Odd Dreams About Houses

It's cold and I'm tired, trying to keep myself awake until a decent sleeping hour so I won't be up at three am. All I could conjure in this sleep-focused state of mind was my collection of bizarre re-occurring house dreams. I had one again close to a week ago. I can't figure why I still have them, as I'm generally content these days. The brain is such a crazy organ... So, what do you dream about? 

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Fascinated by re-occurring dreams and unable to shake off the feeling of something larger than just a daily stress relief effort by the brain, here is my collection of The House Dreams. There are more than those described here, but if I tried including them all, this blog post would turn into a short novel. 

One.

A two story, white and dirty farmhouse with a large front porch and stairs built on stone, sits in the middle of a vast field. It's open to an overcast sky, wind tearing through the yard and buckling the front screened door. No one is here but me, and I'm searching for a safe place to crouch down into to hide from a coming storm. Can't get inside; doors are locked up except for that banging outside screen, wind tearing it to bits. Windows are boarded and nailed, but I can peek through the slats to see inside. I can't find anything to help me tear off the boards, so I start hitting windows until my arms are tired. There's no “under the porch”. There's no safer spot outside. Storm is coming. It's not cold; it's a warm wind.

After hitting and hitting the same window with no luck, I tear around the corner in a panic, fear and anxiety building up to such a level that my entire body shakes. I scream out, I kick the door, and the dream shifts. I'm inside.

No floors; just scaffolding and unfinished ledges. Hard to climb up. I hear nothing outside. It's quiet, but not safe. I can fall off the ledges if I'm not careful, and the floors are absent all the way down... down further.. into the ground and into what looks like a bottomless drop. But it's not dark. It's white. A very white painted, wooden shaft that goes down forever. Don't fall.. hang onto the scaffolding.

Two.

This house is white as well. It's occupied, though. Not by the owners, but by a multitude of neighbors and strangers who are having a giant party. Their numbers are spilling into the yard and the street. I'm terrified, as I've been running from something, or someone, and I want to duck into this house full of people to hide. I try to blend into the crowd and lose whoever or whatever I'm running away from. I'm still in the yard, on my way inside but can't seem to get in there. There are two giant wolves guarding the door. They're white. I approach them very carefully, looking them in the eyes the entire time. They don't seem to find me threatening. I'm intimidated by them, but I keep moving closer to the door. They regard me as if I belong there, and so I walk on past. I go inside. The party is thick, and I move through the house until I can find my way out the back door. Whatever was after me is in the house now, and I have to get out.

Three.

I'm underneath a house. The place is built on top of a cavern, and I'm winding my way around the passages of the cavern. I don't know what the house on top of it looks like, but I know it's there and I'm trying to avoid it. I feel safer down here, and then I see a small opening in the dirt wall. I touch its smooth, cool exterior and it's suddenly a door. A door carved into the side of the cave and leading into another room. Inside the room, there's a very young boy sitting on the dirt floor. There's a fire going in the room. His mother is in there with him, upset and yelling something unintelligible. She periodically races to grab the boy and shake him. Sometimes she slams the palm of her hand upside his small face. The boy is crying.

I hear someone coming down the tunnel behind me. I desperately search for a hiding place. As I'm looking for cover, I usually wake up.

Four.

A dilapidated house sitting in an abandoned parking lot. It's light blue, windows broken and/or cracked, farmhouse, about two stories, front porch, and someone's living in it. It's messy, and piled with mounds of clothes, boxes, furniture, blankets, and all sorts of odds and ins. Things are piled high on the porch. I stealthily break inside, looking for something that I can never find. I don't know what I'm looking for. I'm trying not to wake up the person who's sleeping in the room with the biggest pile of junk and windows covered in white sheer curtains. All of the walls on the inside are white and dirty. I'm stepping on giant piles of clothes and blankets. Everything is always quiet. The person sleeping is never disturbed. I never know if it's a man or a woman, but it feels like it may be a woman.

Five.

A garage sitting in the yard of a very old house. Garage looks like it's seen better days. Not a normal garage; a very big, working garage with separate rooms in it. The house it belongs to is barely visible, and I can't tell what color it is. The garage is the focus. At first I'm looking for someone, and then I'm hiding from him. There are smells of gasoline and dust and old paint, and thick, giant cobwebs are plastered all over the corners of walls and across ceilings. They're dirty. Everything's always dirty. This is a place to hide, but the air possesses an ominous tone. I see a flat, high table with a work light placed directly over it in the largest room. In this dream, I'm having memories. I remember lying on that table while someone looks at the scars on my legs under the light in a very sterile way. I hate the table, I hate the light. I hunt the rooms further towards the back of the garage building. I'm looking for something I can't find again; some sort of object. I don't even think I know what it is I'm looking for as I look for it, but I really want to find it.

I am afraid the man will come back, and I reluctantly stop looking for the object.

I could keep going on and on, but my eyes are running down my face and begging for sleep. The only thing of significance about the ones I haven't written about here is that they all have the same patterns. The color white is prominent in many, and I'm usually looking for something or hiding from someone. The only drastically different thing was the little boy in the cavern, who's mother was abusing him in between her personal fits of anxiety. I've been dreaming these dreams since I was about 16 or 17 years old. 

The biggest surprise came with a sighting I had one day while I was living in Asheville, NC in the late nineties. I recognized one of the houses I'd dreamed about! It was right there, and it was real. My heart locked somewhere in my chest, and I felt like I lost my breath for a second. I have absolutely no explanation for this at all. I'd never previously lived in Asheville. I noticed the house the first day I moved into a loft apartment there. It was the direct view outside my front living room window. Across an unused parking lot, there stood a dilapidated, light blue farmhouse with a front porch and piled with enormous amounts of stuff. I couldn't tell if anyone was living in it or not, and I never tried to trespass onto the property. Frankly, I was a little spooked by the whole thing and avoided it.