Dad Becomes Cheese

9 July 2005

Last night I dreamt...

I went to a restaurant with my dad. He got extremely drunk. As his drunkenness increased, he transformed into the meal he was eating... until he eventually became a small pile of cold, melted cheese in the centre of a large bowl. During this process of transformation, over the course of about half an hour (which seemed much longer), I waited for the meal I had ordered to arrive, but it never did. I gave up and left the restaurant, taking my dad (melted cheese in bowl) with me. I didn't know what to do with him, so I tossed him to the side of the road. I didn't feel as guilty about this as perhaps I should have! I expected he would wake, sober up, emerge from the ditch and find his way back home - transformed, incidentally, at this point, back into a human.

I was never very concerned, in the dream, about what was happening. It felt perfectly normal that someone should metamorphose into a small pile of cold, melted cheese in the centre of a large bowl, as they got drunker and drunker. And there was only a very small amount of guilt at tossing my dad into the ditch. I thought he would probably be okay, but I wasn't overly bothered at the possibility that he wouldn't be.

What does this say about my relationship with my dad??!!