Date: 08-01-2024
This dream started in the bedroom of my current house. I woke up from fireworks and what I think were the horns of big ships on the lake nearby. D and I pondered what that was about but then we realised it was the 21st of March, and in the dream that meant a day of celebration as the days were going to be longer than the nights from that date on. I went down stairs.
On my way down the stairs the scene changed, and it morphed into the stairs from my childhood house. I went downstairs in that house. Outside it was still dark, as if it was a mid winter morning (or even still night?) The windows that had curtains had them drawn closed. It was quiet in the house, as if nobody was up, but I could see in the kitchen on counter there had been someone downstairs already. Breakfast stuff was laid out. I went into the living room and saw more signs that someone had been downstairs. The living room was the way it was long before my parents got new furniture. Everything was the old stuff, except the large round coffee table.
The TV stood at its old location, and it was the old bulky TV with the old silver VCR. Side note; it is amazing to see how much details of this setup I recalled from this dream. Any way. The TV was switched on but wasn’t set to a device or channel, so it showed static. There was no audio, though a very high pitched sound was audible from the TV, as it always used to do. After watching TV for a while you got used to it, but in this dream as I was somehow just only visiting I had gotten de-used to it. Next to the TV being switched on, I also saw some VCR tapes laying on the ground. I puzzled it together in my mind and concluded my dad must’ve been up all night trying to videotape something on TV. Something he did not want to lose.
I poked around with the TV installation a bit to see if I could figure out what exactly he had been trying to do, thinking maybe I could assist him with it or something. But after concluding I had no idea what he was trying to do, I got up and saw that there was a little girl in the rocking chair of my mom. I recognise her face as one of my students, but she was much younger in this dream, plus she wasn’t one of my pupils. She was instead a sort of adopted daughter of my sister. My sister had apparently taken on the task to take care of this child, which was a friend of her two daughters. I greeted her, asked her what she was doing here. She answered she was staying over. I couldn’t recall her name and I didn’t want her to notice, but because of this the conversation was a bit awkward.
When the short conversation was over I walked out of the living room, and thought to myself I should’ve just called her “sweety” as this kid was just really treated badly by most adults in her live, and she might’ve found it comforting to be addressed in a friendly manner. I thought the way I handled the conversation was typically silly stupid me. In the hall I ran into my brother, who I briefly talked to. We even went back into the living room and we both noticed we no longer heard the loud high pitched noise from the TV. I talked to him about it, and how we got used to that sound but that it was still there. I went into the hall again, and found my sister there this time, who was getting ready for school. She had her backpack opened, and she was putting stuff in it.
She showed me some large pears she found upstairs in my refrigerator. She asked if it was okay if she took them, and asked whether or not they had been in contact with figs, cause she was allergic to figs. She showed me her hands had red stains of inflammation where the pears had touched her skin. I said yes, even though that was a lie. But she wanted to take them anyway. I plead to her, asking her not to take the pears, as I actually still wanted to make a dish with those pears. They were home grown (and I actually have home grown pears upstairs in my refrigerator). She got clownish, and said “okay” extending her arm holding a pear, and when I reached out she dropped it. She was being a child. I didn’t know how to respond, and said I didn’t like that she did this. She might have apologised, I am not sure. We now also talked about the TV making that high pitched sound, and how it was weird you got used to it after a while. She agreed.
I went upstairs, and found my dad in the hall on the first floor. But I didn’t see him as he was at work behind the curtains that were drawn in front of the window. He had all his tools laying around, and was working on hanging up another pair of curtains between the window pane and the other curtains that were already in place. He was clearly busy. I don’t think I even said anything to him, except maybe a “hi dad”, but I am not even sure about that. I stepped into my old childhood room. From the closet doors I had a few blazers and sport coats hanging on clothing hangers. I was looking for my phone, but instead of finding my new and old one, I found I had two old ones. One was my own, and the other was the same brand and model, but in a slightly different leather case. I must’ve somehow taken someone else’s phone thinking it was my own. I was going to deal with that later, I decided, so I put them back and walked back into the hallway where I sneaked past my dad.
I went up the second stairway on my way to the attic, into my old room. It was a combination between the room I shared with my brother during our childhood, and the room as I had it with all the animals I used to keep there. As I had back then there were branches and small trunks hanging from the ceiling for my pet iguana to walk on. In the dream the animal was deceased as in real life. My wife was in the room also, and perhaps later on my brother came to have a look too. I reminisced about how the large lizard would crawl on the trunks and how much fun it had. It was such a lovely time. I felt all nostalgic about it.
The rest of the room looked like part childhood, part teen room. There were posters hanging everywhere depicting dinosaurs, just like the room I had shared with my brother during our childhood. We both were very much into dinosaurs when we were little boys. My wife D suggested we change some of the posters and replace them with other things, but I really didn’t want to change anything about it. I became a bit obstinate in my demeanour. She let it go after a while. I thought to myself I could’ve handled that better, and realised I was being unreasonable. Why not change it up a bit? It worked out fine last time she had changed things in our own living room in our own house.
In the dream I then realised we had a “full house” meaning we were all there. But in the dream this was a coincidence. I thought of how it was such an incredible coincidence we were all there, as D normally doesn’t even come here, and me and her don’t even normally live there, and how my sister also actually lives somewhere else, and how my dad is normally dead. It was such an abstract thought, looking back. I lost track of the dream after this.
Analysis:
I called this dream “behind the curtains” as it was somehow a dream that took place in the old house where all curtains were drawn, and my now deceased dad was even hanging up more. He was working behind the curtains. I am sure that is a metaphor for him still being busy in what goes on in that house. I think he hasn’t given up hope for a union of some sort, and the healing of old pain, while on my part I have to admit I no longer have hopes for that. Not in this life at least.
It was a run in with nostalgia. I am unsure who the little girl is supposed to be. Maybe that is the child version of my sister herself. She has come more and more in touch with herself, and much of her unresolved pain comes from her childhood. Maybe this little girl is now under the care of the mature woman that my sister has become.
It was dark in the house, and the curtains were closed, meaning people outside could not see what was going on inside. Maybe this is symbolic for how my mother keeps things that are happening in the house hidden from the outside world.
The house showed signs that people lived there and were doing things, but I had to look for the people who lived there. When I came downstairs it looked desolated. There were signs of activity, but no activity at that time. I do not know what this means. Maybe that people there live secret lives now? Maybe that the things that happened there are in the past and what once made this a lively household is now only an echo of that past? I don’t know, but it was a thing that stood out to me.
I truly don’t know what the discovery of another person’s phone in my possession was about. In the dream it didn’t feel like it wasn’t mine, but it still wasn’t. I recall now also checking the battery on both old phones, and the foreign phone was flat. I felt like I had discovered I had another phone I forgot about somehow. Maybe this is about a property of my personality that is not mine but which I mistook as being me, or something that is me but which I forgot I was? Or perhaps it symbolises my old ways or habits?
My dad had been using his old equipment to capture something on tape. He was often concerned with losing experiences in real life, and he had taped a large amount of Formula 1 races for example. He was a very thorough collector of such things. It looks to me my dad was trying to make sure something of the old days wasn’t going to be lost to time. He was trying to save a certain experience. I think this might relate to him working behind the curtains. And being dead and all means we don’t see him working, but he is still working there, using the tools he knows how to use to save what he doesn’t want to lose.
It saddens me a little bit that my dad might be trying to save the past while his oldest son has given up on that. I just can’t see it happening. Mom won’t change. She is like the ring of power, and intoxicates people into conflict. At least, that is how I experience her. There is no doubt more going on in her than just the bad in her, but for me that is the part of her I no longer accept, which means in my case I don’t want her totality in my life.
I’m not sure about the ship horns and fireworks, cause 21st of February is not a day of celebration in my country (as far as I know), and when I dreamt this it was still mid winter. Maybe the message was that there would be new light to celebrate soon?
