THE DREAM
My mom died when I was young. My dad, my siblings and I moved in with my paternal grandparents. We lived in a very large two-story house and I had a very happy childhood considering the loss of my mom.
This dream began about a year after my mom passed away, so I was around 10. In my dream, I am in a very large house but it is nothing like the home where I grew up. The house in my dream is an L-shape and has a living room with a large window. I sit and look out this window and I can look into the kitchen. The kitchen is very long and at the end of it there is a greenhouse. There is no entrance to the kitchen through the house (yet it is attached) and the living room window doesn't open.
As I try to find an entrance to the kitchen, I open a door and it leads to another living room that is almost identical to the one I just left. Usually when I wake up, the last part of the dream I recall is sitting in the newly found living room. I have dreamed of this same house, to the exact detail, at least 100 times over the years. My mom didn't like to cook at all (so my dad said) nor did she care for gardening.
The other thing that remains consistent in this dream is that I am always alone in the house, there is never anyone in the kitchen, but the lights are always on. The outside of this house is never in my dreams, and I am very content, never frightened, but I do want to get to the kitchen. (I have no desire to cook or bake... trust me on that :)
Oh I didn't mean this to be so lengthy, but this dream is rather bizarre and because it is so reoccurring, I've always wondered the meaning. If I have other dreams, I don't remember them. I would be excited to hear your interpretation. Nothing would spook me or anything like that. I wonder too, do you have any thoughts why I never see the outside of this house?
What a beautiful dream! This dream made me cry as I read...it states quite poetically some deep and simple emotional truths.
The house represents you- your interior life of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The living room, I think, is your present, emotional living state. You feel comfortable, and at ease here, which is good! Since this dream is about your interior life, the outside of the house may not be relevant.
The kitchen is where food is stored and prepared (you probably would have associated kitchens with cooking, even if Mom didn't do it much, or at all), and where family meals are eaten. Food and cooking here represent comfort, love, a sense of emotional safety and satiety. The kitchen is the source of this...and given that your mom had died recently, probably represents a mother's love. Your mother's love is of course, a real thing, but is also a shorthand phrase for the type of deep-rooted, unconditional, pure love that, while more rare, can exist with another person, or so they say, with the whole world, I hear, if you're a zen master.
Further- you can see into the kitchen, and want to get in, but can't. Therefore, you know that it's there, but feel you can't "get there" or experience it. Trying to get there through the door doesn't work. This is what made me cry when I read the dream...thinking about you as a little girl, wanting to be in this source of love and being unable to.
On the other side of the kitchen, there's a greenhouse. We can call this paradise, heaven, the Garden of Eden, the fundamental state of nature- they all mean the same thing. People instinctively feel a connection with nature, as it's been ingrained in us by millions of years of evolution (and can't be erased by hundreds of years of city-dwelling). This physical manifestation of nature, the greenhouse, is a symbol for our natural emotional state- a sense of oneness, belonging, peace. Alas! It can't be described, but can only be felt! This is our emotional home, where we belong.
My sense is that your interior state is well-adjusted, calm, and happy. This is how you feel in your living room, where you are now. Yet, like the archetype of the heroine or hero in a myth, you know there is more, and you want to seek. The start of a journey is knowing that there is a journey.
The dream indicates that you are trying to get to the kitchen, but keep finding yourself in essentially the same place (a bit changed, because all of life's experiences add more information to your psyche). Maybe you have been trying the same way of getting to the symbolic kitchen, but are finding that it leaves you in the same place as before? Ponder this, as the answer may not be apparent, and could be any number of things (ways of relating to others, to yourself, or with "things" in the environment like food, school, work, etc.).
So, how do you get into the kitchen, and then the greenhouse? This is rhetorical and is something for you (and all people) to discover. Maybe it's the meaning or purpose of life to figure this out, or at least a theme for your life, since this is The Dream, for you.
I see a parallel here between the physics of the dreamworld and the emotional interior world. What happens in both is determined by feelings, beliefs, knowledge, and assumptions. So, I can see three possible ways to get to the kitchen, implied by the dream:
1. The door: it seems that this hasn't lead to the kitchen. Maybe this door simply doesn't go to the kitchen. If there's a certain pattern in your life that seems like a search for the metaphorical kitchen, maybe that thing doesn't work, and it is time to find a new way. Or, perhaps this door could lead to the kitchen, but you believe it will not, and so find yourself in the living room again.
2. The window: There's a window that allows you to see the kitchen. In dreamland, it is possible to travel through windows, especially if you keep your attention focused on the destination (otherwise, you may get confused, and end up somewhere else). Similarly, perhaps you can go outside and go through into the kitchen through experiences outside of yourself - with another person or people, or the world. Just keep focused on that kitchen so you don't forget the goal and start wandering around outside!
3. Teleportation: In dreams, it is possible to move simply by being in the new location, knowing that you are there. Essentially, transcending the assumed reality. You can do this in dreams by learning how to dream lucidly - knowing that you are dreaming while you're asleep. This is freeing - since you realize it's a dream, you also realize that you can do whatever you want! One way to transcend in your interior space (thoughts, feelings, consciousness, etc.) is to learn how to meditate (become awake), and do it.
Now, you might say - okay, that's very interesting (ha, I hope!), but a ten-year-old child wouldn't know what Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is, or have some deep thoughts about the Garden of Eden or some-such. No, indeed! And that's why symbols are so powerful - they communicate instinctively-known truths that are beyond, and complicated by, words...
Art: heart the hearth, by loveallaround, Jar of Golden Sprouts, by Golly Bard, The Key Keeper by thelindentree, Pyramid Houses by janicej, I predict great things by akihago, Pendant que la fenetre etait ouvert by irisschwarz
THE INTERPRETATION
What a beautiful dream! This dream made me cry as I read...it states quite poetically some deep and simple emotional truths.
The house represents you- your interior life of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The living room, I think, is your present, emotional living state. You feel comfortable, and at ease here, which is good! Since this dream is about your interior life, the outside of the house may not be relevant.The kitchen is where food is stored and prepared (you probably would have associated kitchens with cooking, even if Mom didn't do it much, or at all), and where family meals are eaten. Food and cooking here represent comfort, love, a sense of emotional safety and satiety. The kitchen is the source of this...and given that your mom had died recently, probably represents a mother's love. Your mother's love is of course, a real thing, but is also a shorthand phrase for the type of deep-rooted, unconditional, pure love that, while more rare, can exist with another person, or so they say, with the whole world, I hear, if you're a zen master.
Further- you can see into the kitchen, and want to get in, but can't. Therefore, you know that it's there, but feel you can't "get there" or experience it. Trying to get there through the door doesn't work. This is what made me cry when I read the dream...thinking about you as a little girl, wanting to be in this source of love and being unable to.
On the other side of the kitchen, there's a greenhouse. We can call this paradise, heaven, the Garden of Eden, the fundamental state of nature- they all mean the same thing. People instinctively feel a connection with nature, as it's been ingrained in us by millions of years of evolution (and can't be erased by hundreds of years of city-dwelling). This physical manifestation of nature, the greenhouse, is a symbol for our natural emotional state- a sense of oneness, belonging, peace. Alas! It can't be described, but can only be felt! This is our emotional home, where we belong.
The greenhouse is on the other side of the kitchen so in order to get to heaven, you will go through love. This is parallel to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which is imagined as a pyramid- shaped diagram to explain that humans have certain needs, and that one can't "achieve" one without all the needs below it. This dream goes beyond Maslow and shows, in symbolic simplicity, that the previous need is a gateway to discovering the next.
My sense is that your interior state is well-adjusted, calm, and happy. This is how you feel in your living room, where you are now. Yet, like the archetype of the heroine or hero in a myth, you know there is more, and you want to seek. The start of a journey is knowing that there is a journey.
The dream indicates that you are trying to get to the kitchen, but keep finding yourself in essentially the same place (a bit changed, because all of life's experiences add more information to your psyche). Maybe you have been trying the same way of getting to the symbolic kitchen, but are finding that it leaves you in the same place as before? Ponder this, as the answer may not be apparent, and could be any number of things (ways of relating to others, to yourself, or with "things" in the environment like food, school, work, etc.).
So, how do you get into the kitchen, and then the greenhouse? This is rhetorical and is something for you (and all people) to discover. Maybe it's the meaning or purpose of life to figure this out, or at least a theme for your life, since this is The Dream, for you.
I see a parallel here between the physics of the dreamworld and the emotional interior world. What happens in both is determined by feelings, beliefs, knowledge, and assumptions. So, I can see three possible ways to get to the kitchen, implied by the dream:1. The door: it seems that this hasn't lead to the kitchen. Maybe this door simply doesn't go to the kitchen. If there's a certain pattern in your life that seems like a search for the metaphorical kitchen, maybe that thing doesn't work, and it is time to find a new way. Or, perhaps this door could lead to the kitchen, but you believe it will not, and so find yourself in the living room again.
2. The window: There's a window that allows you to see the kitchen. In dreamland, it is possible to travel through windows, especially if you keep your attention focused on the destination (otherwise, you may get confused, and end up somewhere else). Similarly, perhaps you can go outside and go through into the kitchen through experiences outside of yourself - with another person or people, or the world. Just keep focused on that kitchen so you don't forget the goal and start wandering around outside!
3. Teleportation: In dreams, it is possible to move simply by being in the new location, knowing that you are there. Essentially, transcending the assumed reality. You can do this in dreams by learning how to dream lucidly - knowing that you are dreaming while you're asleep. This is freeing - since you realize it's a dream, you also realize that you can do whatever you want! One way to transcend in your interior space (thoughts, feelings, consciousness, etc.) is to learn how to meditate (become awake), and do it.
Now, you might say - okay, that's very interesting (ha, I hope!), but a ten-year-old child wouldn't know what Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is, or have some deep thoughts about the Garden of Eden or some-such. No, indeed! And that's why symbols are so powerful - they communicate instinctively-known truths that are beyond, and complicated by, words...I hope this is helpful in your interpretation of the dream! As with any dream interpretation, I can just provide hints and clues...only you know what it really means!
Art: heart the hearth, by loveallaround, Jar of Golden Sprouts, by Golly Bard, The Key Keeper by thelindentree, Pyramid Houses by janicej, I predict great things by akihago, Pendant que la fenetre etait ouvert by irisschwarz
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This is a truly amazing blog, caring & in depth dream interpretation, and relevant artistic dream montage for free + a jazz for fashion? You are blessed. I have remembered my dreams every night since I have been a child and plan to get back to you with one or two of them. Thank you for doing this.
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