Posts Tagged ‘Building’

Dreaming of Houses

Exploring how a house becomes a symbol.

In order for a house to exist, it had to have begun as a thought in the mind of a human being; it was an idea before it was an object. This is a great place to begin when we are defining the symbolic meaning of a physical, man-made item.

Imagine our ancient ancestors wandering the earth without a house. Why might they create a house? Perhaps they are lying under the stars and a huge animal attacks them. After fending off the beast, they think, “Ugh! Me need to keep beast out.  Me need to stack stones.  Me call it wall!”

While overly simplified, the scenario above could have been the first thought about a house – ever. An ordered series of thoughts would be required to bring that house into being. Something such as the following:

• What can I use to build a wall?
• How can I make it strong enough to withstand a beast?
• Can I do it with only my hands or will I need a tool?

The necessary tools may then be created, after they are imagined up, of course. Perhaps the tools began as simple chopping and carving tools, but they sufficed to build a simple house.

From then on, a house was no longer a thought in someone’s mind, it had become real; it existed.

The Birth of the Symbolism

We build a house around us for our safety, our protection, and our relief from the elements, among other things. Doesn’t it then stand to reason that when we dream of a house, it is our shelter from the storms of life; our protection from predators?

Although we don’t often stop to think about it in our fast-paced world, our hearts and our souls and our minds need protection as well as our bodies. After all, they are the true creators of our lives. As a house protects our physical body, a house in our dreams provides shelter for who we are inside. This is why it is a symbol for the self.

More Symbolism

Rooms in a house represent different parts of you. When you find yourself opening a door into a wonderfully amazing room, realize that you are opening a door into a part of yourself.

When you see a room that’s really messy, realize that it too is a part of who you are; where your inner thoughts and feelings are messy.

Sometimes the house you’re dreaming of actually represents someone else. Perhaps you’re at a friend’s house and having a wonderful visit. You note all the things you like and dislike about their house. In this case, the house in your dream would represent your friend or how you feel about your friend.

In some way, shape, or form the house in your dream is showing you some interaction that you are having with the world around you. On a completely “self” level it would represent how you are personally thinking and feeling about something.

Dream Phenomena and Remote Viewing

Perhaps you are remote viewing inside someone else’s house?

As an example: I was telling my best friend that I had a dream about her in which she was in her closet and there were extension cords and hangers and lights. I told her that her husband yelled something up the stairs to her.

She told me that all of those things actually happened that night. It was like I was in her house “seeing” what they were doing, even if only for a few minutes.

The only way to know if you are doing this is by speaking about your dream experiences. My advice is to share your dream with the person to find out if you were visiting them while you were dreaming.

Additional Notes

I’d like to end by letting you know I have a few posts and dictionary entries you may find helpful in understanding the symbolic meaning of the clues in your dreams with reference to a house.

Are you in the bathroom?

Are you opening a door or sitting in a closet?

A house is also a building.

If you were eating in the dream, you may want to see my post on food.

Did any of the following appear in the dream: kitchen, living room, cooking, eating or laundry?  If so, check out their meanings in my Dream Dictionary.

Building: The Foundation of Dreaming

Building may seem like a boring word to choose for my second post, but you’ll eventually see that it’s not a boring word at all. I am exploring the word building as a verb and a noun, giving it the depth it deserves. I feel the need to “build the basics” with my first few posts, thereby laying a foundation which I can build upon!

What are you building in your life? What type of building is in your dream? Was the building built by you or someone else? Who owns the building? What do you do in the building? These are just some of the questions you need to ask to determine why you saw that particular image.

The reason the buildings in your dreams are important is because, as I have come to understand it, you are in the process of constructing your life 24/7. You not only build tangible things, but things that can’t be seen. You build relationships with everyone around you. You build character, who you are. All this building requires some tools.

Most people know that there are many tools used to create things physically: hammers, cake pans, paintbrushes and pens are a few. What those very people may not realize is that there are also a number of tools used to create things mentally. You see where I’m going with this? Your dreams are a mental tool! They are a device for exploration. The buildings in your dreams are the clues, which are the keys to understanding your inner-self. That idea alone deserves exploration.

Here’s a little information to help guide your exploration:

Some buildings you might dream about are: houses, hospitals, warehouses, factories, churches, temples, restaurants, schools, mansions, or hovels, etc. Eventually I’ll write about these things in more depth. For now, this is a basic overview of how to determine what each building could mean.

Your house–your personal self.

Other buildings, also the self, are more subject specific.

A hospital–usually illness and/or healing.

Warehouses–places where things are stored.

Factories–places where things are built.

Hovels–something is a mess.

Churches and Temples–spirituality.

Restaurants–what’s cooking in your life.

Schools– what you are learning.

If you work in any of these places the message is possibly job related.

The action in or around the dream building helps to determine the message of the dream. Think about what you do in a particular building in real life and that will give you a clue to the meaning of your dream. There are, of course, specific places within buildings. Attics, basements, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, are just a few. I will be addressing these in more depth under my R-word “rooms”. For now, you can use the same thought processes as you did with buildings to give you a clue. What do you do in that particular room in real life? I.e. In a bathroom you get rid of crap! In a kitchen you cook; what’s “cooking” in your life?

Now, here comes the really hard part. Are you dreaming about you or someone else? I had a dream in which I saw my friend and her husband doing things around their house. Imagine my astonishment when I told my friend about the dream, and I found out that the events actually did occur. The building involved was a house, my friend’s house. Using the traditional approach to interpreting my dreams, I would have spent hours trying to decipher how my friend and her house related to me! I am continually working on how to tell if a dream is about me, or someone else! That pursuit led me to the amazing knowledge that we are all connected.

Analyzing my dreams opened that door for me. I’ll give you an example. I had a dream about my childhood home in which my mother was having trouble doing things that she could normally do blindfolded, and that her lamp was broken. I immediately called to find out what was wrong. I received the news that my father fell and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I didn’t dream about my father being taken by ambulance. What I did dream was that the light of my mother’s life, my father, her lamp, was broken, and that she was having trouble functioning. The important thing here is that my dream led to a call to my parents who live 300 miles away. Obviously there is something in our universe that we need to explore in more depth; the interconnectedness of humanity. The possibilities of the bridges, the connections which we can build between us all are absolutely fascinating!

I hope the way I look at buildings in my dreams can help you to understand your own dreams and the buildings that are helping you to see yourself. Exploring and understanding one’s inner self, is a key step in building the life you want to live. Connecting with a universal energy is a huge plus that occurs naturally within our dreams when we are in the process of building our lives. Amazingly, this is just the beginning, so don’t stop exploring, and keep dreaming.