Female,
writer, born 1964
There are two buildings that have featured prominently in
recurring dreams (one of them still ongoing):
As a child, I used to have a nightmare - frequently enough
that I can still remember it - that I lived in a large
glass house on the top of a hill. I remember it in bright
sunshine. At the bottom of the hill, visible from the
house, was the edge of dark, dense forest. The house was
made entirely of glass, two stories high, and large enough
to accommodate my rather large family. In my dream I'd be
playing outside, near the edge of the trees, when suddenly
I'd realise there were wolves in the forest (fairytale
wolves with eyes you could see through the gloom) and I'd
start running up the hill towards the house. By the time I
was halfway up the hill the wolves were streaming out of
the forest behind me. I'd reach the glass house, close the
door, and run upstairs, and though the wolves would be
close behind me I would think for a moment I was safe. But
I could see everything (thanks to the glass house),
including the wolves smashing through the glass door and
walls downstairs - I'd know I was about to be killed and
I'd wake up.
The second recurring dream is more peaceful and I still
have it:
There is a house I have been dreaming about for years that
only occurs in my dreams - every time I dream it, I
recognise it as the same house and am glad to be back
there, but it isn't like any house I've known. It's a big
old rambling house, perhaps a few centuries old, with more
than several different and unexpected, interconnected
rooms. Upstairs it is somewhat rickety in places, with
sloping floors, and there are rooms I feel I recognise very
strongly from previous times I've been there, previous
dreams (though sometimes I also discover new ones). There
is one particular room that is dangerous to get to,
involving walking over a very narrow walkway or dangerous
stair (it varies), but it is the most beautiful room of the
house, hanging out over the garden, with a great view (it's
very high up, higher than the rest of the house) and though
it feels unsafe, I love to go there.
I thought about this "dream house" last year when National
Poetry Day was on the theme of dreams, and tried to write
about it, without any great success (failing to create the
dream feeling, the specialness). But I feel it represents
the inside of my head, and the upstairs is all to do with
writing. I think the beautiful dangerous room is my
subconscious's metaphor for writing poetry, which might
explain why I'm drawn to it; why it's deeply familiar.