Dream: Mother Rat

I start walking downstairs. These are not the stairs of my current house. They're the stairs of my mother's house, the house I grew up in. But I'm in the present, a homeowner, married, with a daughter, dog and cat.

I notice a few mice at the bottom of the stairs. The dog is there, too. He's halfway in his kennel. I call out for the cat. He would be delighted to find the mice and chase them.

The mice are larger than the mice I'm used to seeing. Then it occurs to me that they're not mice at all. They're rats.

Now I'm glad that the cat didn't come when I called.

I decide to call for my wife, but I don't tell her why. "Come downstairs, and wear your shoes."

She doesn't come either. (It's just like in real life -- no one listens to me.)
I now see that the dog is in trouble. He's stuck in the door of his kennel, and the mice, er, rats, may be be tormenting him.

And then I see that those rats were just baby rats. The mother is here, and she's bigger than the cat. Whoa.

I'm not scared, but I'm annoyed that this is yet another home expense.

------------------

This dream occurred more than 12 hours ago. I've thought about it throughout the day. After I started to tell my wife, she asked if my mother (who died about ten months ago) came into my dream.

I wonder now. The stairway was the same as in the house I grew up in, my mother's house. There were three baby rats. Well, there were three of us growing up in that house, my brother, my sister and me. Then there's the mother rat, who could be mom, and the dog, who could be dad. He was patient and laid back like the dog and somehow tolerated the three of us and mom.

Usually when a dead loved one shows up in a dream, they don't show up as rodents. At least dad never did.