Never close yourself in a wardrobe, stupid.

When I was young, I always wanted to move.

My friends would get to move.  Eric got to move into a new house with a hidden room you could get to by going through one of the bedrooms, or a secret door in the living room wall.  Jacob moved into a house where you could crawl into the cupboard above the basement stairs through an opening in a closet.  Clayton got a house with a room hidden behind a bookshelf.  These secrets weren't a critical part of my fantasy, but they were cool.

I spent my eighteen years at home in the same house--my family did move into an awesome new one, but only after I'd gone off to college.  But I would have recurring dreams that we had moved into a new house; a bigger house, with white carpets (Mom would never) and plenty of places to explore.

Now I see moving as a definite pain in the ass, but one thing is the same: the dreams.  Some months ago I dreamed that I moved to a city--maybe New York?--and into an awesome two-level apartment with a loft overlooking the living room.  Not long after that I dreamed that I had just rented a beautiful tree house, again with lots of space.  And this past Sunday, I dreamed that I had a roommate, who moved out, and that upon exploring his room I found an enormous living room with multiple rooms branching off it.  And, of course, a loft.

Mark at work says he has the same dream, that suddenly he discovers his house is much bigger than he remembers.  This instantly interested me in finding out what these dreams mean.

We had a dream interpretation unit in my counseling psychology class in undergrad, but it was the boringly depressing kind of dream interpretation; the kind where we assume a dream is a random amalgamation of memories and perceptions that doesn't mean anything.  They're the ghosts in the machine, the unintended consequences of our brains continuing to fire in patterns familiar from the day behind us.

But does it have to be that simple?  The idea that dreams have consistent symbolic meaning at first seems to fly in the face of my pragmatism, but I am my mother's child, and my mother is a devout Jungian.  Could there be a shared unconscious into which we tap?  To explain it in more down-to-earth scientific terms, could the immeasurable complexities of the social systems we construct produce consistent symbol-making in our subconsciouses?

From a couple of websites:

To see a new house in your dream, indicates that you are taking on a new identity and developing new strengths.  You are becoming more emotionally mature.

To dream that you find or discover a new room, suggests that you are developing new strengths and taking on new roles.  You may be growing emotionally.  Consider what you find in the discovered room as it may indicate repressed memories, fears, or rejected emotions.  Alternatively, such rooms are symbolic of neglected skills or rejected potential.

To see or dream that you are in a tree house, indicates that you are trying to escape from your waking problems.  You are blocking off the harsh reality of daily life.

 Personally, I'd just like an actual tree house.  That would be awesome.

There is always the danger of seeing our experiences through the lens of the offered interpretations; this is why palm readers make money.  But I think I've been making some emotional discoveries.  I became confident in my own view of the past and stopped letting others re-write it.  I walked away from someone who was not good for me.

Also, my therapist has been digging up old family dynamics and making me talk about getting beat up in the locker room in 6th grade gym class.

And with my life suddenly becoming inundated with sickness, rejection, and death, wouldn't it be more surprising if I weren't discovering new rooms?