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As one who (cough) had a werewolf viewpoint character in an endless head RPG when I was ~~young~~ not that young at all, I was interested by this post. Everything about werewolves makes sense if you consider that they're based on what humans think wolves are. True. And true also the lack of 19th century literary backup to the werewolf image, that makes them so much the red headed stepchildren of the fantasy world.

That said, I have to admit I found Tanya Huff's werewolves who act like wolves somehow unsatisfactory. Possibly because werewolves to me *aren't* wolves entirely: they're humans who turn into wolves, who therefore are symbols of innate human violence. The same way that vampires act as symbols of seductive sexuality /power, rather more elegant traits that IMO contribute to vampires' alpha status in the horror hierarchy. I mean, I'm all for non-violent werewolves if you can do them; not fond of E Bear but her wolves were the best part of whatever that book was called. But no one has quite pinged my werewolf sweet spot yet.

Then there's an entry on dreams, recurring. I'd forgotten that I too occasionally have the 'more rooms in the house than you thought' one. I like that one-- the rooms that open off the ordinary ones are always lovely.

1. Going back to Bedford. That's the family house we sold over twenty years ago. It's eased off in the last few years, but I'd regularly have dreams of either sneaking back into the house through an open window, or more often, that the sale had been postponed and we were still living there, or the Chuas had rented to us, or whatever. We were still at Bedford but knowing eventually we'd have to move, and always in the dream the idea of living anywhere else seemed literally inconceivable: I couldn't think what life would be like without that house.

2. The bathroom frustration dream, which economically combines two classics. I need to pee and there are toilets but they're unusable. This usually happens in a dream Japan, where the toilets prove to be comfy chairs with no pan, or out of order, or occupied. There's one usable toilet but I can't get to it. The subconscious conviction, even awake, that bathrooms in Japan are actually like that is so strong that I've tried to remember if I ever encountered a bunch of unusable toilets. I'm sure I didn't; 'all squat toilets, no western' doesn't count.

3. The guilt anxiety dream. I've killed someone and have to hide the body. I'm eaten with anxiety that the body will be found and people will Find Out. The actual killing doesn't bother me in the dream. There's no guilt attached, and I rarely even know who the victim is. But suddenly what seemed a quite trivial act has these terrible consequences, and it's inevitable that people will Find Out. The dream usually consists of repeated attempts to hide an increasingly decomposing body.

4. A variant of taking the exam anxiety: I have the leading part in a play, usually thrust into it at last moment, but no one has given me the lines. I'm onstage and trying to fake it.

5. Much more happily, the dear old friend, known since forever, who's no one I know awake. Actually that one's almost desolating, in its glimpse of a sunny golden super-reality behind the reality, that doesn't in fact exist.

ETA: I suppose the daycare dream doesn't count, since it's anyone else's office dream. But time was that whatever I was dreaming about, there'd be babies in it somewhere-- like the caped Mandrake the Magician figure who did his magic tricks while holding a baby on the palm of his free hand. The 'daycare in another house' dream is a frequent one, as is 'the family gathering (never my own family) in the big house with lots of toddlers underfoot'.

liralen reminds me of dream Toronto ones-- set on 'that street near Madison, you know the one' which is all flowering trees and second floor sun porches, or 'that street north of Davenport' in an area that actually rises towards the train tracks but in my dreams has huge Rosedale mansions on its hills. And of course there's dream Tokyo, which is never the real Tokyo but was once almost certainly Malaysia.

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Hm, I don't read much material about werewolves, but my issues with aliens and other non-humans in sf/fantasy are similar, only from the opposite direction. They seem much too human to me.

1. Former homes are haunting. Both the sibling unit and I have had dreams involving our childhood home.

2. (This is really common, it appears...)

3. Euw. I hope you don't smell in your dreams.

4. My exam anxiety tends to forgetting I had an exam and trying to get to the venue. XD

5. That's really strange and cool...

3. No, I don't smell, but the sense of horror is quite sufficient.

5. Oddly, I thought everyone had that type of dream. Archetypes wandering in and talking to you directly.

Mmm... I love your analysis on what werewolves are supposed to represent. Thanks.

I have the house of many, many rooms dream, too, often with people that I know in them.

I frequently dream about losing my teeth, which I understand to be very common and mostly concerned with losing your self-confidence (of which I have none to speak of anyway).

I also frequently dream about being attacked by a bear. This disturbs me greatly, since a friend of mine once told me that "dreams can be a way of helping you rehearse how to react if you encounter that situation in real life," and told me about how she had dreams about the brakes in her car failing a lot--until one time they really DID fail, and she knew what to do thanks to the dreams.

From what I know of bear attacks, I really really really don't ever want to be involved in one.

they're humans who turn into wolves, who therefore are symbols of innate human violence

Which is what I always thought the werewolf myth was about, though am less partial to the seductive/powerful!vamp archetype. IMHO Daybreakers (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433362/), with its plus ça change theme in a 95%-vampire-and-running-out-of-sustenance settei, is more interesting (though the movie would have benefited from better pacing and dialogue).

On that subject, most memorable dream I had was a portmanteau of the usual suspect themes: running late trying to get to my old house to meet the semblance of an ex (same face, but much better personality), in order to verify the delivery (possibly illegal, unclear in dream but an additional source of anxiety) packs of blood (again, for unspecified uses). Then dumping coolers of said packs in car boot, to be dropped off at a counter, which promptly shuts down for lunch when I get to the front of the line.

(the mundane exam-taking, teeth-dropping, bathroom-hunting and futile-running dreams happen every few months)

Oh, many rooms with people you know is even better. There are no people in the secret annex to my dream houses, but I frequently dream about 'that house in Toronto's east Annex' (I can almost name the street it's supposed to be on) where familiar but unplaceable adults and children are living in a sort of hippy harmony.

Odd. My self-confidence is pretty shaky but I've never had the losing teeth dream.

Um well- 'can be' a rehearsal isn't quite the same as 'is'. I trust I'm not rehearsing methods of corpse disposal. Cars are everywhere so brake failure is a reasonable possibility. Bears are not. Fortunately. Just stay out of areas where bears are everywhere, and you'll be fine. Or try lucid dreaming and see if you have a dream way of dealing with a bear attack?

I never did get the seductive/powerful vamp thing, possibly because by the time I encountered Anne Rice I was already reading doujinshi that did seductive and powerful ever so much better, and with pictures. And I still can't see what's so hot about drinking blood. As either metaphor or frisson it seems, well, rather more Victorian than modern. 'My blood! He wants to drink my blood! My precious pure untainted Anglo-Saxon or possibly Germanic blood, leaving me as enervated and depraved as an Italian or maybe even a Jew!' But obviously the idea speaks to some people even now.

Mh. Daybreakers does sound like plus ça change, which makes me wonder why do it? Subverting a trope that some find powerful, I guess, and unOthering the designated Others. Somehow-- mh, that goes down better for me when it's not serious, like JET's vampire Watson and werewolf Holmes (and ghostly Mrs Hudson.)

As either metaphor or frisson it seems, well, rather more Victorian than modern

Alas, my view of vampires was shaped by film parodies Eastern and Western, and much, uh, earthier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontianak_(folklore)) local folklore, long before encountering an ~~unbowdlerized~~ unabridged version of Stoker's repressed imaginings, so could never understand what the fuss was all about.

Daybreakers...why do it

As thoughtful social commentary on environment-destroying consumerism and the siege mentality of the clash of civilizations? Or to showcase Mad(-Max) scientists laying the smackdown on superfast Nosferatu-Gollum hybrids with exploding appendages? XD

JET's vampire Watson and werewolf Holmes (and ghostly Mrs Hudson.)

That is brilliant.

I dunno. I do frequently dream about people doing stupid and illogical things against my sage advice, to my profound annoyance. D=

red eyes, sharp claws, long hair, ... a rotten face and long fangs

Erk. Earthier indeed.

Just my biases, but I like fantastic creatures to stay in fantastic settings, where they're an escape, and not be used for thoughtful social commentary so that the movie becomes All About Us once again. Though if you're Pratchett you get to do both, so maybe it's a matter of balance.

Isn't that called real life?

I can't escape from real life even in my dreams! T_T

The one time in the dream I "dealt with" the bear (rather than just stood there and yelled AAAAUGH OMG IT'S A BEAR), I hit it on the nose with my fist (... which I guess you can use on a shark?), and it just made the bear madder. Which is probably what it would do IRL.

I try very hard to avoid bear-populated areas, and so far seem to have been able to avoid them. Phew!