I had the dream again last night.
In it, I am trying to make sense of a house that’s too small and cramped. It’s awful. We have to move.
And then suddenly I discover a false wall, or a door I never noticed. Once it led to an entire empty floor above the one we lived in. Another time, an acre of land.
It always feels like a revelation.
Last night it was a tiny room behind a false wall.
What else is this house hiding? I wondered. Stepping through another door, I found a vast space made of stone, like the ruin of an old chapel, sixty feet high. Beyond this wonderful space was a narrow cobbled street with a row of shops I had somehow missed for ten years. A bike shop, a book shop….and just beyond…the sea!
This was miraculous. I followed the road down a bit more and came across a branch of John Lewis. Practically next door. Oh joy and rapture!
I hated to wake up from my discovery that the house wasn’t too small after all, but full of potential and interest and just next door to all the things I love. (No horses? Asked my husband incredulously. But no, no horses.)
I started writing again this week after a long and frightening logjam that seemed to last forever.
My dream always tells me the same thing: There are more spacious and wonderful places to go than you ever realized. Even when you can’t find them, they’re there. Waiting.
I need to start dreaming in Symbolism.
All the best people do.
I have those house dreams, too – the newly-found rooms and hallways and additions; sometimes these places are wretched (damp, spidery, moldy) and need fixing up; sometimes the new places are intriguing and inviting (‘come in, come in’) – but always they seem connected to writing, appearing at a time when I am about to begin a book, or unsure where a story will go next . . . Always the subconscious working on things, eh?
And I always move back to where I used to live…
I never thought to look at those dreams as writing dreams, or dreams of potential–perhaps I’ll have to reconsider them. What to make of the “unknown secrets in a house” dream in which I discovered that if I pressed a certain button in the wall, an entire Wurlitzer organ rose up out of the floor on a beautiful stage? I thought that was plenty cool, but if it means unknown splendor waiting behind some door of my mind, instead, well–that makes it even cooler. (Though I could do without the recurring dream about the house with the flooded basement that only measures one foot between floor and ceiling…)
<3 this post xxx
Your architect loves this dream!
that would be a nice dream to have, all my dreams seem to be nower days are night mares of me jumping out of the windows, being eaten by spiders ect ect (one night i found myself trying to jump out of my bed room window when i was sleep, that was scarey!!) but i wonder what my dreams mean !!
Very worrying, Emma. YOu’re not taking exams or anything are you?!
I’ve had nightmares every night for the last two weeks and have no idea why??
Wow, what a gorgeous dream, Meg! I wonder what your sub-conscious is telling you – it actually sounds like a story unfolding. Mmmm, a good one!
I think lots of people must dream this because Shaun Tan, who is an amazing illustrator/maker of stories, has written and drawn almost this exact thing in his story ‘no other country’.
It’s in a beautiful book of his called ‘tales from outer suburbia’ and if you’ve not already come across it, I’d highly recommend. And I promise I’m not an evil advertising monster, just a nosey reader who delights in things. Because I’m very keen on your writing and his, I feel as if you should also enjoy each others’ work. It may not work like that.
I adore Shaun Tan, Amy. Though the only story I know from Tales of Outer Suburbia is Eric. I must get the book, I think it’s the only one of his I don’t own.