Just to the right of the fireplace in the old the living room in Jackson, I spot a rat. I tried to
catch it because I know that Mom would be upset by it, but the rat runs out of the living room into
the front hallway and runs up the railing along the stairway to the second floor. I run up after it
and before it can disappear into a hole just to the left of the door up to the third floor, I step
on it and pin it down with my bare foot. Then I crush its head with my heel despite my concern that
one of its prominent teeth might puncture my skin. I put the rat's rather large dead body into a
Costco banana box to carry it outside but in my hand the box with the rat in it becomes a small
stone open casket just a couple of inches long. The stone box begins to leak a viscous clear liquid
onto my fingers so I toss it out an open second-floor doorway. There is no deck outside the door so
the stone box falls down to a concrete patio with potted plants on the ground floor level of the
house.
Although I do not have a strong conviction as to the meaning of the dream, I think the rat may
represent my father, or at least the internal image of him which I brought with me into adulthood
and used so effectively to maintain a negative self-image. Some of my clearest childhood memories
of my father took place in the living room and front hallway in Jackson. His profession was
dentistry, represented in this interpretation by the rat's prominent teeth. My internal father
object played a big role in my adult life until I finally acknowledged my childhood grief about my
father, and finally recognized that it was by my own choice that I retained that critical internal
parent. After I let go of that internal father he shriveled up and died. The clear liquid released
by the shriveled dead rat might have been pure and life-giving or it might have been toxic; in the
dream I was not sure which, or maybe both. I suspect it represents my father's legacy in my life.