Posts Tagged ‘lucid dream’

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.

Identity: Are you the actor or the watcher?

Connecting with the identity in your dream will give you another perspective from which to analyze your dream. Normally when you awake from a dream you give very little thought to who you were in the dream. You will just assume that you were you, but were you really? The question you need to ask yourself is: Where am I in this dream?

One way to determine who and where you were in your dream is to think of your dream as a movie.

First: The Actor

When you are the actor in your dream you will have a sense of performing the action. You experience things as though you were looking out through your own eyes. You feel yourself reaching out to open a door, or give someone a hug. In this case the identity would be centered in you as the actor.

As the actor, you could also be someone, or something, else. You could be having these experiences as a stranger, or even an act of nature. For example, in one of my dreams, my identity was centered in a tornado. I was living my dream experience as a tornado.

Second: The Watcher

When you are watching the movie you will see everything that is going on from some vantage point. You’ll have a sense of watching the action; of seeing the dream. You might even see yourself in the dream – watching the action that your physical dream-body is doing, but not experiencing the action through that body.

An example: My son had a dream in which he was watching himself looking at goldfish in a tank. He then transitioned into his dream-body and experienced himself talking to a sick fish in the tank, which subsequently healed and smiled at him. His dream began with him being the watcher, and then transitioned to him being the actor.

As I said in the beginning, identifying with the dream, the “knowing where you are” in the dream, adds another way of analyzing your dream. The fact that you are performing the action or watching the action can make a huge difference.

Analysis – The Actor

Here are some important points about being The Actor:

• Most of the time, this dream is about you personally.
• Start your analysis from the perspective that this dream is about you.
• Concentrate on remembering what you were thinking and feeling while you were dreaming.
• In this type of dream, you will find that you have an added ability to remember the thoughts and feelings you had as the dreamer.
• This can be tremendously helpful when you figure out what personal life situation you are dreaming about! (I will talk about how to do this in my next post – Journal.)

While the dream is normally about you personally, there’s a very rare chance that you are experiencing the dream action through someone else’s eyes. I know this sounds strange, but this encompasses psychic dreaming. If you find yourself having these types of dreams, and the only way to know this is when the other person confirms they were doing what you were dreaming, you’ll need to study psychic dreaming in more depth.

Analysis – The Watcher

Now, here are the important points about being The Watcher:

• Most of the time when you’re watching the dream action, the dream is still about you.
• Almost all of your dreams will be about you and things that are going on in your life.
• Dreams provide a connection between your inner self and your outer experiences.
• When you are watching the action, you are trying to see and understand a situation. You would, therefore, begin you self-analysis from this point of view.
• The main question should be: What am I trying to show myself?
• Another good question would be: What am I trying to understand?
• If you believe in communication from others, you could ask yourself: What is someone else trying to communicate to me with this dream?
• If you believe in remote viewing in dreams, you could ask yourself: What am I seeing here? Why am I seeing it? What relevance does it have to my life?
• When you believe in psychic dreaming you need to ask even more questions: Am I seeing a future event? Am I dreaming about me, or someone else?

Whereas an acting dream tends to be more intensely personal, a watching dream opens up to many different possibilities. To me, dreams are connectors between: thought and action, heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, and everyone and everything. They are powerful tools which can be used and built upon. The better people are at learning about and controlling their dreams, the more they can achieve within them. Lucid dreaming would be an example of this.

Lucidity in Dreams

The reason I mention lucid dreaming, being aware that you are dreaming while still in the dream, in this post is because understanding your identity in a dream is one way in which you can take the first step to lucidity. The more you think about yourself and where you are in a dream, the more you’ll connect with the dream, and the better chance you’ll have of realizing you are dreaming. Think of yourself as 2 parts of a consciousness. One part is your awake consciousness and the other part is the asleep consciousness.

What I actually mean when I say you’re more connected with the dream is that your awake self and your dream self are both present in your dream. They have to be in order for you to realize that you are dreaming. Your awake self is the one who realizes this fact, not your dreaming self. The more connected your dreaming self and your awake self are, the better dream recall you will have, because, of course, it is your awake self who remembers the dream. This will then open up different perspectives, better dream recall, and better journaling. Your analysis will have more depth and be more complete.

You can be connected and aware that you are dreaming as both the actor and the watcher. The simple act of thinking about yourself, your identity, in the dream is what creates the possibility of waking up your awake self into the dream!

I sincerely hope that I gave you something to think about here that will enhance your dream recall and enjoyment, and allow you to experience the feeling of being personally involved while in your dreams. Open yourself to the possibilities.

Simply because a blind man can’t see is not proof that sight does not exist.

Happy dreaming and thanks for reading!

Michelle