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The stones were mostly the same shape, rectangular, but all different sizes; there would be a row of large stones, and then tow or three thinner rows, then a coupe of middle-sized rows. There was something familiar about the way they fit together. In a minute it came to me. They looked just like cells under a microscope.

On their first big date, after several months of casual courtship, Loyd takes Codi up into the Indian reservations where he grew up. He shows her the prehistoric "condos" built by the Pueblo over 800 years earlier. The characterization of the Pueblo architecture is typical of the utopic view of Native America presented in the novel. Native Americans live in perfect harmony with the earth, while at the same time achieving great cultural advances that cast United States cultural achievements—symbolized by the Washington Monument—in shadow. As she compares the architecture to cells under a microscope, Codi underlines the organic as well as the highly sophisticated nature of Pueblo architecture. By her assertion that there was something familiar to her about the structure, Codi also associates herself as somehow naturally linked to the Native Americans, possibly through her scientific knowledge.

As in this passage, Animal Dreams contains a great deal of dialogue. This allows Loyd to speak for himself, even though he is not one of the narrators. It also quickens the pace of the novel, contributing to the ease of its style.

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