I’m trying to be precise here, but dreams elude precision, just as often happens when I try to write clearly, yet my words drift out of focus: standing a ways off by themselves once I have penned them down, lying in wait for whom- and whatever comes along. If read, perhaps communicating…something. Who knows what?
But I digress…
There is a house in my dream.
And my dream is of the house. That is to say, if the house is in my dream, I am in the dream of the house.
Like you, I suppose, I have dreamt of many houses in many other dreams: incidental houses, lived in or passed by, shifting like dream sand, different every night (or even several times in a single night!). But those are stage-set houses, purpose-built for stage-play dreams. They have no substance of their own. Those are not this house. Those dreams are not this dream.
As I said, I’m trying to be precise.
In the dream, the house is almost always very different than before, yet it is always the same house. Sometimes the house stands off by itself, attended by outbuildings…or none. Just as often, the house is a single floor of a walk-up apartment building, though clearly an entire floor. It varies. Still, I always know the house, and so I always know the dream.
In the dream, the house is also in a different place than last time. It may be a rental flat in a town I once went to college in, though never a flat I actually rented, or even a building I was ever in, myself. While absolutely familiar, this is not just some memory of a rented flat. Of course, I have had those dreams, too, about memories: those were not this dream, and not this house. The apartment house has dusty, afternoon light or else is softly lit at night. The flat is always on an upper floor: I sense it is the third, a level I have seldom lived on, and only briefly. Yet I recognize the house.
Just as often, the house lies out of town, in the rural hills of some US heartland state I may have driven through, but where I have surely never lived: Virginia, or Tennessee, perhaps. Missouri. In this heartland, it is almost always overcast and wet, and there may be a stream or even a small river. It’s often raining, or the rain has just stopped, and I sense it has been raining for many days. It’s the sort of rain that passes for spring in some places, where first it was winter and then there was rain and rain and rain but before you know it BANG the sun comes out, baking hot mist from the land and you can smell road tar and it’s summer already. That’s how seasons changed in the places I grew up. But this is none of those places.
The house always needs something done. There is an element of disrepair, neglect: a hallway blocked by an accumulation of old pipes and wallboard, or maybe fallen bricks; a basement passage flooded with mud, inaccessible behind a door whose frame has fallen in and needs rebuilding; one room with only a single light overhead no longer responsive to its switch and, of course, no windows. A traverse of the house to gather proper tools—to a lived-in area and back, perhaps—is the journey of the dream. I travel from darkness, alone, to light—where there are others gathered, often—then back to darkness, alone again, to this task which, like the house itself, is always different, yet the same.
And in the dream, the house reveals to me beyond this task a secret, a vast potential: a whole, unseen apartment, rooms upon rooms, within itself, somehow never noticed. These are nearly always unused and yet intact, there to be inhabited, filled up, enjoyed. A little dusty. Empty, or even partly filled with outdated furniture covered in sheets. And although the rooms were hidden, there are windows, views of trees and sunlight. How could we not have seen them? Yet, when others join me in the dream, I alone am excited by these discoveries.
Once, the house stood near the ocean, and I could see the waves far off, past trees and neighbors’ houses. But the rear yard was being remade. I’d studded it with steel beams set in concrete, clearly an early stage of a barrier wall of some kind. Beyond this and down a sizeable seaward slope lay a completed and very sturdy fence, built from similar beams spanned by stacks of lumber. This work was still in progress, clearly my task to complete. I woke having watched the backyard fill with seawater as the tide rushed in, listening to the roar of surf as its spray gushed above my ramparts-in-progress while dusk gathered gently about the house.
Yet I do not recall ever waking from the dream uneasy. I imagine you sometimes have bad dreams, as of course do I. But this dream, this house, this task: these are not those.
I did not grow up in the house. I moved away from home long before I came to know it in my sleep. But in the dream I know the house, and where it stands, and what to do next.
You are such a good writer/communicator - I get this.
Speck
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2023-05-22 05:51:09
Thanks, Speck. I've been meaning to add some more dream writings, but find myself mired in multiple projects right now. Nice to be able to comment and communicate like this, though...
Mr_Yesterday
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2023-05-23 21:39:21
An admission - I've always believed dreams are not meant for sharing. They're intensely personal and only the dreamer can know what they're about, and it would be impossible to relate any dream-like nuance to a listener. This event, and especially your piece here, are helping me shift that belief.
Speck
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2023-05-29 06:03:44
You'll enjoy my upcoming pell, I'd guess...though it might shift you back... I'm trying to get it recorded tomorrow, noisy neighborhood permitting.
Mr_Yesterday
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2023-05-29 16:25:05
Well, it was a good audio day...got another one up after all.
Mr_Yesterday
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2023-05-30 19:28:01
Thanks for sharing -- I'm delighted by your participation in this event. The house is a powerful dream image and I appreciate your expression about it.
SackJo22
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2023-06-02 07:55:46
Well written, this is a thoroughly intriguing tale that pulls me in like a good Stephen King novel. It reminds me that I have this type of dream, and sometimes the dream will happen more than once, as though it ran out of content and just started over ;)
In my version, it is an apartment that I forgot I had rented, and I keep going back and exploring the other apartments in the building. (No one seems to notice or care.)
I say this with all sincerity that this is the type of psychological plot that my favorite movies are made of. I want to see this film!
Apoxode
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2023-06-03 18:09:36
Very nice vocals, I had to do something with them!
Wiseman
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2023-06-05 00:32:00
Thanks to all, esp. those who share this dream, too. I'm traveling physically at the moment (San Jose > Prague) and find that my dreams have gone quiet for now. So, in a nutshell:
SackJo22: Thanks, and I hope I've made a difference!
Apoxode: I knew it, and, yeah, maybe we should make this film?
Wiseman: Thanks so much for using!
Mr_Yesterday
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