Dreams - Stories You Tell Yourself

My subconscious told me a really neat, scary ghost story last night, for the first time in a long time; lately, my dreams have been a bunch of confusing images/vignettes with little logic or cohesion, but last night - wow!

In this dream, my husband and I were in Paris. While walking across a bridge over a large, rushing stream (it was only a stream, not the Seine), we looked down and realized that there was a house built in the middle of the water, partially hidden by/connected to the bridge. Intrigued, we went down onto the riverbank for a closer look - a discovered a "for sale" sign.

The real estate agent happened to be right there, and insisted on showing us around - never mind that 1) we weren't interested in buying a house, and 2) there's no way we could afford this stone-and-mullionned window pre-Rafaelite structure. The main entrance, strangely enough, was through a tunnel in the sewers. But when we got into the house, BAM! it did the TARDIS thing of being much larger inside than out. Elegant carved wood walls, beautiful veined marble floors, and furnishings that looked like they came from the turn of the last century.

Turns out this had been the house of a famous writer and his family - his wife had been a painter, and they had a 10-year-old son. My dream-self finds this terribly fascinating, and I can't wait to explore the rest of the house. We find the the cozy room at the waterline of the rushing river (whose leaded windows miraculously don't leak) that has his-and-hers divans, an easel, and a desk with a typewriter and papers still strewn over it. There's also several bedrooms, a palatial marble bath, a garage, and a kitchen - where the cook asks, in French, if we'd like some tea.

Things didn't get creepy until we reached the nursery wing. Again, everything's been perfectly preserved - not a speck of dust anywhere. When I ask why, the real estate agent nervously tells me that the writer stipulated it remain this way. More prodding on our part gets him to reveal that when the writer's son died, both the writer and his wife died soon thereafter under mysterious circumstances. We walk into what was once the boy's room, and immediately sense a presence that tells us to get out. We leave the room; the door slams shut behind us.

I won't bore you with the rest - it played out as the "ghost child looking for a mother" trope - but upon waking I was struck by the fantastic detail and cohesiveness of the plot.

Yow. If only I could write stories like my brain does! Anyone got a direct wetware connection from the subconscious to a computer?

Dreams

My apologies for my absence. Last week was...well...hideous. I won't bother to go into the gory details, but suffice to say it had to do with an expensive (and defective) treadmill, a spousal meltdown, and more water in the basement.

Oy.

Fortunately, it's a new week. And I started it off with some wild dreams. Allow me to back up a moment and mention that yesterday morning I met with my BFFs and fellow writers Nancy and Carrie for some much-needed recess time. Being with them got me thinking more about my writing, and realizing how long it's been since I've committed to actual writing, as opposed to noodling.

Now...cut to last night. I dreamed that I discovered a gap behind the bathtub where the backsplash met the wall. It was strange...it was our house, yet it wasn't. Anyway, I got a flashlight to look more closely at this defect, and discovered that 1) the gap was big enough to squeeze through, and that 2) behind the wall there was another huge part of the house that we didn't know existed: another bathroom, a second kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, and a gigantic family/rec room. It was all dusty and in disrepair due to having been walled off and ignored for years, but I was very excited to find it, and couldn't wait to go back and get my husband to show him my discovery.

In most dream interpretations, the house stands for your sense of self. If that's true, then my re-discovery of the walled-off section of the house means that I'm on the brink of re-discovering part of myself that had been closed off, forgotten, and neglected...like my writing. And the fact that my dream-self was excited about it, and welcomed it, is a good thing. Perhaps this means I'm finally going to be able to throw off the shackles of my self-doubt and embrace my creative side.

As a very strong believer in the power of dreams, I can only see this as a Very Good Thing. Can't wait to see how it pans out!

Spring Cleaning

My subconscious is still cleaning house. Last night I dreamed about a one-time "friend" who years later I recognize as off-the-wall crazy. But unlike previous dreams, where she would confront me and insult me and physically fight with me, this time I kept her at a distance. I was an observer. Better still, I didn't feel any of the emotions I associate with dreams about her; I just felt...detached.

I realize now that I am making progress. It's a long, painful road, but I think I'm finally getting past the construction section.