Cats in a Mental Health Facility

Some night last week, I had a dream that I can very vaguely remember just a tiny bit of. I dreamed that I admitted myself to a mental health care institution of some sort.

It was not a cold, clinical sort of environment. It was nicely furnished, with warm styling. It felt quiet and comfortable. I just walked in. Eventually a staff member noticed me and asked me what I was doing there. I don’t remember the exact words I used, but I basically told her that it was ok, I belonged there. Then I walked away to continue exploring and she let me be. She seemed to understand without any explanation necessary. I belonged there, without question.

I came to one of the smaller rooms, and I think there were a bunch of computers on long tables, but I didn’t pay those much attention. It was somehow also a cat room. Computers and cats. Lots of cats. I only remember one cat clearly though. It got up on the back of a big comfy computer chair to get up near my face and look at me, with that cute raised hook tail that cats do when they approach you with respect and/or wanting something. It headbutted me, and it was so happy to have me petting it. It had really long, mostly black/gray fur with a very little bit of white here and there. Dark eyes, somehow. Funny how dreams can give you impossible details that don’t make sense elsewhere, but are perfectly fine in the dreamworld. That cat was so soft… I couldn’t believe how soft.

I remember two things most vividly from this dream:

One: how ridiculously soft that cat was, and how full of joy I was to pet it, to see how much it wanted to connect with me.

Two: the unquestioning, peaceful certainty that I was finally where I belonged, separated from the rest of the world and in this comfortable warm facility, a place for people who were all in some way or another not quite right in the head.