Saturday, October 01, 2005

Starving the Mini-Pandas

Last night I had another one of those dreams I've had throughout my life wherein I can't take care of all of my pets. (I don't even have any pets!) But this one was much bigger in scope than ever before.

I dreamed that I found a cage of pet rats in some unexplored area of my home, and realized they I had simply forgotten I had them. Meanwhile, they had been having babies, starving, growing filthy, and etc. as creatures do who are in captivity and neglected.

Then just as I was trying to figure out how I was going to get them all out and into new homes and clean and feed them, I realized that the room was bigger than I thought, and crammed with shelves and shelves of various really cool animals in terrible neglect. Exotic fish were gasping and floating in scummy half-evaporated tanks, other animals in cages were lying about listlessly in starvation. There was in particular a small glass tank that had several mini-pandas in it (about the size of kittens), and they had outgrown their little white plastic collars and filled the little tank almost completely, so I had to break it to get them out.

I couldn't believe I had been given so many different cool animals, and I also couldn't believe I had so completely forgotten about them! It was terrible.

This particular dream always seems to be about my guilt in not being able to take care of all my various tasks. And I have in fact been feeling even more behind in more different areas than usual lately.

1 comment:

argotnaut said...

These have been popular with my brain, too. The two most common:

I go into the bathroom to find a bunch of fur in the sink. I was a microsecond too late to save my kittens, who have just gone down the drain. (ONCE I dreamt that I was able to rescue them just in time.)

My fishtank is filthy, and I haven't fed the fish in weeks or months -- how could I have forgotten?

I also have dreams where Buddy has escaped from his leash, and he's running about the neighborhood madly, darting in and out of traffic.