02/11/02
My Pretty Hedgehog

I didn't write down any details, so all I have left is very vague. All I know is that I had a pet hedgehog. :)

It seemed to start out with Ma coming in as I sat on the couch and showing me a picture or two that had been taken outside, near our house. They were pictures of a young hedgehog and it may have been standing on the cement. The pictures progressively got closer until the photographer must have been just a few feet away. The hedgehog was very cute. He was about the size of a smallish adult rabbit, and his quills were different from regular hedgehog quills. Sometimes in the dream they were normal, long and spiky, but at other times they were thick and almost like plates, like those weird marsupial creatures in Australia. I can't remember what they're called. Maybe I mean a scaly anteater instead? It didn't look much like an echidna. But for some reason Ma was upset about these pictures.

"Did you take these? Did you? DID YOU?" she kept harping, and I hedged a bit at first. The truth was, I didn't KNOW if I'd taken them or not. I seemed to remember being outside with somebody and seeing a hedgehog and taking some pictures, but I hadn't taken any this close up. So finally I told her no, I hadn't taken the pictures. I'm not sure why she was mad. Perhaps she thought I shouldn't have gotten so close to a potentially dangerous animal; I could have gotten stuck, and that would have pissed her off even more. She didn't seem sure whether she should believe my denials or not.

"I'm telling you, Ma, I didn't take those pictures!" I protested. "I wouldn't even have been able to get that close to it!" I added, by way of proof.

She finally relented a bit...I'm not sure what happened next as it gets hazy...but then, there was the baby hedgehog, wandering around our house. Ma caught sight of it and appeared to be stewing, but said nothing. It was SO cute, and it followed me EVERYWHERE. Like a little puppy! :D Awwwww. It was a dusty brownish color, and didn't look QUITE the same way a hedgehog should; its face was more like a porcupine's, with the rounded nose instead of pointed. There's currently a commercial airing with Snuggles (Snuggle?) the bear and there are different "non-cuddly" animals trying out for his spot, and the first one is a porcupine which falls out of the sky onto a stack of towels. The thing in my dream looked sort of like that, only its face was MUCH cuter.

Anyway, as I said, no matter where I went, this cute little fellow would follow me all over. I'd sit down and it/he'd crawl up into my lap. I even tried petting him at one point, but I was rather reluctant and careful about it--after all, he had these several-inch-long quills, and I didn't want to stick myself! So even while I thought he was so cute I could just die, I had to be VERY careful handling him and felt somewhat anxious doing so. I remember holding my hand over him, palm perfectly flat, and very very carefully stroking straight back, not shifting my hand in any direction lest I stick myself. It was a bit stressful, to say the least.

I think I may also have been a bit annoyed at one point that he followed me around so much, but I get the feeling he was just a baby (despite his size), and couldn't help it. I was flattered that he seemed to consider me the "boss."

All throughout this dream it seemed to be summer or warm out, but very overcast, possibly late afternoon or early evening--gray and a bit dim outside, slowly growing darker. I can't remember any of the other details or what may have happened afterward.



2002 Dreams
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