Dream Interpretations?

[Shiftkitty]

Anybody here do dream interpretations? I never bought into the Freud bit about everybody's subconscious using the same symbolism, but I do believe we dream certain things for a reason. Usually, I can figure out what the things I dream of mean. For example, in my dreams, kittens scurrying around underfoot while I try to get them scooped up and put someplace safe means that I have a lot of little problems I'm putting too much emphasis on. The older the kitten the larger the problem, but it's all low-priority stuff that I'm worrying too much about.

Houses? I know a lot of people say that house represents the body. What you see inside represents everything from your health to your psyche. I can buy that because as I've been working out, dieting, and improving my physical health, the houses in my dreams have become nicer and nicer.

But here are some elements that perplex me:

• The houses are always big with tall windows and more rooms than I can count, all of which are spacious.
• Most rooms are very well lit.
• Someone has lived there before, and some of their stuff is still there. They're coming back for it later.
• My parents and brothers are in the house, but dad is usually off somewhere and mom never leaves a small cluster of rooms.
• My brothers wander all around the house.
• I have several bedrooms that are mine and they're scattered all around the house. Some are just plain old bedrooms while others are entire suites of rooms. One is my "main" bedroom, and it varies if I choose a plain room or a suite. Whichever it is, it's always down a long hallway, separate from the rest of the rooms of the house.
• Finally, while the rest of the house is usually well-appointed, or at least clean, the kitchen is always a large, run-down room. The appliance are battered and barely working. The walls are poorly-painted sheetrock (often pale yellow). A bare light bulb hanging down from a long cord is all that lights the place. There are no windows. A long flight of cement stairs juts out into the middle, narrow with no handrails. At the top of the stairs is a battered, yellow door. I'm not supposed to go through that door. When I've tried, I've woken up just as I touch the knob.

The house doesn't always look the same. The physical condition has varied from nicely done to "fixer-upper", but the kitchen is always as I described it. Once I dreamed I wasn't allowed in the house because everybody else was taking up the place. I had to sleep outside. My bed was out on the front lawn. I kind of enjoyed it as I lay there watching the stars.

I've meditated on the house(s) and such and might have an idea about what's going on, but I was wondering about input from others. A fresh set of eyes, as it were. Last night I dreamed a huge trunk of a tree, and I mean HUGE, came crashing down a hillside and plowed into the house. It was amazingly intact, though I don't know how. I think I know what that refers to given our current financial status, but I was wondering what others thought of the rest.

 

[Shiftkitty]

Other elements of the tree trunk dream were my husband removing a cast-iron clawfoot bathtub from the house. He was carrying it overhead, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that he has a fused back. Once he got it outside he set it down and said "I know why it's so heavy." Then he drained the water out of it and carried the now empty tub into the garden. (Yeah, not only was it a cast-iron tub, it was full of water!) Another element involved fish. When the tree crashed into the house it knocked a bunch of sheetrock loose in my main bedroom (which was a normal one in a late Victorian style) and it all landed on the pillow. In the back of the house was an indoor fish pond. The debris from that part of the house killed the fish, but as I watched, one by one the fish came back to life.


I thought I had read somewhere that fish represent financial matters in oriental symbolism. If so, it all fits. We just had a Christmas with no money and no presents for anybody. Fortunately we've always preached that it's not about stuff, but I think it bothered me that we weren't able to indulge in that little luxury even after watching our tiny little budget so closely. Thank God we have no kids to have to explain it to! I imagine the tree trunk (Yule log, maybe?) was our financial situation, but the fish represented an easing up of things little by little (which is how the fish came back to life).


Now to figure out the house itself!

 

[Cryscat]

I think it might be best for you to do the work.


Think about each element and ask yourself what it means to you and how does it make you feel.


Example:


The houses are always big with tall windows and more rooms than I can count, all of which are spacious.


How does the size of the house feel to you? What does having a big house mean? Same type of questions for the windows and rooms.


go though each element like this, write it down and see what you get.

 

[Shiftkitty]

Writing it out did give me an opportunity to look at them anew. Maybe that's a good idea.


I know I like big houses, but cottages are cute, too. The feeling in the houses when I dream is a sensation of absolute ownership. I feel like a queen and the whole place is MINE. But there's also the feeling that I don't know the whole place. There are rooms I haven't seen, rooms that I sense are for guests, and when I see my family, they seem more like intruders to varying degrees.


In the waking world, when I see a big house I think "That would be nice, but the mortgage and maintenance must be horrendous!" In my dreams, sometimes I clean the place, but most of the time it's handled by an unseen staff.

 

[BriarRose]

In my own particular dream vernacular, kitchens and preparing food have something to do with giving love. (Food = Love. Sick, huh?) Anyway, I have repetitive dreams where I am trying to make a dinner out of scraps, and garbage for my birth family. I never can. I have a bad, to nonexistent, relationship with them. Since the problem room is the kitchen, and your family lives in the "house", could there be a connection? Are you saying that your relationship with them needs to be "remodeled"? Is it out-dated, and no longer fits who you are? It's possible this interpretation doesn't fit your situation at all, as Chryscat said. That's what it would mean if I had the dream.

 

[Lady2]

Dreams are so interesting to me! I've read several books about dream interpretation/symbolism, and while many have common threads, I think each person develops there own unique dream symbols.

 

[Shiftkitty]

Lady2 I agree on all counts. Dreams are truly interesting and the symbols are often tailor-made to the individual, though some are fairly common to a culture.


BriarRose I think you're on to something with kitchen=family. I have always felt like an outsider to my family. I know everyone who's ever been a teenager has felt that way, but this has been all my life even to this day.


So in the dream, the kitchen looks absolutely neglected. It's part of the house but only because every house needs a kitchen. If I were to run with that, I only have a family because in order to be born I needed to have one.


There are numerous reasons as to why I feel no connection to my blood family, and I'll spare you guys the tale. I think I'll muse on the kitchen=family thing for awhile. It seems to have struck a chord.

 

[BriarRose]

I'm glad, Shiftkitty. I hope it helps. Sometimes, if I understand the recurring dreams, I just generally feel better about everything.

 

[Blueheart]

I agree with BriarRose. But, don't think of the kitchen as kitchen=family. The kitchen, in my view, is the place that "feeds" your heart. Family is included, but not the be all, end all. It is a good sign that your kitchen is yellow.


Also, it is simplistic to say that the house=the body. It is more like, the house is your image of self, or even your soul. No wonder that "someone" has lived there before and will be coming back for their things. You believe in in reincarnation!


I won't get into your family situation, but I will say this. If my brothers wandered all over, I would kick them out. Just sayin'

 

[Blueheart]

Forgot to mention . . .


You are on the right track with the Yule log, I think. Wood, to our physical selves, our primitive minds, represent health, warmth, food, shelter. All things that are necessary to live. The tree is all of this, but more.


Trees, for me, are the tree of life. They show your possible life path, on many differing branches. They connect the material with the spiritual, the earth with the sky.

 

[BriarRose]

With me, it's more, "kitchen=food=love". I suppose it could be self-love, as well as family love, so that's a good point, BlueHeart. It's always other people that I'm trying to scrounge up a meal for, out of scraps - usually my original family, or in-laws. My family of choice, husband and children, dine well in my dreams. We all have a family of choice, whether it's a nuclear family, or one made of friends and pets, or some other configuration. It's the ones that are foisted on us, like in-laws and siblings, that may be "baggage". I believe children choose their parents, but I don't believe we choose everyone in our lives, unless it is for the aggravation factor.

 

[Shiftkitty]

I wonder if my brothers wandering all over the house is helping me define them as wildcards in my life. I never know where they are in the house until they show up. In life, while my relationship with them is good, one is unpredictable in nature and the other seems to have a willingness to lie to family. Right now I'm in a spot where we're trying to get out of California and one has agreed to help us find a house in his town. I don't know if I can trust this promise, though. Finger crossed that he means it!


Blueheart Why is the kitchen being yellow a good sign? Even if it's all in terrible condition, even the paint? The poor lighting makes the walls look greasy. Of all the rooms in the house(s), this one always looks the same no matter what. What's significant about yellow?

 

[BriarRose]

I think your "wild card" description sounds "right on", ShiftKitty. Yellow is considered a happy, optimistic color. I don't think that the kitchen being yellow is a good sign, because of the grease, and condition of the paint. Your subconscious could be saying that those family relationships have the potential to be happy, but in reality, they are being spoiled. Also, every old house I ever lived in as a kid had a grease-stained, yellow kitchen.They were probably never painted after 1950. Nothing is sadder than an attempt to create cheer that completely fails.