To begin, I found myself in a car that became trapped in a flood and incapacitated. That meant I wasn’t going to make my destination on schedule.

I wasn’t bothered. Getting out of the car — no idea of its make, model, or color — I waded out of flood waters. Two things began working in parallel: I started making arangements for a rental replacement and I worked on understanding my location. With the former, I learned in phone calls that a car was available but wouldn’t be there for several hours. In the matter of location, I found that I was close to my father’s house. I could visit him and his family while waiting for my rental car.

Their home is in the southwestern U.S. in the dream. In real life, Dad lives in Texas but in the dream, I was unclear if it was New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas. With dream magic swiftness, I arrived at Dad’s and was knocking on their door. A family member I didn’t recognize answered the door. They recognized me, introduced themselves in a vague way and let me in. Then I remembered them.

Then, it was visitor time. Cousins on my father’s side were living with him. Two of these cousins have already passed away in real life. The other point is that I’m 5’8″ in real life and the cousins are half a foot plus taller. My dream had these roles reversed. That surprised m and it came to a point that I realized, I’m tall, they’re looking up at me.

Food and drinks were offered and accepted. After I ate, my father’s current wife entered the cosy western room where a fireplace hosted blazing logs. I explained the situation to her and asked her about my father and seeing him. A little distracted, she told me Dad was there and he wanted to see me but he had to do some things first and it would be a little bit later.

My Dad’s wife’s daughter called from open French doors in the rear that there was an animal playing in the water. I moved there to see a young wild cat chasing something through the water. Almost simultaneously, I realized that night was falling, it was pouring rain, that the house was built by an arroyo, and that flash flooding was underway. On the next moment, I saw that there was a much larger wildcat — about the size of an adult cougar — in the water and figured it was mom, and another little one. Those three animals easily moved their powerful bodies through the raging muddy waters. Mom cat noticed us and that’s when the next pair of realizations bolted in: that back door was just feet from the raging waters, and three wild predatory animals were also just feet away. But the animals went on and we backed into the house and eventually closed the door.

More family members briefly visited but all had other things to go do. I ended up alone. I noticed that they had this small, rough shaped wooden table, about the size of a petite coffee table. A piece of art was worked into the table’s top. I thought I’d fix it up as a gift to them so I took it to a small shop I located on the property and cleaned the top until some western piece of cowboys with lassos in iron and style was revealed.

After polishing it up, I returned to the house. Dad’s wife met me. I showed her and others the table. They were really pleased. None had noticed the top. The piece was a family heirloom and they were told it was priceless but they didn’t know anything about the art.

My rental car had been delivered and I needed to leave. It was night and Dad hadn’t shown. I left and went to the car. Once I reached, I laughed: I was still carrying the table in one hand. Going back to the house, I saw several of them through the window. The lights were on inside. They looked right at me. I realized that they couldn’t see me because of the lights and reflections, so I just went in, showed them the table, joked about almost leaving with it, and then left again.

Boom! I still had the table. I realized this in a few steps and hastily rushed back in, set the table down, and left the house. The dream ended as I reversed the rental car, turned it around, and drove into the night.