Jack Rabbit

Dream:
My family and I were taking a long trip by RV. As we were packing up to leave, I found a baby Jack rabbit outside and begged my parents to let me keep him. We bought a cage and let him come along with us. I was so excited.

After driving for several hours, I started feeling bad for the rabbit and asked my dad to pull over. Off the side of the road was a huge field that I knew he would love to run around in for a while. But when I let him free, my dad said that maybe it would be a good idea to leave him there. Rabbits like that needed to be in the wild. But I was convinced that the rabbit needed us. Even though he ran really far away,  I knew he'd always come back.

This went on for a while. The rabbit would run out of eyesight and then come bounding back just when we were about to give up hope. My father finally said that if the rabbit stays away, we'd have to just let him be. So we agreed. If the rabbit didn't come back, I had to accept that he had found his real home.

Finally my dad said that it was time to go. It was late, pitch dark, and we needed to make it to our hotel before midnight. He said the rabbit had been gone for a while; he made his choice. I hung my head and slowly walked back to the RV. I wanted the rabbit with us, but clearly the rabbit found his real home. But just as we were all piled in, the rabbit came bolting through the door and back into the RV. He made a lap around the interior, and then raced back out again.

It was so fast and confusing. But to me, this meant that there was still hope. My dad had to put his foot down; we had to leave. Now. I reluctantly closed the door and my dad started driving. I stared out the window, knowing that at any minute I would see our rabbit again. I focused so hard that when I did see the rabbit, I wasn't sure if I just imagined him. I wanted him to appear so badly that I thought maybe I had made him materialize in my own subconscious. But I didn't. It was really him. He sprinted faster than I'd ever seen towards us and leaped up to hop into my lap. There was glass separating us. He fell back to the ground.

I begged my father to stop, but there was no way he could with all of the other cars in his way. The rabbit was gone now. Even if he wasn't ready, he was going to have to learn to live in the wild now. Without us. We started reassuring ourselves that this was for the best. Jack rabbits need to jump, which is impossible in a cage. Now he was without a cage and with endless space to explore.

Interpretation:
I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this one. My first instinct was that maybe the Jack rabbit was supposed to symbolize Blake. It makes sense, since he was going in and out of truly being mine. He wanted to be present in this life and in our relationship, but there was a force pulling him away. The strong pull of addiction didn't let him truly stay here in this world. At the end, he may have wanted to stay, but he couldn't. And now he's in heaven where he's free.

Or am I the Jack rabbit? Blake used to call me bunny, so that is an interesting coincidence. Maybe with this interpretation of me as the rabbit, my dream is telling me to let go, even if I don't feel like I'm ready. The rabbit coming in and out could symbolize my attachment to Blake and my feelings of still being in a relationship with him. Maybe I need to put my foot down, like my father did in the dream, and accept that he is really gone.