Death of a Beloved Feline

Women with the Cat by Renato Rodyner

1^st Dream

A cold, dark wintry night. I look out my screen window out to a ground level balcony. Consciously, I wanted to see a cat because, as memory would have it, it resembled the balcony of my first apartment. There were a couple of cats around that would visit. I open the window, there is snow all over. There is a shadow of a cat bouncing around. I let the cat in. It huddled next to the heater with its back facing me. I realized right away it was Max, my cat who had passed away a couple of weeks already. As I went down to pet him, he hopped away. I wake.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

2^nd Dream

An open field, prairie setting. Windy, tall grass. Tall fields of wheat, as it appeared, being blown by the wind. Very warm, windy prairie day. No rolling hills, all flat. In some bungalow, rickety, wood house, my mother is there. I speak a lot of Cantonese with her in the dream. I felt something brushing at my ankle and shin, something that I instantly thought was a cat. To my pleasant surprise, I look down and it was exactly the image of Max, his coloration, his distinctive markings on his forehead…his chest. I actually went down and interacted, he let me pet him, and he leaned into my leg very firmly. He went on his back, exposing his white stomach. He is emphatically friendly, in life he was temperamental, though in the dream he is the opposite. There is no voice, I can’t hear his voice. I think he opens his mouth, but I couldn’t hear a meow, I only felt his warmth and the way he feels in my arms; his size and weight. I have his face in my arms, and spoke to my mother in Cantonese that my cat had come back to life. Then I looked at Max, then I told him I would call his Daddy, and have him come out and visit. His Dad would be so pleased to have his best friend back. I kissed Max between the nose and forehead and woke. When I woke up, I looked outside and it was a really windy day. It turned out to be a very warm day too.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

3^rd Dream

Unknown, hazy location. Cloudy, foggy, blurry, with a glow. It was quite quick. I’ve always been thinking about Max in my waking days these past few weeks. I think my consciousness sinks into my dreams, and works with my subconscious in creating Max right away. So Max was in my dreams, but he appeared to be more silvery, more angelic with a glow around him. He is really animated, but in the most friendly way. In life, he was very animated but in a somewhat aggressive way. So, in the dream, his Dad was in the dream, squatted on the ground. Max crawled and stretched up to his right thigh, and I was kneeling behind the Dad on his left shoulder, admiring Max and wondering why he was so wise, glowing and silver, I reached out to Max and he put his right paw on me and his left paw on his Dad’s knee. I picked Max up and I whispered to him “how wise and angel-like you are.” I woke.

Monday, October 3, 2011

These dreams make me question a lot about conscious versus subconscious. What is dream and what is lucid, and what is passive observation within your sleep state. Having these dreams of Max solidifies my own personal insight into the subconscious as being a data-bank which stores our so-called real-life experiences and in the dreams, our subconscious supplies us with the tools to be lucid because it is a reference point. Sometimes, our dreams are random and chaotic and it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s some part of the brain working that I don’t know how to call. When I find in my “lucid” dreams, I find when I wake up that “it makes sense” that my subconscious is a memory bank and of course I would be lucid in those situations when those situations have to do with my cat. I like to entertain the mystery that Max is somehow still with me communicating to me through my lucid dreams of him. I can move on with that. I can never accept his death, but I can move on because I am dreaming of him.