So, earlier today on twitter I posed the following query:
Dream question: Do you guys all have imaginary locations that recur in your dreams? What are they?
The answers have been really excellent and interesting, though I wasn't sure anyone would chime in and so didn't create a hash tag (I will try to capture them though–and you can find most of them here). But for the non-tweeting blog readers or people who just want more than 140 characters, what about you?
For the record, the two I mentioned on twitter are my surreal airport and first class section that's both spaceship-like and has polar bears, and a house I described as a "labyrinth house like a rundown Winchester Mystery House, which I dreamed again last night, prompting this question." But it's definitely not a mansion, way too ramshackle for that–and yet it always yields new rooms to accomodate dreamtime houseguests. It's also in major need of interior decoration and often feels as if someone else has been living there in the interim between times it shows up in my dreams. The imaginary house is apparently a common recurring dream locale, but it's been really interesting to see the variations in how that manifests for different people. Mine is in the middle of nowhere, in a giant field (although there is a strange subway station at the bottom of the hill you have to climb to get there), and frequently features not just houseguests but intruders and strange fauna. When I woke up this morning, I said to Christopher, "I really like our dream country house, but I do not approve of tiny alligator snakes infesting my clothes."
My dream house isn’t always the same. The last one had a giant fishtank housing the world’s ugliest fish and a slide from the window to the lawn that ended near the elephant cage (!). I also recall some hideous wood paneling.
It’s hard for me to tell for sure what places have been in multiple dreams and which I just dream are familiar. (also, some are mixed in with real places, so I’m NEVER sure which is which with those.)
I have a massive house with an underground parking garage/loading dock that has been in several dreams, including one where I had to keep escaping out windows.
I also have an opera house that has been in several dreams. It’s based very loosely on a theater in Kalamazoo I went to, but with dream details I picked up elsewhere. ce
I am jealous! I wish I had a special dream place that I got to visit during the nocturnal hours. Of course, knowing me, it would probably be some horrible place filled with violence and sadness. ( I have bad dreams.)
I always had the same dream the night before school started at the beginning of the year – wandering, late, not sure where to go, in a sprawling dream school which was an amalgam of all the different schools I had attended. Only with extra secret tunnels, longer stairways, and other strangenesses. A bit like Gormenghast but with less attractive carpet.
omg!!! for the past 10 years I have had recuring dreams of not only a house but the town in which its located. I KNOW THESE ARE NOT NORMAL DREAMS. The dream is different each time but the place is always the same and the house has a secret round room at the very top with a staircase leading to it that is broken and unsafe. But heres the thing that makes me think these are not dreams (I dont know what they are but I know they are not dreams) I seem to have colllective memories that ive incurred each time I visit this dream place and I carry and act upon them everytime I visit this place in my dreams. It’s almost like I have 2 sets of memmories my waking memmory and my dream state memmory and they are both very seperate, And heres the other thing…I am often sad upon waking from them…like I don’t wanna leave there and the feeling of having been there haunts me for days afterward. Sometimes I wake with no memory of the dream but I know that I have once again been visiting there by this feeling of profound sadness upon waking. I catch myself each day looking for landmarks of this place in my own environment I know this will sound crazy but I think this is a real place and the experiences I’ve had there are real experiences. if anyone would like to respond or share similar experiences pleez visit my facebook at dannylynneriley@yahoo.com -DannyLynne