It was massive, shoulders like boulders, fur dark as wet earth, eyes black and unblinking. It didn’t charge. It didn’t growl. It just stood there, twenty feet away, as if it had been waiting for me to arrive. I wanted to run. Every instinct screamed move. But my feet wouldn’t cooperate.

So I stood, locked in a silent standoff with a creature that radiated power, patience, and something else I couldn’t name.

Then it began to walk toward me. Slowly. Deliberately. And I woke up.

Facing the Fur-Clad Fear

The bear wasn’t chasing me. It wasn’t hunting me. It was waiting to be acknowledged.

The fear I carried of change, of loss, of being truly seen, had taken the shape of a silent creature in the woods. And in my dream, I had done something I never did in waking life: I stood still and faced it. Eventually, I stopped fearing the dream. I started meeting the bear with curiosity. And the last time I saw it, I didn’t wake up. I reached out a hand.

And it bowed its great head, just once, like a quiet nod between old friends.