The house and its rooms
Rooms, stairs, doors, and the objects that stay put. Dreamed buildings are wrong in specific and repeatable ways, and this is where that concentrates.
21 records
- PlaceHouseHouses are the most common setting in dream reports, which is the first thing worth knowing: a house in a dream is usually where the dream is, not what the dream is about. The details that vary, whose house it is and what state it is in, carry more than the house does.
- PlaceBasementBasements produce a narrower and more consistent set of reports than any other room: descending, dark, a sense that something is down there, and a reluctance to go further. The consistency is real. The standard explanation for it is not established.
- PlaceAtticAttics are reported far less often than basements and with a different emotional signature: curiosity rather than dread, and finding rather than avoiding. The contrast between the two is the most reliable thing in this part of the database.
- PlaceBathroomOne of the most reported dreams there is, and the one with the most straightforward explanation available: the bladder. The classic version, searching for a usable toilet and never finding one, is common enough to be listed in the typical-dreams literature.
- PlaceKitchenKitchens appear frequently and are described far more warmly than most dream settings. The reports centre on other people being in them, which is the detail worth keeping: a dream kitchen is nearly always a social room rather than a functional one.
- PlaceBedroomThe bedroom is the one setting where a dream can be mistaken for the room you are actually in, and that makes it different from every other entry here. A large share of frightening bedroom dreams are sleep paralysis rather than dreams about a bedroom.
- PlaceGardenGardens are described more positively than almost any other setting, and the two states that dominate the reports, tended and overgrown, are described very differently. The state of the garden carries the dream, not the garden.
- PlaceRoofRoof dreams are height dreams with a building underneath. What dominates the reports is the edge and the pitch: being higher than intended, on a surface that is sloping, with nothing to hold.
- PlaceLiftLift dreams are about not being in control of where you end up. The reports are dominated by lifts that do not stop where they were asked to, that move sideways or too fast, or that open onto somewhere that should not be there.
- PlaceOfficeDreaming about work is extremely common and is one of the clearest demonstrations of the continuity hypothesis available: people dream about where they spend their days. The version worth attention is the one set in a job the dreamer left years ago.
- SymbolWindowWindows work as a boundary you can see through but not pass, and the reports divide almost entirely by which side of it the dreamer is on. Looking out is calm; being looked at through one is among the more unsettling reports in the database.
- EventMoving houseMoving dreams are packing dreams. The reports are overwhelmingly about the process rather than the destination: too much to pack, not enough time, and things that will not fit or keep being unpacked.
- SymbolA lock that will not lockOne of the most reported and least written-about dreams there is. The door will not lock, the bolt will not seat, the key turns and nothing engages, and the dreamer keeps trying.
- SymbolDrawerDrawers are searched, and the search does not end. What makes them distinct from the bag reports is that a drawer produces contents rather than hiding them: dreamers report finding more each time they look.
- SymbolBoxThe unopened box is the report. Dreamers describe knowing something is inside, frequently knowing what, and either not opening it or waking before they do.
- SymbolWardrobeTwo dreams share this object and they are not related. A wardrobe full of clothes that are not yours, and a wardrobe with something in it, which is a childhood fear that persists into adult reports more than people expect.
- SymbolCurtainCurtains are reported for movement. A curtain moving with no draught is one of the more effective unsettling images there is, and it produces unease without anything being behind it.
- SymbolBlanketThe one object in this file that is physically present while you dream about it. Weight, heat and restriction from real bedding are among the most readily incorporated sensations there are, and this dream is frequently the bed rather than the mind.
- SymbolAn empty chairThe exception in this file: a chair is not reported through failure but through absence. The empty chair is one of the most quietly affecting images in the database and it belongs with the grief material.
- SymbolTableA table in a dream is a cast list. Dreamers report who was around it and rarely report the table, and the guest list is frequently impossible in the way the party reports describe.
- SymbolMapA map is the worst possible object to hand a dreamer. It is text, it is fine detail, and it claims to describe a space that has no underlying model, so it fails on three counts at once.