House

For public buildings see Buildings or for other home things see Home. Also see house in my dreamparts of house like attic or windows.

A house nearly always refers to you, depicting your body and aspects of your personality. That is because it is what you live in – your body. This becomes obvious if, having visited friend’s houses you judge their character by the condition of the house. The following description of a man returning home gives a graphic example of this.

Example: When I arrived home and walked through the garden gate I noticed things about the garden I had never let myself see before. The untidiness and absence of care were no longer hidden by veils. Particularly the track I had worn across the small front lawn. It was worn because I used it as a shortcut instead of walking along the path. But then I arrived at the door, I knew suddenly that it was me. The door was me, and every scratch on its paint was a part of my life, reflecting my state. Opening the door I went into myself. The door and garden had already shocked me with my lack of attention to outer details. Now inside the house, the same things showed themselves in the state of my house, depicting my inner health.

We are all human animals trying to deal with and confronted by the complexities of modern life, with its subtle and ingeniously devastating values. A house is a modified cave. It is so easy to get lost in the jungle of values and forget that. As (primitive) humans, we may recognise what are the basic needs – food, shelter, and human and physical warmth. A cave without emotional warmth was deadly and even if it fitted the modern “values” was deadening. Love was a food that we all needed to face the outside world with outgoingness and pleasure. Without it there was no flowing radiating charge in us to transform the outer world into a place we could meet with courage. See Opening to Life

Thus if you take a large house with its many functional rooms, the library would represent the mind; the bathroom cleansing or renewal of good feelings; the bedrooms ones sexuality or intimacy; the roof your protectiveness or ‘coping mechanisms’. But these parts of the building may also be seen as different parts of your body. So going into any building suggests an entering into something within you, perhaps a searching or looking within yourself. So the structure of the building not only associates with your physical age and well-being, but also with the structure of attitudes and viewpoints built in your youth through your relationship with those around you. In a larger context, a house can represent a family tradition, the class the family is in the social hierarchy.

Example: When I identified with the house it took a while to really experience it as a living process rather than simply an intellectual interpretation.  But when I did become the structure and experienced the extent of the house, I realised it as my body.  But it was not my body as I had been taught to see it through my training as a nurse.  I did not experience it simply as a biological process, or a physiological machine.  I experienced it as an incredibly ancient thing, carrying or incorporating in its form and functions lessons of life gathered over millions of years of human and animal evolution.  I felt that it holds within its darkness – the presently unconscious areas developed and lived in the past – enormous amounts of information or memories.  We fail to be aware of these because our attention is so fixed on the world outside of us.  But of course, even there, if we look carefully, we can see we are the result, our culture and language are the result, of the events and lives stretching back into the ancient past.

The house can depict a way we allow the world into our life, or exclude it, and the love or attitudes, the pain or hidden secrets of relationships. But a house is a massive symbol and it can link with many aspects of you and your life. So to really get from your dream house what it refers to you also need to ask yourself what type of house it is. For instance how old is it and how does that refer to your age and what period of social attitudes your were born in and influenced by. What social strata does the house represent and what environment does it stand in?

Then, in what way are you influenced by or developed from that social background. If we then go into the house, what is happening inside, and whereabouts in the house? This indicates things, feelings, past influences you are presently dealing with. As a person you have many facets and possibilities, and the various parts of the house depict these. The interaction between these facets are what make you who you are. Understanding them enables you to find your way through the things you face in yourself and the world.

Example: I started to identify with the building, and realise that I am the building. My body is the building. As the building, as my body, I realised that I have been built by many different influences. Not only have my parents contributed by their genetic make up, but also the environment I have lived in, the food I have eaten, the society in which I lived and its many chemicals and waste products all have been influenced in the building and shaping of my being. In fact in the dream the building appears strong, solid and functional.

To quickly find an entry in this long section click on the following links: Parts of house

abandoned house – ancient houseapartment or flatattictrapped in an attic – threat from atticlooking out from attichiding in attic

Back of house – balcony/verandaballroom –  bannister – basement – bedroom basement and cellarsnake in the cellar or caveBad smellbathroom big house buying a house 

childhood house cellar – ceiling – chimney – corridor

dining room – doorBack doorBlack doorDoor to strange landscape or worldDoorknobfront doorLeaving door openglass doorshutting a doorside doorSomeone at a door

empty house

first floor – Floors of house – Floor –  fortressground floorHomehouse attackers or intruders from outside–  house burnt or falling –  cramped housedamage to structure –  – Front of House –  house known only in dreamhaunted houseinside of housekitchen in woman’s dreamkitchen larder or fridgeliving roomLooking back at a/your house – moving or new housenursery 

Grand house or stately home

old or known houseother people in houseother person’s house – Outside the house and garden

People or things coming from downstairs

repairs enlargements or renovationroof – Room – row of houses

Secret or unknown room – Seeing your husband/wife/partner go in someone else’s houseBeing in someone else’s  house – Shelf – Stairs – Study or library

Things in the house – Toilet – Top floor or attic upstairs –

people or things arriving from

Wall – Windows

Abandoned house: Suggests it was lived in at one time and was then no longer used or honoured. It also has suggestions in a dream of things that have left memories. There might be things left there that would be useful. Sometimes there have been things done there that you are frightened of or regret.

ancient house: A very old house, especially if it is large, can depict what could be called past dwellings, or past lives involved in or connected with your present life. In general it depicts the past from which your present life has emerged, and the influences from which it arises.

apartment or flat: In general the same as house or home – below – but may have a slightly different significance if you have lived in an apartment or flat. Therefore the questions need to be asked as to whether the dreamer lived/lives alone in the apartment? Does the dreamer share the apartment with others? What was living alone or sharing like? These form the associated feeling states connected with the dream apartment. See Settings in Dreams

attic: The mind, ideas, memories, past experience; things that are out of sight or forgotten. See larger entry on attic

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.

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

Window or turret looking out from attic: Our sense of connection with the cosmos; wider awareness; intellectual view.

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

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.

Back of house: Usually represent the less public of viewed or private area of ones life. Where one can be more of oneself out of the public eye.

balcony/veranda: It can mean an attitude of looking down on people, maybe superiority but it could also be about not wanting to get involved or express who one really is. A balcony in a theatre is also a special place for important people, and also a dangerous place for young children. Veranda can be an outdoor place for entertainment or socialising, so can suggest an ability to express yourself and be sociable.

ballroom: See: ballroom.

banister: A feeling of security against falling or being hurt. Something that protects you; a protective barrier. See: the section on stairs under house and buildings. It might at time be a link with childhood memories where hurt was involved.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the banister play in my dream, and what does that suggest?

Am I near a dangerous edge in my life?

Is this something I have built out of my attitudes?

See Techniques for Exploring your DreamsQuestionsSumming Up

basement and cellar: Usually the things we have hidden from awareness in our unconscious. The example shows how Mrs L. has killed or repressed a part of herself. We might ‘kill’ ambition, love, sexual drive, and these be pushed into our unconscious.

But the basement or cellar also is the entrance to personal and transpersonal memories, our biological ‘unconscious’ functions, archetypal patterns of behaviour, subliminal or psychic impressions, the collective unconscious. Frequently it is the place we keep memories of traumatic events in our life. So a dark shape or intruder might emerge from ‘downstairs’. Our dark deeds or guilty memories are also in the basement.

A snake in the cellar or cave: Our psychobiological drive; the energy behind our growth and motivation which includes sex drive. Often experienced as our emotional or feeling drive or zest for life. This connects us with awareness of our evolution as a person.

Bad smell: emotions which could cause depression or illness.

Example: ‘I know I have killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar. The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. Various people visit my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of these recurring dreams the police actually investigate the disappearance of ‘the person’ and go into the cellar. When I wake from these dreams I always have the most terrible guilty feeling.’ Mrs P. L.

bathroom: If you are from the USA going to the bathroom can mean you want to use the toilet, in which case see toilet – or maybe you need wash, or have a shower or a bath, in which case see bath/bathing.

buying a house: See: purchasing a house.

chimney: Smoking; the birth canal; sign of inner warmth. Belching black smoke: The grim mechanised side of our culture centred on production instead of humanity.

corridor: No man’s land; limbo; in between state; the process of going from one thing to another. The corridor, because of its shape directs ones progress along it. So it is both limiting and yet gives opportunity to traverse a building quickly.

So if it has this feel in your dream it links more with the expression of your potential or energy. As such it is a channel for the energy of potential to flow through you, into the many departments or ‘rooms’ of you. The example may refer to the experience of birth – the birth canal. Such a corridor can also depict a sense of not being able to get out of a dissatisfactory situation. It may refer to a direction in life produced by circumstances, or even the female genitals. See: white. Many corridors in a building might suggest the complications and barriers that stand in the way of simple effective action or expression.

Example: ‘I’m trapped in a long passageway or corridor. I can’t get out. I’m feeling my way along the wall – there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, I can’t get to it. I’m very frightened. I wake up before I get to the end. Then I feel afraid to go back to sleep.’ Margaret.

door: Freud felt that a door, a keyhole, a handle, a knocker, all depicted sex and sexual organs. The first example shows this clearly. Knocking refers to the sex act, the cul-de-sac is the woman’s legs. But the image of a door has so many other ways of being expressed in dreams and is used very frequently. In the first example it represents the experience of discovering a new feeling state. For instance if one had always been apologetic and now became affirmative, ‘new doors’ of experience could well open.

Door – General meanings depending on dream: A boundary; the difference between one feeling state and another, such as depression and feeling motivated; a barrier to change or growth; the passing from inside oneself to exterior life; the feelings or attitudes, such as aloofness, we use to shut others out of our life to remain independent or private; being open or inviting; a sense of leaving an environment or relationship – escape; entering into a new work or relationship situation; entrance to a new life style, or a new phase of one’s life. Or conversely, an exit from one situation into another.

Back door: Our private, family life; our more secret activities; the anus.

Black door: The barrier that ones fears or apprehensions set up; the unknown, but perhaps imagined in a way that does not relate to reality. Going through the black door may therefore lead to a freedom from the limiting fears.

Door to strange landscape of world: Finding entrance to unconscious.

Doorknob: Turning point in opportunity, sexual or otherwise. The ability to make a change or to enter into a new situation. See: knob.

Front door: Public self; confidence; our relationship with people in general; a vagina.

Leaving door open: this can suggest that you remain ready and sympathetic to new ideas, a relationship, or to move in and out of a situation.

Glass doors: Invisible barriers in the way of your goals or possibilities; being able to see through to the possibility of change.

Grand house or stately House: Possibly represents either your inherited tendencies from your ancestors or your logn past; or your vision or ambitions for something you would like to happen. Remember that great things have always developed from people’s great ideas that they then work at making real – for the real is only our vision of the future that we put our life energy into building. See The House of the Ancestors

Shutting a door: Privacy; trying to find ‘space’ for oneself; the dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact; repressing memories or feelings; decisively ending something.

Side door: Escaping from a situation or being indirect.

Someone at a door: Opportunity; the unexpected; new experience or relationship.

Example: ‘I find my way to a door and knock. It is at the end of the cul de sac. An old woman of about sixty comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and have sex with her.’ Patrick S.

Example: ‘I come up to a door which I’d never seen before, and on opening it, I came across another house fully furnished.’ Mrs R. F. Example: ‘I am being strangled from behind by a faceless man! I had gone down to lock my flat door for the night when I noticed the door was open. I hastily bolted it and ran upstairs, but unknown to me the intruder was already in the flat.’ Miss H.

Here the door represents the censorship the dreamer places between her conscious self and her sexual drives. In ‘strangling’ our own life drive, we ourselves feel cut off from life.

empty house: Suggest that you are feeling empty of purpose and perhaps are slightly without purpose. Or it could mean that you have a completely new beginning to be very creative with your life and direction.

first floor: (In this dictionary the first floor is called the ground floor)

fortress: See: castle.

ground floor: For all the ‘floors’/levels of a house see Floor

Home: Ones basic needs such as shelter, warmth, nourishment – but usually in the sense of what we have created as our basic way of life; the values, standards, goals we have accepted as normal, or are ‘at home’ with; as in the first example – the situation or feeling state in our home, which here means family atmosphere and attitudes; the state of feeling relaxed, being oneself because away from other people and what we need to be in relationship with them. Thus a sense of being oneself, or absence of concern over other peoples criticism.

In clarifying this dream symbol, it needs to be defined as to what the state of feeling was in the home, and whether one shared the space with others, and what this was like.

In a past home: Depicts the parts of our character or experience which developed in that home environment.

Someone else’s home: What we sense as the attitudes and atmosphere – or the situation prevailing in that home. So a young woman going to the home of her lover and his wife, shows her facing the fact of her lover’s home situation and commitment in marriage.

Future home: The direction you would like your life to take, or fear it might. See: house below.

Idioms: Bring something home to someone; close to home; come home to roost; home and dry; broken home; home truth; home is where the heart is; feel at home.

Example: ‘I was sitting in the living room at home and my mum was sitting there; like we do when we’re relaxing in the evening. From nowhere in particular my dad was there. He held his girlfriend in his arms and displayed her in front of us. She was stark naked. My mum tensed up, tightened her lips, and tried to look away. I felt acutely embarrassed for me, mum, dad and his girlfriend.’ Lynsay S. Example: ‘I am walking down a busy street when I realise all I have on are my bra and pants. Everyone is staring at me and I try to appear unconcerned but feel more and more embarrassed as I go on. Eventually the street and the people fade and I am alone in my own home and a great sensation of relief comes over me. I do not bother to put any more clothes on but wander about the house secure in the comfort people are no longer looking at me. Mrs S. C. This depicts the home as absence of demands made on us by other people or social rules – so the ability to be oneself.

house: If the house is one we know, live in now or in the past, what is said about home applies.

Attackers or intruders from outside: Social pressures or response to criticisms.

Basement: See: basement.

Bedroom: See: bedroom

Big house: People often dream of a very big and grand house, and often feel it is not theirs, but everything in a dream is created by your own thoughts, fears, and genius. It depicts the many different departments and areas of yourself you could explore, also your ancient past can be open to you if you enter your dream house.

The big house is a sign that you are much bigger and have more space/potential than you presently believe or know. You need to explore that potential and develop it, for you are a miracle of life, and nobody fully understands what we are. So see Being the Person or Thing

While awake we often think we have a view of what we are based on other peoples opinion of us, our parents lack of interest in us and their comments, that may have made us feel small and insignificant, or even our own view of ourselves, what our body looks like. And so often we have a diminished view of ourselves. But being alive is a miraculous and amazing thing – probably the most amazing thing in the universe.

Our astronomers are searching everywhere to find life on other worlds. In one way that is ridiculous. We spend enormous amount of money and time in such searches on other planets and yet forget that we are living beings with enormous – even infinite  – potential and do nothing toward caring for and helping each and every one to unfold their potential.

Burning or falling down: Big changes in attitudes; leaving old standards or dependencies behind; sickness. See: Last example in falling.

Cellar: Similar to basement – what is unconscious or below ones usually level of awareness. Also may still have associations to do with ‘below stairs’ referring to what is beneath one or a lower class. Also in the cellar or basement one is near to the earth, the primordial forces of nature, what moves beneath ones ‘street level’ personality. The basement can also link with what your present personality has been built upon, your past or family and cultural influences. If there are no walls to the cellar, or tunnels leading from it, it shows an openness or connection with influences beyond your own personality.

Ceiling: Protection, security, against the life’s difficulties. Something above your head, or out of reach. The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity, the height or range of your imagination, or your mental limit or boundary. If you live in a flat with people above you, the ceiling can mean the things other people do that enter your life, interfere with it, or even damage you in some way.

childhood house: It refers to feelings or incidents. sometimes traumatic, that occurred in your childhood years.

Remember that a house nearly always refers to you, depicting your body and aspects of your personality. This becomes obvious if, having visited friend’s houses you judge their character by the condition of the house. See Children’s Traumatic Fears

Chimney: Smoking; the birth canal; sign of inner warmth. If belching black smoke – the grim mechanised side of our culture centred on production instead of humanity.

Cramped house: Feeling of need for personal change; feeling restricted in home environment or in present personal attitudes.

Damage or structural faults: Faults in character structure; hurts such as broken relationship; bodily illness.

Dining room: Appetites; social or family contact; mental or psychological diet.

First, and other middle floors: Internal needs, rest, sleep, hungers; the trunk. See floor for fuller description.

Floor and floorboards: Basic attitudes and confidence; what supports you and you may take for granted, such as health, good will of others, the house you live in. The floor often appears without much emphasis in many dreams. This suggests it is depicting the present situation or environment you are in. For instance first floor or second floor would suggest a different situation in which the events of the dream are taking place. Front of house: Our persona; facade; social self; face.

Ground floor: Practical everyday life, sexuality; hips and legs. It can sometimes suggest real love because all live has to be grounded, it has to be expressed unless it is brought down to earth. See floor for fuller description.

If it is a house created by the dream: Ones body and personality in all its aspects.

Haunted house: This usually point to a troublesome memory or experience that still ‘haunts’ you. But sometimes it can be something very real met, as follows:

Example: I believe there were other people in the huge attic room with me. Then the scene changed and 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. When 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.

Inside the house: Within oneself.

Kitchen in woman’s dream: May refer to pride in the ability to create a home and contribute something valuable to the family. See: cooking.

Kitchen: Creativity; nourishing oneself; mother role; diet.

Larder: Hungers; sensual satisfaction; your store of memories or feelings that satisfy or nourish you.

Living room: This is the mental and emotional space you live in. Your dream will usually give you a pictorial version of what you have created within yourself, what you exist in and its quality, space or despair. It might also refer to personal leisure or ‘space’ to be oneself and everyday life.

Looking back at a/your house: Shows you looking back upon yourself, upon your life. What you see if a summary of your life at that time/

Moving or new house: This can either refer to a radical change in the way your attitudes and feelings create a sense of the world around you, or that you are in process of being changed by circumstances and events, and therefore deals with the difficulties or excitement/plans in facing the change. Certainly it reflects some sort of personal change, most likely to do with the way you live your life.

Example: Joan had a dream as an 11 year old child and has had it 20 times over the past 40 years. When she was 11 her family moved from a wonderful big country home into a small city road. She didn’t want to move house and didn’t have anyone to share her difficult feelings about not wanting to move. So, never having expressed her feelings the dream kept recurring. Example: The difficulty of facing change is also reflected in the dreams Diana still has as an adult. She dreams her children are always young and her parents always as they were when she was young.

Nursery or child’s bedroom: Feelings about your children; ones own childhood feelings and memories.

Old House or house previously lived in: A previous set of values or way of life, sometimes even a suggestion of influences from lives previous to your present one. This can have very deep meaning, as it can show the influences from your past that are still active in you; it can mean influences from your ancestors and your far past.

Other people in house: Different facets of dreamer, or person or people involved quite deeply in your life. Therefore a stranger entering your house would suggest a new relationship.

Other person’s house: Another person’s life. If you go in the house, it shows you getting involved with that person, perhaps being a part of their life – as for instance entering a relationship. If you are watching someone else go in the house, it suggests an awareness of that person, or an aspect of self, being involved in another person’s life. See entry below on seeing partner go into someone else’s house.

Outside the house and garden: Extroversion or the relationship with environment.

People or things coming from downstairs: Influences, fears, impressions from unconscious or passions – or from everyday worries.

People or things from upstairs: Influence of rational self.

Purchasing a house: In general this may relate to making a decision to change, or wanting a change in your life or circumstances. Purchasing something in a dream also often involves the process of deciding or being uncertain. The decision making is to do with clarifying what you want, what you would like. See: purchasing.

Repairs, enlargement or renovation: Reassessment or change of attitudes or character; personal growth.

Roof: The philosophy, beliefs or coping strategies we use to protect yourself from stress. The roof can also suggest how you are dealing with the energies of emotion, and whether your ‘house’ or personality, is sound.

Standing on a roof: Heightened awareness. See: spiritual life in dreams

Mending roof: Developing new coping strategies; feeling vulnerable; developing the qualities on your life that lead to wholeness.

Leaking roof: Need for new coping strategies; a suggestion that you need to deal with personal problems.

No roof: If not a threatening dream, suggests no barrier between personality and psychic or spiritual awareness; a sense of connection with life or wider awareness. If threatening, feeling invaded by forces outside oneself, or disturbing emotions if raining.

Roof garden: Spiritual or mental growth or flowering of new ideas, insights or abilities. See: Last example in window.

Room: A particular feeling state – for instance the room might feel sinister, warm, spacious, cold, etc. – so depicts such; womb; your life situation if it is a room you are living in. In this sense the room can depict what difficulties, what traps, what poverty or richness of life you are living in. Sometimes a room, because of its spaciousness represents the amount of potential or opportunity one has. The ‘containing’ quality of a room may also depict involvement in ones mother. The décor of the room usually suggests how you feel about the quality of your life.

Bare room: This may suggest you feel your life lacks comfort, or the joy of your own created environment. It can also suggest potential.

Entering another room: Entering a new experience or phase of your life, a new feeling.

Room without doors or windows: May represent the womb and life in the womb. What is happening in the room may show the state of a pregnancy, or feelings about pregnancy; feeling trapped.

Secret room or finding of extra rooms: A common dream theme – recognition or discovery of previously unnoticed aspects, abilities, fears, or traits in oneself. If the discovery is distressing, this may reflect a feeling of a change in ones status quo which is disturbing.

Example: ‘There was a room in my house I had never been in before. It was filled with water and had three kittens submerged in it. While in the room I didn’t need to breath.’ Audrey P. The room here represents Audrey’s childbearing function – her womb. The room can therefore depict mother or qualities of mothering.

Row of houses: Other people. See: entries on room; roof; stairs; wall; attic.

Seeing your husband/wife/partner go in someone else’s house: This may suggest your partner has the tendency to move into another relationship. This may be only your fears, but it may show you sense a growing distance in your relationship, and the possibility of your partner going elsewhere.

Example: I was with my husband down some back alley ways – behind houses – all a bit grey looking and maybe evening light. We were looking for a way through and my husband suddenly took off down a very narrow alley through a wooden tumbled down fence and was gone. I tried to follow but when I got through the fence I felt my husband went through the house that was ahead. It was a strangers house and I just couldn’t make myself walk up to it, open the back door and go through it – what if someone saw me or asked me why I was in their home uninvited – I imagined that the owner was a young oriental woman – and I wasn’t sure IF my husband HAD gone that way or down another alley way. Kate.

Some months later Kate’s husband went to live with another woman. Shelf: Possibly your memories, of something that is a part of your everyday awareness; something that is accessible in terms of your using it or remembering what it represents. See: ledge.

Someone else’s house: Moving into it suggests you want to be like them or want to be near them or even love them in some manner.

Shelf: Possibly your memories, of something that is a part of your everyday awareness; something that is accessible in terms of your using it or remembering what it represents. But principally the way you display or store things that are either precious to you or things, memories you store that still have importance,

Stairs: See stairs

Study or library: Mental growth; mind.

Things in the house: Aspects of ones feelings and makeup.

Toilet: Privacy; release of tension; letting go of emotions, fantasies or desires which we need to discharge. See: toilet.

Top floor or attic: Thinking; the conscious mind; memory or memories, things that haunt you; the head. See: attic.

Walled garden: With high wall it is not only a defense about intruders, but also a private area where you can sunbathe with or without clothes, or be a private person. See wall

Windows: Ones outlook on life; how you see others. See larger entry on window.

Useful questions and hints:

What is happening to the house – changing – decorating – exploring – and how does that apply to me?

What does the quality, age and areas of this house describe about me?

If I describe myself as the house what do I say?

If I am exploring new areas of the house, what am I finding?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems See: For fuller insight into house – House in Your Dream; Basement, Stairs, Window, Glass, Door, Furniture.

Comments

-Trish beckwith 2018-02-24 19:53:41

I dream of a family living in my basement without my consent or knowledge until I find them there and I can’t get them to leave

-Amy 2017-05-14 20:51:33

Hi Tony,

I’ve contacted you long ago about several dreams and your generous replies were always very insightful, and helpful.

I had another house dream last night. I dreamt I was running and didn’t know where to go so I went to an old house I used to live in. I loved this house. My relationship broke down there though, through lack of boundaries and eventually I had enough and I had to leave.

So when I ran in there last night, it was completely renovated and looked stunning. Two very old dear friends of mine followed me there, they are a couple and as far as relationships go they have one I admire. They sat with me in this house, and I didn’t tell them we weren’t meant to be there. I ate chocolate my friend had given me weeks before but she then told me not to eat it, it doesn’t last that long.

The new owner of the house then came up the stairs and found us. I was most apologetic for being in her house, and she was understanding. She said I could look around. I did, and it was amazing this house.. I loved it even more.

So i am now in another relationship, that again has hit problems, that again have occurred as a result of me over giving, not setting clear boundaries, and I am in the process of too ending this relationship. It has had me reflecting a lot on the relationship I had before this, in the house I describe. There are similar patterns, and yet I am here again nearly ten years later…

I feel this dream was significant. Various aspects of my past were interwoven..

I’m most hopeful to hear your insights as I know I need to break through something here.

Best wishes,

Amy

-Sandra 2016-03-06 17:55:20

I had a dream that my dog and I were hiding out in a neighbors house, uninvited. Not there to steal anything but funny my neighbor was home and I believe she had a feeling someone was in her home. Like at one point I was actually on the other side of the door. And I was thinking to myself if she opens the door what is it I could possibly say to her about being in her home. I must be mentally ill.

-Tracie Gilliam 2015-10-18 15:39:24

I had a dream that I was at my job and a guy told me that I was going to get married to someone and my last name would be Stuart. I left my job and walked to my old house and a flock of birds that were all sorts of colors(blue,purple,yellow,black etc) was on the porch. I made a statement “I don’t like birds” I walked inside the house into my old room. I got ready to take off a jacket and one of the birds was on me (black and Greg in color). I kinda knocked the bird down when it hit the ground it became lifeless.

-ashlea 2015-07-21 15:29:12

Woke after a very odd dream I had opened the door to the dining room only to have the roof beam drop like a pendulum and hit me in the arm throwing me backwards into the hallway. I then got up climbed over all the fallen roof rafters to gain access to the kitchen so that I could get my purse I then climbed into the sun room so I could get my keys and unlock the back door. So confused as to what it could mean…

-Kristin 2015-02-05 3:54:29

Hi there
I had a dream last night that I know I’ve had before. I woke frightened and whimpering and sweating. It is the inside of an old house (not one I know) with many doors and rooms. Very high ceilings and no lights. The halls have lots of turns and the rooms get weirder and scarier. Not anything obviously scary but the feeling intensifies. I don’t think there are any other people on the dreams. The dream from last night didn’t have any exterior view or outside but I think I’ve seen that in the past unless I’ve imagined it later while trying to remember the dream. I don’t particularly remember windows but it seems lit by moonlight and all the furniture and other elements are in partial or complete shadow. I continue to go from room to room feeling I’m searching for something but I never really look that deeply. Then I wake afraid. The floors have big oriental kind of dusty rugs like you’d see in a mansion in the movies where everyone has left and they’ve out sheets over the furniture. I’m not sure if the things in my dream are actually covered in sheets but that’s the aura I feel. I’ve read what’s here which has given me some insight but didn’t kniw if you may have more to add. Thank you xo

-Becci 2015-01-01 15:32:41

Last night I had a dream I was living in a new house, this house was big, had many rooms. I had people around me some I knew and some I didnt, it was happy, we where laughing and enjoying ourselves. I was organising drawers for the rooms and my friend had her own room which she was putting things away in and while this was happening i was drifting in and out if rooms sorting things out. I ended up in the kitchen which was big with lots of food in the middle of the big table in the room. There was rooms with furniture that weren’t being used, I ended up in the bathroom also with my friend which I know in real life, we where in the shower fully clothed as she was telling me to get in.. then woke up. Last bit is a bit weird I know lol. I’d love to know what this dream means. Thank you. Becci X

-Isabel 2014-06-12 13:27:13

Last night I had a dream that my boyfriend and I went house shopping and the house we were looking at was one that my dad fixed up well in my dream while we were inside the house I looked out the window and the neighbors house fell and broke. My boyfriend and I ran outside to look while calling 911 when I looked inside their kitchen window they were giving cpr to a man that was bleeding alot. What does this mean?

-Nikki 2014-05-25 8:07:28

The walls of my house start to fall down my fiancé holds it up and keeps putting it back. The house eventually falls down. I am calm but a bit worried what my mother would say. When I look at the house from the outside the back of the house has collapsed. I worried that we may not have house insurance.

-Donna G 2014-04-12 14:56:41

In late 2012 you helped me out with my understanding of a couple of house dreams and kindly offered that if I wanted to come back to you that I could. I stopped having house dreams shortly after I last contacted you but I’ve just woken up from such a lovely house dream again. There are similar but different themes and I’m again struggling to make sense of it although it felt so blissful that I didn’t want to get up! Blissful feels like a strange word considering the house was full of cobwebs and in needed of a real overhaul but blissful is the word. All my house dreams leave me feeling as though I wish they were real. So back to the dream; I want to say it was a bungalow in my dream but it wasn’t because it had an upstairs. The downstairs had rooms leading off rooms but with no doors. The rooms were dark, as though the curtains were drawn and all the walls and ceilings were caked in cobwebs. Nothing needed doing structurally but it needed a good clean. I remember thinking in the dream (as with all the other house dreams I’ve had) that there was so much potential and that it was so much bigger than the (real) house I currently live in even though it was older. It felt simultaneously as though this was the first time I had seen the house and like I had been there before but because the task of making it habitable felt impossible, I hadn’t started. I again felt as though there were too much to do and that I couldn’t start because I’d never get anywhere. Also in what appeared to be a related but separate dream I felt really aroused. My intention in the dream was to go and have sex but when I sit and wonder about it, actually what comes up is a feeling that I wanted to open up my whole person and that I couldn’t open myself up wide enough to be filled up. I hope that doesn’t sound too crude! I really look forward to hearing from you Tony.

    -Tony Crisp 2014-04-13 12:36:16

    Donna – Your dreams are real, but are about another type of reality – the inner world within you. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/

    This inner world is very influential and if discovered fully, or even partially, can revolutionise you. “It felt simultaneously as though this was the first time I had seen the house and like I had been there before but because the task of making it habitable felt impossible, I hadn’t started.”

    It depends upon where you place yourself. If you place yourself in your present personality, then it feels like it is a new place. But an older and bigger you – your potential again – knows and recognises you have been here before. Read the example in Inner World.

    The house is the whole you, the bigger you, and it is much more that the person you know yourself to be. As I wrote to someone else today, “You are about 98% unconscious of what or even who you are. Our little bit of awareness we call our personality is produced and supported by the enormous forces of LIFE – and these are cosmic because the sun gives us our life energy, the earth gives us material for a body, every living thing, down to the bacteria, that keep you alive – and that is only a tiny glimpse of who you are.”

    To understand more see – http://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/animal-children/#Programhttp://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/jesse-watkins-experience-of-enlightenment/

    The sexual impulse you feel is a very important part of becoming more. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/kundalini/

    I am sorry I have given you a lot of reading material, but I think you have so much potential to would be stupid not to explore it and become much more. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/this-is-the-time-of-the-quickening/

    Tony

-milli 2013-12-26 13:45:59

This site got me thinking a lot, it’s very true. Well i had this dream & I was running away from this person. The reason being is like I think we worked together like a business or something. I felt like he wasn’t giving me my fair share of the money. Even though I worked so hard in the music. For some reason when him and other people were in a different room. I went and took some money out of his packet. I grabbed a toothbrush and my shoes just the basics. Put them in a cross body bag , then i sneakily went down the stairs and ran. Keep in mind all this was happening in my apartment . So i went through the back and i kept running. I went to this other apartment house. The door is always open for some reason , becoz i always see this house, its like a safety house . When i enter the house it’s soo big and lovely but its empty, it was furnished nicely and all . It just looked like someone had left , but forgot to lock their door. I still felt like i wasnt complety safe in that house because I knew the person would come to this house and catch me becoz i took all his pocket money. After that i go upstairs and i’m just like standing there because idk if i should find a room to go into, but then i hear a noise like theres someone in the house with me. I didnt wanna go and check because I had a feeling that he had found me. Fortunately, I alwaye have this thing wherr I can tell myself to wake up especiallt if i know i might be unsuccessful, so i just closed my eyes and i woke up from the dream . What does this mean ?

    -Tony Crisp 2014-01-02 9:30:53

    Milli – First of all I would like you to read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing.

    You will see from that the person you ran away from, the money you took, are all in fact examples of you. So your mix up is because you feel you do not get enough reward for what you do. But as far as dreams are concerned stealing is not good news – for you are stealing from yourself. Better to face whoever you feel is not dealing with you fairly and tell them.

    Tony

-Melissa 2013-11-30 7:04:18

I had a very vivid dream, first vivid one in ages, and I feel very strongly its trying to tell me something, but I can’t figure it out. I dreamt that I moved into a new house with my family, it was a very big beautiful house with many rooms and I was very excited. However all of the drawers, cupboards etc were full of the past owners stuff/clutter (I really dislike clutter) and I felt that I just couldn’t get rid of it all. There was also other people in the house who wouldn’t leave, they were using the house for a free/charity school and I felt it was selfish and uncharitable for me to ask them to leave, as the house was so large and I was so wealthy in the dream, however I was angry because I wanted the house to be my own. There was also a hairdresser there who wanted to cut my hair? Anyway the feeling was of disappointment as I was so happy about buying the house and I felt like it was a bit ruined. In real life I’m not wealthy! but have a happy marriage and 2 wonderful small children (3 yr old and a baby) so maybe that’s where the feeling of wealth in the dream comes from. Not sure exactly where the rest of it comes from – can you help?

-amank 2013-09-10 12:14:27

hey i had a dream that some woman was hiding open locks in the house with keys and she past a open lock and the keys to my dad she put it in his pockit i reli wanna the mean for this btw this woman is my dads bro wife nd she dnt get on with us guys shes reli h8s on us and someone told me that she does black magic..

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