I think this might help:
$animal = array (1 => "cat", 2 => array(1 => "dog", 2 = "rabbit"));
the output would be:
echo $animal['1'] ///= cat
echo $animal['2']['1'] ///= dog
echo $animal['2']['2'] ///= rabbit
if you're used to using arrays this should make sense, if not then you should read up on arrays.