Such Stuff Dreams are Made Of

My cat went with me to Costco and sat in one of the refrigerator cases and no one noticed. He sat with full feline poise. Dignified posture. Head held high. Black fur glistening, set off by the bright red of the wax of the tiny Bon Bel cheeses in which he sat. This is the only thought and image I had upon waking from a recent dream. Now, I am not one to sit and ponder dreams and try to find meaning or answers. I did have a therapist for a time who would have asked me, if I had told her about this dream, “Who do you, think you are in this dream?” While I’d like to think I’m the cat, I am actually probably the tiny cheeses. If I follow this out, that means the wax casings symbolize the oppression of my trapped inner child. See, this is why I don’t go in for dream analysis. I would just rather believe I’m the cat.

Of course, I’ve had just enough therapy to think that since I wrote this dream image down perhaps it has the underpinnings of truth in it. Could it be that at 46 years of age my subconscious sees me as a tiny cheese encased in red wax? And what of this wax, is it really my oppressor? And how do I get out of it? I guess I could find the little end of the string on the outside and pull on it and then ease myself out like you do with a real piece of Bon Bel cheese. But that seems too easy, and I have spent a lot of time and money getting really comfortable with the idea that self discovery is grueling and exhausting.

This belief is compounded by the fact that I did have a very grueling and exhausting phase that was also cheese related. I refer to it as the Blue Cheese phase. You see, there was a time in the early 90’s when I was doing some intensive therapy and described myself as being like blue cheese with the parts I didn’t like about myself being the moldy blue stuff. I hate blue cheese. What a more loathsome thing I could have compared myself too, I do not know.

Ah, but the progress is that I love Bon Bel cheese. So, while I still seem to think of myself as cheese at least I’m now a cheese I like. So, maybe this new phase, the “Bon Bel” phase, will be an easier gentler phase of self discovery.