Attic

The mind, ideas, memories, past experience; things that are out of sight or forgotten. It suggests things that are out of sight or forgotten but not really unconscious – the sort of thing you knew in the past but have forgotten or not recalled for a long time. Or a person that you have not recognised.

The attic is often a place of exploration, and sometimes a great deal of sexual feeling is hidden in it. Sometimes if you are high up and have a great view it can represent your ability to have a much wider view of life – like cosmic consciousness.

Also in some dreams it is a very frightening experience where we meet those things we would rather not see or remember.

Example: I was sleeping in an attic. A large dog was with me – a wolfhound like I used to exercise a few years ago. I and the dog would go out together. The dog was wild and free. I enjoyed being with it. together we did things like hunting which felt very real in the sense of not being artificial behaviour. Although I never washed I felt clean and healthy. Leon.

When Leon explored his dream he felt the attic was a place where he could exist but not be involved with people. The attic reminded him of the attic in a childhood house, where his mother never went because of the steep ladder. So he could go there and be alone, free of other people’s presence and influence.

Example: Then I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs. I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms. Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it. In fact it was a reflection and dramatisation of an aspect myself

If trapped in an attic: a purely intellectual approach to life. Finding an attic: pleasure at new ideas, discovering potential or wisdom from past experience, or you are dealing with things you previously thought were not important in your everyday life, or are caught up in things from the past, or in isolating yourself from ordinary life

Finding an attic: Discovering memories from the past, or a new space of the mind, perhaps a way of getting away from daily cares. Pleasure at new ideas, discovering potential or wisdom from past experience, or you are dealing with things you previously thought were not important in your everyday life.

Threat from attic: Disturbing thoughts, or something connected with what you have hidden or forgotten.

Hiding in attic: Escape from other people; retreat from everyday life. See example below.

Window or turret looking out from attic: Our sense of connection with the cosmos; wider awareness in which we understand an enormous amount about the world and ourselves we never realised before.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I find or experience in the attic?

What am I rediscovering from the past?

Are there influences from my parents or past family I am noticing in myself?

Do I feel a need for privacy or to get away from people?

What was I doing there?

What memories of attics come to mind?

Try Being the Person or ThingConditioned ReflexesThe House in Your Dream

Comments

-kory 2015-01-17 5:04:51

I dont know why you need my email but i mis types it so i had to post again to fix it. Sorry

-kory 2015-01-17 4:49:05

I also remember hiding a jewlery box from everyone. I wanted to look through it myself…but i never did

-kory 2015-01-17 4:47:34

I recently had a dream that left me feeling very uncomforatble the rest of the day. I was in this house and i got the feeling this house was haunted i felt someone watching me i felt something or someone was angry with me touching their stuff. I explored the basement and found a hidden stairway that led to an attic. Nobody knew this place exsisted. I avoided going up there for a while but when i finally went i discovered it was a fully furnished old apartment. A bunch of people including myself started searching through the attic i went through drawers in the bedroom. I remember this hole on the floor covered by a carpet i kept stepping on and forgetting about. All i remember finding was a bunch of pink cheques or reciepts or something with my sigbature on them and that over whelming feeling of upsetting what ever haunted or owned all this stuff we wer touching and moving
…..what could it mean?

-Tammy 2014-10-17 14:35:38

I dream that I pick up white plastic bag of large square cashes (look like over hundred thousand dollars new cashes held tight together) out of my car trunk and take it to my attic in polebarn to hid it there.
Then I came out of pole barn and saw celebrity Rosanne Barr near my car. What does that mean?

    -Tony Crisp 2014-10-23 8:18:45

    Tammy – In a dream everything you dream about is yours, so no need to hide it or feel it is someone else’s. Hiding it is not using it.

    Money usual represent something we value and want. It sounds as if you have been carrying something of great value around with you that could be something like an ability or skill you have that you have hidden away.

    Come on Tammy, don’t hide your talent – isn’t that what Rosanne Barr represents, the working class woman who doesn’t hide her talent. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

    Tony

-Tiffany Barnes 2014-08-24 14:51:10

I had a dream that me and my boyfriend turned his grandma attic into a little nice home. At first when I got in the dream the attic was old and still had pictures of his family up but no old clothing in attic. For some reason the attic had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. What was so funny I went into each room to check the floor to see which floor was too weak to live in. Out of every room only one floor was weak. I’m confused because at the end we turned the attic into a nice little home.

-Wendy 2014-05-09 4:19:11

I had. A dream I was in the attic and I started fallen through but my feet never touch anything it was like I was swimming in white foam .. It was I used to have wierd ones when I was small like a chicken leg under the sink and a white glove in the bath room when I went in there it the glove picked up the leg and poked my belly button stupid uh scares me I was 4 I still remember it

    -Tony Crisp 2014-05-09 8:34:19

    Wendy – The images in your dream are like icons on a computer screen that are lifeless unless one clicks on them. That is because dreams are not thought processes. If you ‘click’ on one of your dream images you would find the enormous feelings and information you associate with it. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working

    So I wonder what your childhood associations were with the chicken leg and glove?

    The dream of the foam and attic, an attic is often something linked with past experiences that have been stored away. The white foam – I am guessing – might be that you met something, a memory that you do not like, and so drop into a white noise situation where you are not feeling anything. Try exploring your associations with the attic.

    Tony

-Liza 2014-04-21 12:15:40

This is interesting. I have regular frightening dreams about hidden, secret or abandoned upper floors of houses and dormitory style buildings. Usually, I don’t go up to them, but am constantly aware that there is something terrifying up there but if I stay away I’ll be fine. In the dream I often imagine the floor as a very old style school dormitory with rows of deteriorated beds, with open windows, flapping curtains and unsafe floor boards. Usually the house or building gets more deteriorated and more scary with each floor, but I know the very top one is unsafe and terrifying and I mustn’t go there.

-Michelle 2014-04-18 19:00:34

Had this dream where I’m making my way up the levels of this house, finding secret rooms and passage ways until I finally make it up to the attic. At the very end of the attic there are the green framed windows and I find the latch, open the window and step out onto the roof. It’s a beautiful blue sky while I’m up there but the weird part about if is that there is stuff on the roof, I don’t remember all of what was up there, but there was a long white, fully set dining room table and chairs. I woke up right after.

-Karen 2014-03-27 6:12:04

Went into attic of a house which felt like one we had moved from, but wasn’t the same, previous owners had left a lot of stuff up there. I found teeth in a box and lots of things which we had recently purchased in our waking life which we would now have doubles of, lots of toys that would be helpful for our baby son, Cow manure, knitting partly made, we had a lot of people up with us I would say they felt like friends but recognised very few!

-Melinda 2013-12-14 19:42:06

Last night An italian gypsy woman was talking with my mother and I about the spirits in my childhood home’s attic. It started in my room. Next we were in the empty attic at the funeral of the gypsy woman who became scary and I had a strong sense of power and told her enough is enough you must move on to the light. My mother was surrounded by dark entities, and again I told her to leave and sent the dark spirits away. Next I was out of the attic when I heard a large boom and when I returned to the attic a large water fall of rain busted the roof and was pouring in but not flooding. Next the spirits turned into cats and dogs that we had to get out before they harmed the ones we had. I caught one tossed it outside and it feel on its’ back. I felt horrible I may have harmed it, a neighbor saw and took it lovingly.

-Rajdeep 2013-08-31 5:35:44

Hi Tony ,

Last night I saw a dream in which I was in the attic room of my mother’s house and saw lizards coming out of there and they looked at me with very bad eyes and then when I tried to get rid of them by scaring them , they were getting scared and moving out of the room but one lizard came in front of me and was not getting scared . I cut her with an axe but she was still tried to look at me with her big eyyes with blood all over her face . Then I saw my husband standing at the door of that room . and then I asked him to take it out . He threw it out with broom very easily …. and then the rest of the lizards were just trying to escape by moving out of the windows , door , ventilator …. and then I got up but still could feel the fear of lizards around …Please help …it was very disturbing

-Jo 2013-08-26 15:05:07

I dreamed I was visiting a couple and was in their kitchen; then we were out side and the roof had a huge pile of old dirt that had grass, weeds, and flowers on it when the roof began to collapse. No one was injured. This dream has been disconcerting to me…

-Lita 2013-04-21 15:52:27

I dreamt I was getting ready to go and stay at a friend’s house but before I left I noticed that the ceiling was beginning to bulge. Realising that there must be a leak in the attic I moved just in time before the bulge burst avoiding serious injury. Although no water actually came through the ceiling, I recalled a television programme which had recommended shutting off the stopcock in the attic when going away to prevent the possibility of any damage. I climbed the ladder and pulled myself up into the attic through the access hatch and started to look for the stopcock. Everything in the attic was disordered and higgledy piggledy and as I was looking around I went through a doorway and found myself in an empty room. Seeing that it had central heating installed and that there were curtains at the window I realised that someone had converted some of the attic space into an extra room but because access to it was difficult it had been overlooked and forgotten about over the years. I then noticed a telephone on the wall and went over to pick it up when unfortunately a tickle in my throat woke me up coughing! I feel this dream was definitely trying to tell me something and it’s such a shame it was interrupted. Could you offer some insight?

    -Holly 2013-06-01 4:10:54

    It seems the “finding the attic” part is applicable, and my hunch would be that this dream is telling you something about your 5th chakra or communication skills/health/awareness based on the fact that you had just found a telephone and your throat woke you up!

-Angela 2013-01-05 13:01:43

I had a dream I was in the attic of the house I grew up in, but rather it being dark, low ceilings, and hot, it was wide open, high ceilings with lots of windows in the ceiling. In my dream, my boyfriend did a lot of the renovations (he does that in real life). It was all beautiful hardwood and brand new tongue and groove walls and ceiling. It had a spiral staircase. It turned into a beautiful gathering place with beautiful decorations and wind chimes. I could live there even though it’s not a place I’d want to now! I don’t know the meaning of this dream though. Any insights?

    -Tony Crisp 2013-08-18 9:40:01

    Angela – It is good to receive such a beautiful and meaningful dream.

    Your boyfriend in your dream is not your actual boyfriend, but represents that part of you that is ready to improve your life, to change the way you are. So you are making real changes in your life, you are moving from the rather limited viewpoints of you childhood life and are allowing more colour and a beautiful way of being.

    A spiral staircase is often used to indicate your spiritual or core self, the part of you that has tremendous potential from which you can grow and our journey toward realising it.

    You said that, “I could live there even though it’s not a place I’d want to now!” And because the dream is about your inner potential and growth, it probably represents a place you will create in the future.

    Tony

-Diane 2012-08-16 16:52:05

I have a constant recurring dream that I own another house but I don’t live in it, I just own it. It’s on a slight hill leading down to a creek; the grass is beautiful . It seems small on the outside but going inside there are many shut off rooms, darkened halls, and are unfinished. The attic is HUGE and all bare beams of beautiful dark wood. The shut off rooms are empty, devoid of life, black drywall, etc.

    -Tony Crisp 2012-08-17 11:48:51

    Diane – It seems that are on the verge of discovering a lot more of yourself. The rooms are potentials you have that you haven’t used or ‘owned’ as yours. Obviously the dreams are dealing with what is still unknown about you, unconscious.

    So why not explore them and discover really useful potentials you have. Try using Talking As and
    Processing Dreams.

    Tony

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