My three-year-old daughter, Primrose, has a recurring dream where a dragon kills her Daddy. She tries to fight off the dragon alongside her father but in the end, the dragon kills me. She brought this dream to my attention about a year ago when she woke up one morning and when asked, “How did you sleep last night, Primrose?” she said, “A dragon killed my, Daddy.” And Savanna and I looked at each other like, “Holy shit?” And when Primrose tried to explain the dream in her two-year-old vocabulary all we could understand was the fact that a dragon had killed me. Bummer deal…

I thought it was odd that my daughter was dreaming about her father being killed by a dragon, not because I am some kind of dream expert or dragon slayer, but because I am interested in what the dragon meant. Was she being visited by the Devil in the form of a dragon? Was she prophesying that I was going to relapse on alcohol and drugs? Was she watching The Pagemaster too often?

I did not have any answers, so I decided to let it rest, pray, and stay vigilant instead of complacent with my sobriety and mental health. As they say in the infantry, “Complacency kills.” At least twice a week for three or four months, Primrose, mentioned that the dragon killed her daddy and I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to dig deeper into Dragon Mythology, dream interpretations, and child psychology but as we all know it can be hard to study with two toddlers who need to be entertained all day without the use of screen time. Not to mention the other things to do and think about.

Eventually, Prim’s dragon dream turned to vapor like smoke from a fiery cave- until a few nights ago, when she shook my shoulder in the middle of a Missouri night and said, “The dragon is back Daddy… It killed you.” I won’t lie, it gave me goosebumps.

Now I know that she may just be saying that she has the dream because she loves hearing Daddy tell stories and is quickly learning how to tell her own. And while I try to stay straight-faced when she mentions the dragon dream, I am sure that she can pick up on my body language and vibrations. I have always worn my emotions on my sleeve, and she is a sensitive and intuitive human. So whether she is crafting the dragon story to get a rise or not, I do not know, but it gives me a case of the heebie-jeebies.

Since I am currently staying in a self-heated home in Missouri with seemingly endless hot water, electricity, warmth, and groceries. And since the grocery store is three minutes away and I do not have animal chores, generator chores, house chores, or mechanic chores- I have more time to look slightly deeper into the dragon deal. Before you read any further, if you want to deeply dig into the folklore and mythology behind dragons- visit your local library, visit some online forums, and do more thorough research than what you will find here.

For some reason, it seems that in my life dragons are only referenced when relating to Chinese culture. However, the Chinese and other East Asian cultures are not the only cultures to use dragons in their folklore and belief systems. My ancestors, the Celts, viewed dragons as wise guardians with great courage and power. Dragons lived in a parallel world to our own as guardians of the Earth possessing great insight and healing powers.

While I have always thought of dragons as fire-breathing cave dwellers who flew around town chasing gold seekers, in Celtic Mythology there were two types of dragons. One of which had four legs, a huge body, and bat-like wings. The other was a sea serpent without legs and rarely possessing wings. Both were believed to have great wisdom and strength, often viewed as greedy and prideful. They often accumulated great wealth just to hoard and hide away, destroying entire populations who came to take their treasure. And then there was the red dragon, and I’m not talking about the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. The red dragon was an adaptation of the great red serpent that represented the Welsh God, Dewi. (You take the time to learn about Dewi and fill me in.) The red dragon is still used today on the flag national flag of Wales. It is said that King Arthur himself dreamed of a dragon before his final battle, and it was thought that if a King sees a dragon in a dream their ruin is near.

So why did I instantly interpret the dragon in my daughter’s dream as being negative, when in fact, dragons possess many great qualities?

Perhaps it has to do with the old term “chasing the dragon” which refers to smoking black tar heroin in pursuit of the ultimate high. Did I ever smoke heroin? Only if you count crushing up Oxycontins to smoke out of a metal pipe, which I wouldn’t recommend. Or maybe my fears were born from the passage in Revelation 12:9, “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” Some people say that the red dragon used in the Bible was stolen from the Celts by the Christians to persuade the old Celtic believers and to squash their old stories. If that were true, it seemed to have worked because Christianity is the leading religion in the world today 

Back to dragons…

A Chinese scholar named Lu Dian (AD 1042-1102) once said, “None of the animals is so wise as the dragon. His blessing power is not a false one. He can be smaller than small, bigger than big, higher than high, and lower than low.”

What exactly does smaller than small, higher than high, and lower than low mean? I don’t really know… but it sounds like some magical shit to me!

While the dragons in the Celtic world were badass, the dragons in East Asia were just as rad. They were said to possess mystical powers that moved and created clouds, changed seasons, and controlled waters. They were the bringers of rain and a source of enormous, God-like power. They represented the Yang side of humanity with great masculine powers of heat, light, and action.

Earlier today a neighbor posted on his Facebook page, “Happy New Year! The year of the Dragon starts today!” Primrose held out a clear blue glass stone and said, “Look Daddy it’s a dragon tear.” Her mom said, “Good job Prim, that is what it’s called.” Just before sitting down to write this, I was reading my current book, Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah, and a passage describing the chaotic scene in Leningrad during the German siege read, “Everywhere she looks are mounds of broken cement– dragon’s teeth, they are called– meant to bar the tanks.”

With all of that being said, I have no idea what Primrose’s dream means. I want to believe that the old selfish, cowardly, miserly man is being killed off by a badass warrior dragon to be replaced by a magical, wise, courageous, and action-oriented man. But who the hell really knows? I am just happy that I was finally able to put these thoughts on paper because the recurring nightmare has been eating my lunch and now I feel a whole lot better after sharing these thoughts.

Until Next Time,
Happy Year of the Dragon!
-Dragon Bob Z

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