12/02/03
Nope, The Hamster's Still There

I had several dreams which I remembered from yesterday's sleep, but didn't take any notes, so this is the only one I can describe.

In real life a while back I noticed an old peanut jar stuffed with cotton bedding sitting on the shelf on the porch. "Uh-oh!" I exclaimed in dismay. I remembered that that was the item I had used as a "coffin" for one of my deceased hamsters--and I had not had a hamster in years! o_o I'm guessing the hamster inside was Meatball, my latest hamster and the pet I had before my rat, Katchoo (I had Katchoo for about a year I think, and she died over a year ago). At least I THINK the hamster I had before Katchoo was named Meatball; I get Meatball mixed up with another dwarf hamster I had, named Tidbit. Anyway, assuming this was in fact Meatball's coffin...I had placed it out on the porch as the hamster had died in winter, and I intended to bury it in spring...only I had completely forgotten and it had been sitting there ever since!! Yes, this would have been incredibly morbid if I had been able to SEE the hamster's body, but it was well encased so I couldn't. What bothered me most of all was that I had simply forgotten about him and left him unburied on the porch all that time while I had Katchoo. I felt so AWFUL!

I immediately got a shovel and dug him a grave in the yard and buried him with an apology. But I still feel very bad.

Well, after this incident I had to wonder--was this forgetfulness the reason behind my recurring "forgotten hamster" dream? I have recurring dreams where I have some small pet, usually a hamster but once in a while Katchoo (an albino rat), that I suddenly remember I have forgotten to feed or water or clean or play with for as long as several weeks. The creature is always in moderately good health, but of course in need of great care. In some dreams I have even replaced it already with another pet only to realize the first one is still alive! In the dream it's always a feeling of "coming to"--I suddenly remember having had this pet before, and had just completely...forgotten about it. Like I had simply put it out of my mind for so long I forgot it was even there. And I always feel very awful about this.

I wondered if these hamster dreams had perhaps been my subconscious's way of telling me, hello, you have somebody out there you forgot to bury! I can't remember when the dreams started, but as Meatball died at least a few years ago, the timeline seemed right. Maybe all this time I had subconsciously remembered my hamster after all, I just hadn't known it until I'd noticed that jar on the porch.

Well...I guess my theory was incorrect, or else there's something ELSE I've been neglecting and the hamster dream is just standing in for that. Because I had ANOTHER such dream yesterday. >_< I was busy doing something around the house, maybe getting ready to listen to music or make something to eat, when I abruptly noticed a hamster cage sitting on the floor at the near end of the footstool. There was no top on it, and the dwarf hamster inside--just like Tidbit and Meatball--was running around, seeking attention. I gasped and stopped what I was doing. "Oh my God!" I exclaimed aloud. "I haven't fed or watered or played with it in WEEKS!" :(

Although I felt a little bit of irritation that I had to stop what else I was doing, I halted anyway and immediately tended to my hamster. The poor little thing! Its cage had not been cleaned in a long while, but I'm often like that in real life; that could wait, it was food and water and attention that were most important. There was still a little bit of food in the bowl, which sat to the left, but not much, and I had the feeling that the hamster, knowing it was being neglected, had been picky with its eating and had managed to spare itself a bit of food just in case. <:( I felt so awful. And there was NO WATERBOTTLE! How had the poor thing even survived so long? I reached in and scooped it out and cradled it in my hands, then went to get it some food. Food was most important right now (even though in real life, water would probably be more important--but the hamster did seem healthy, just attention deprived).

I went into the kitchen to get it some food. I'm not sure what I was doing with the hamster at this time; I don't think I was holding it, but I don't think it was in the cage either, so I'm not sure. I had a feeling of needing to hurry so maybe it was untended for the moment. In the middle of the kitchen floor I had some kind of big bag of hamster food, maybe two different kinds, and was pouring them into the cage--not into the bowl, but the cage. As I poured I noticed the food had HUGE green and orange pellets--much, much bigger than hamster-sized food--they were about as big as Oreo cookies or something, and fat too. There were also big lumpy hunks of some hard yellowish food item. These are both things that you can find in real hamster mix, but in my dream they were grossly huge. And there were lots of them that came to the surface of the food so they poured out first in a large number. I wanted the hamster to have a decent MIX of food, not all the same huge kind, so I stopped pouring and started picking through it, pulling out as many of the pellets and yellow things as I could and putting in more smaller items, like sunflower seeds. I kept picking and picking and picking and then told myself, "For God's sake, you can always do this later. Feed the hamster already!!"

I brought the cage into the living room and only now noticed that it was filled almost up to the TOP with food alone! Not bedding, food! "I think I overdid it," I murmured. "Oh well, I can take care of it later." Feeding and watering the hamster were top priority. I set the hamster in the cage and it ran around a bit and maybe ate some. Then I wanted to give it some water, but there was no waterbottle. I found one somewhere, maybe from Katchoo's tank, and went to fill it with water. (Often in such dreams there is a waterbottle present, but the water in it is fetid and filthy.) I came out and wanted to give it to the hamster but there was no holder for it--it would just fall over. So as the hamster scuttled over I held the bottle down into the cage for it to drink from. It put its head up and started lapping and I noticed that a steady stream of water was pouring into the cage from the bottle as I held it. (There seemed almost to be two places where water was coming from, as the water was not pouring in the hamster's face, but straight down--the hamster was drinking from a tube that came out on the right, kind of sideways. But I know there was only one tube so I'm not sure how to explain it.) I must have been holding the bottle too hard, so I let up a bit, and the water just trickled now instead of streamed; okay enough, I guessed. However, I noticed from bending and looking down that the water that had poured out had seeped into the very bottom of the cage and was now spreading out, soaking through all the lower level of food to get it all soggy. (The view I had was almost of one might get of an ant farm--I could see through the food layers and into the cage.) "Oh, great," I muttered. "Now the food is all wet!" Well...it was just that bottom layer. I could always fix that later. Taking care of the hamster was most important! Even if I was doing a lousy job! (That's often what happens in these dreams, by the way, like I'm in such a hurry to make up for lost time that I just make things worse. Ugh. >_< )

Well, now the hamster had been fed and watered. I knew I still had to clean its cage, but that could hold off. (Yes, I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning. :( ) I felt that holding it and paying attention to it would be next on the list of things I needed to do. In real life when I have a rodent I make a point of holding it at least once a day, so as I had been neglecting that, it needed to be taken care of promptly. I don't remember any more of the dream, just that as always I felt so guilty and badly about this poor neglected animal. :(

So, I'm guessing Meatball's forgotten coffin isn't the reason behind the dreams after all. There is still something I'm forgetting to attend to, and I'm still not sure what it is. :/



2003 Dreams
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