Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Walking Through A House: Post #2




I’m examining a dream that the dreamer has experienced sporadically throughout her life. It began when she was a small girl and has returned repeatedly.

The recurring dream
In my dream I’m a girl—maybe 7 or 8-years-old, and I’m walking up to the front door of a house. I have to climb up three steps to get to the front door, which has a screen door as well as a regular door. I walk into the house (which is not my house). I’m in a hall. On my left there is a wall that runs the length of the hall. But my right is open to a room where there are a lot of people gathered attending some kind of party. I don’t greet anyone, which seems odd to me, but instead, I walk the length of the hall, which is also the length of the house. I open the back door. It leads to the backyard. I step out onto steps—this time only two instead of three steps—and immediately fall into a swimming pool which butts right up against the house. Some of the party guests are in the backyard, and they are shocked to see me fall in.

Discovering the metaphors hidden in the symbols
In my last post, I showed how members of our dream class isolated the symbols in this dream. Now it was time to gently quiz the dreamer with non-leading questions—such as ”Tell me about it”—to see if we could help her discover what the symbols represented metaphorically.

Tell me about…
*  Girl—7 or 8:  I’m young, not fully formed, but I already have a sense of who I am.
*  Front door with screen:  It’s the main way to get into the house, and you can see through it.
*  Three steps:  The house was slightly elevated; you had to walk up to get into it.
*  House that is not mine:  Someone who I presumably know lives here, but it’s not me. The house is from about the 30s or 40s—made up of little boxy rectangles that all look the same.
*  In a hall:  It’s a passageway.
*  Wall on left:  The wall was a divider, defining spaces in the house and keeping them separate from each other.
*  Open room on right:  There was easy access to it which made it inviting.
*  Party: A social gathering.
*  Don’t greet which is odd:  I didn’t seem to want to interact with anyone.
*  Walk through house:  I don’t stay; I just pass through.
*  Out back door:  I’m back outside again.
*  Backyard:  It’s the private, personal space where you can be with nature.
*  Down two steps:  It wasn’t as far to go this time—less effort than coming into the house.
*  Fall in swimming pool: Well I love to swim, so it was perfectly OK with me, but it was unexpected.
*  Guests shocked:  Unforeseen and unpredictable.

On Friday, we’ll reassemble this lengthier dream and figure out what message it wants to deliver.

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