I live in a 1920’s-era Spanish Revival style home with three bedrooms and two baths. It is roomy enough for two people with no children, and yet I often dream that it is larger than it is.
I’ve had this thematically recurring dream for decades. I find a door, a stairway, or a ladder that leads to a space several times as large as I have. Sometimes, the new space surprises me. The first time I remember the dream was when I was in grad school, living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment. I found an iron, spiral staircase leading up and discovered it led to a glass-walled arboretum filled with exotic, tropical plants. Since then, I’ve dreamed of cavernous basements, rooms that I vaguely remember having closed off years before, and whole new wings of the house I live in now. Sometimes, I even remember within the dream that I’ve had dreams like this before. Of course, in keeping with the way dreams work, I never realize that I’m also dreaming now.
When Sweetie and I began getting rid of clutter last year, we were both stunned at how much more space we had than we realized in the basement and the cedar closet in the hall. I said it seemed like one of my dreams and she said, “But this is real.” And I said, “That’s exactly what you would say if I were dreaming.” Then she poked me in the ribs, we started giggling, and I didn’t wake up, so it must have been real.
But when I do have these dreams, what’s going on? I once read an article about researchers who believed they had proved rats dream and, in their dreams, plan how to get food. Maybe dreams are a way of mentally rehearsing our lives and my subconscious occasionally reminds me to look for opportunities and options I have forgotten I have.
Sam Falco 