I Went Looking for Universal Love. I Found a Snarling Dog.

My goal was a spiritual breakthrough. Things didn't turn out that way.

In the dream, two calm men—somewhere between martial artists and highly skilled meditators—are trying to teach me how to shift my state so that the small but fierce black dog will stop attacking me.

Maybe he’s not a dog. I’m not sure. He alternates between relaxed and oblivious… and is out for blood. We’re in a kind of retreat center that seems to have appeared right in the middle of a mountain town village. Think: Monks on Main Street in Park City.

Only they aren’t really monks. They might be plant medicine facilitators. It’s hard to say.

All I know is this dog is relentless, and my ego keeps betraying me. I walked into the center confident I could quickly win him over. Before long, my guides were surprised at my progress; the dog seemed to accept me.

But then the dog charged again. And again. And again.

I kept fending him off, but he always circled back, built up more negative energy… and charged. Or passively walked toward me—then tried to bite.

I had gone to sleep thinking about how to turn off the left side of my brain, so that I could be in a pure right-brain state. In that state, I guessed, it might be possible to feel the incredible love that pours from the universe into every living creature. (That’s what I’ve been told happens, but I’ve never actually felt such love.) My theory was that my ever-thinking, ever-logical left brain slams the door on any such experience.

Is this true? I have no idea.

All I know is that 45 minutes ago, I woke up exhausted. The dog was still attacking me, right up until the moment my eyes opened. What an unpleasant dream.

I jumped into the shower, trying to wash away the negative energy as well as the sweat on my body.

And then it hit me: that “dog” wasn’t a dog. It was my left brain—the part of me that sees threats everywhere and thinks it needs to charge, again and again and again.

It’s neither noble nor wise. It’s just annoyingly negative and utterly relentless. The threats aren’t “out there.”

The thing reducing my quality of life—keeping me separate from the greatest love I could possibly imagine—is my inability to let that scared little dog chill out. It’s that I can’t let that poor little guy stop being hypervigilant. I can’t make him feel safe enough to take a nap or two, so that my right brain can come out and play… and love can envelope me.

P.S. I’m not the only one who has this issue.

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