Just as many people I know return to the classroom in their dreams, (usually for a test for which they haven’t studied!?!), I go back to places, real and imagined, when I’m dreaming;
NYC apartments where I may or may not have actually lived, that turn out to have additional secret rooms where I’ve never ventured.
In my dreams I inhabit the extreme left side of this floorplan and have no idea of the existence of the rooms in the middle and on the right side… until I open a door and… there they are! Wow!
The Japanese garden in East Hartford, that turns out to still exist!
And my Aunt Helen’s house in Houston
– as well as the house where she and my mother grew up in Rye, NY. The former is HUGE, on many levels, with beautiful sunlit rooms everywhere – and in my dreams, I can never find a bathroom! The latter is remembered here, drawn by my mother’s hands and memories.
This house was HUGE in comparison to the apartments where I grew up! I remember warm summer evenings after dinner; the swing on the screened-in back porch – large enough for at least a couple of us kids at once. And the backyard, so green and lovely, seemed to go on forever.
The cellar was earthy, dark and mysterious, with lots of secret nooks.
It’s not on this floor plan, but for ME, the MOST important part of the house was on the first floor – the baby grand PIANO!! I love that my mother remembered where the marigolds and lilies of the valley were planted! She was a surprisingly impressive companion walking through a park or Botanical Garden – she knew a lot more about flora than you might expect!!
I haven’t figured out the significance of these locations, but they touch something deep inside me when I wake and remember where I was visiting during dreamtime.