Houses in Your Dream

Chances are you’ve found yourself in some sort of house in your dream before.  If you’ve ever found yourself in the house you’ve grown up in, let me tell you you’re not alone.  In line after that, is a house you’ve never seen before but you know its yours. To get to the bottom of what a house can mean in your dream, you must first consider the way you view the house that appears in your dream.

Houses mean something different to everyone.  To one person a house is simply a place to get some sleep.  To another person, a house is a place of refuge, their own personal safe place from all the craziness in the world.  Granted, these examples are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but they convey the first thing you need to remember when pondering the meaning of what a house in your dream means.  Each individual has a unique perspective on what a house means, which changes over time, so no one definition will fit every person’s dream.

Take, for instance, a place called Alliance, Nebraska. I went to school there from sixth grade to twelfth grade.  Decades after I graduated high school to set out to find my place in the world, I dreamt of Alliance. Specifically, the house I lived in while I was in Alliance.  I only recently found out that this also happened to my mother.  As I brought out my dream and set it next to hers, I noticed that the house in Alliance meant one thing to her and quite another thing to me.

Next, consider the most basic definition of what the structure of a house means.  Houses take time to build.  They’re usually set atop a foundation and take on the personality of the people living in the house.  Houses also have many rooms separated by their purpose.  Kitchens are very different from bathrooms and are never found right next to each other because of sanitary reasons.

Living rooms have a different purpose than a bedroom.  On the other hand, attics and basements are often set aside for storage.  They are located at opposite ends — one on the top the other on the bottom of the house.  Basements are typically located under ground, or at lease partially underground, therefore to dream about something happening in a basement can refer to that which is hidden.  Attics are places of storage that often contain history.

So what if your childhood bedroom was located in the attic?  In that case, whatever is happening in that part of your dream may be talking about your childhood history.  As with every dream, it;s all about context.

How could context affect a house dream?

Let’s say you have a dream about a house where your family gathered to celebrate holidays. For me it was my grandparent’s hose. In this house where your family spends holidays, the place that feels like home, the place is full of all the relatives on your dad’s side of the family.  This context is setting the scene for “family history”. See the connection?

But what if you’re in the same house your family spent holidays together and there’s no relatives in sight?  What if, instead, you see a dog you have fond childhood memories of? If you’ve seen this in a dream it could very well be setting the context of the scent for a ‘beloved family friend’.

Share a house dream in the comments below.

EB

Photo credit: Dave Kliman via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND