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The Basics of Dragon Psychology

To really understand dragons, we must understand their psychology. Although it is impossible to cover the breadth and depth of dragon psychology in just one short article, I will give you some very basic ideas about the inner life of a dragon.

Dragon Interests

We know that dragons spend their time flying, hunting, eating, breathing fire, mating, and taking care of their young. However, these are just superficial observations. The deeper question would be something like "what is interesting to dragons?"

Of course there are individual differences of interest which vary from dragon to dragon, and these cannot be accounted for here. However, there are some generalities that we can go over, and they are as follows:

1. Magic. Dragons are ever interested in honing their skills with magic. Some dragonologists believe that dragon magic is just a science that we humans (except for wizards) do not understand or have long forgotten. This is a plausible hypothesis, but for now I am content to call all things we do not understand scientifically "magical" so as to avoid any confusion. Anyway, magic is what dragons spend much of their free time learning. The following are types of magical abilities that dragons are purported to have:
1. Flying. Obviously, dragons can fly. But the nature of dragons' ability to fly is currently held in dispute among many dragonologists. Some believe it is magical, whereas some believe that dragons can fly by some natural ability. I listed it here just in case it was indeed magical.
2. Creating portals. A dragon can create a magical portal to an area with which it has a great affinity. Two dragon lovers will usually have a telepathic connection, and if one is in danger, the other will automatically be notified so that he (or she) can teleport to the location and rescue the dragon under duress.
3. Invisibility. Some dragons can make themselves invisible when in danger (though not all dragons have this ability). If you ever see a shimmering outline of a dragon somewhere, this might be an actual dragon one that has donned its invisibility to make itself unseen.
4. Shapechanging. Some dragons also have the ability to change shape. Some will turn into birds, others will turn into bears, wolverines, or other creatures indigenous to the geographic region. It is because of magical abilities such as invisibility and shapechanging that dragons are often so difficult to spot. This is why dragonology does not get much attention as a science - it requires much patience and a lot of your own private funding to do good scholarly research on dragons.



2. Treasure. As we all know, dragons sleep on piles of treasure. This is often referred to as the dragon's "trove" or "hoard." Although dragons do not spend all of their time searching for treasure, they always have an eye open for it. As to why dragons collect treasure is unknown, other than the fact that it demarcates a dragon's wealth within its society. A parallel question might be, "Why do humans collect money?" It seems silly to anyone that is not a human. Perhaps dragons are the only ones who understand why they do this. At any rate, dragons are deeply interested and fascinate by what they consider to be treasure.


North American dragons tend to place more value on personal belongings, such as treasure, whereas South American dragons are more interested with historical treasures, and Eastern dragons (though they still value treasure), place more value on accumulating wisdom. Thus, in the collection of a North American or European dragon, one might find a pile of gold, gemstones, rubies, diamonds, and magical artifacts. With a South American dragon, the collection might be similar, but will vary in the sense that one will find ornate masks, stone tablets from ancient civilizations, crystal skulls, etc. The eastern dragon may be more interested in collecting old scrolls upon which magical spells are inscribed, or perhaps the earliest editions of the Tao Te Ching (occasionally dragons will be interested in human wisdom - in very exceptional cases). You might be thinking: if dragons sleep on piles of treasure, wouldn't they crush the valuable items because they way so much? The answer is basically, No. Dragons can be weightless if they choose to be (this is how they fly), and the sleeping on top of the pile is just a matter of security, not comfort per se.


3. Humans. Although dragons are generally not interested in humans, I thought I would mention here briefly the circumstances under which dragon-human interactions occur. Dragons will reveals themselves to a given human if he or she
   1. Is exceptionally wise and has wisdom to impart.
   2. Is trained in the art of magic and is willing to teach some of it to the dragon.
   3. Has treasure or some other valuable offering that he or she is willing to donate or trade for something that the dragon can offer. This is the most common reason for dragon-human relationships.
   
   
   Seeing as dragonologists are seldom rich, they oft need to either become wise or learn magic in order to befriend a dragon and study it closely. But studying a dragon by acquaintance generates another problem, namely observer bias. If a dragon is aware of a human's presence, will it behave as it would if the human were not around? It's difficult to say. Objectivity is complicated for dragonologists who befriend dragons, as they no longer have professional distance that true science requires. Further complications arise if a human, who became acquainted with a dragon, uses this to his or her advantage by installing video equipment around the dragon's home. This would be a dishonest and underhanded deed in principle, and would shatter the delicate trust between human and dragon if the dragon were ever to find out. My suggestion here is to find an honest dragon, and get to know it well before you ask it deeper questions about itself.

VR