Another weird one

[tinadene]

I had this dream when I was 17 or 18 (20 years ago) and it has stuck with me ever since. Can someone help with an interpretation?

I dreamed a group of friends and I were walking through immense green fields until we came upon a small running stream or brook. It was so very pretty, and I remember seeing a little rabbit (brown or gray) hop from our side of the brook to the other, over the water. I watched it run up a little hill, and as I looked, I saw a huge, delapitated mansion up ahead. We decided to go over to the mansion and see what we could find.

Nobody answered the door when we knocked, but we went inside anyway. It was very run-down, musty, cobwebs everywhere, and the walls were painted a very strange, pea-soup green. I was struck by the silence in the house, and felt a little awed. At first, we just sat around and talked, not doing much, but finally decided to clean the place up. We did, and afterwards we decided to repaint the house. I remember we all fell asleep in the living room when we were finished, and I was awakened by rumbling noises. I was the only one awake that I remember. The walls of the house were moving, almost like they were breathing, and the paint was cracking again. I KNEW the house was angry because we had repainted it in pea soup green again, and someone had also painted grafitti on the walls. I felt it was angry because it had been disrespected, but didn't know who painted the grafitti.

I started going through the house, exploring it, and it seemed to settle down.

I entered into a bedroom that was furnished in a very old-fashioned style, heavy wood, antique furniture, and a rocking chair that really stuck out for me. I started looking through a dresser drawer, and found a note in there addressed to me. When I opened the letter, it congratulated me on finding it, and directed me to another drawer, where I found another letter with the same message, always written to me. The letters led me on a kind of scavenger hunt through the bedroom, I found 4 or 5 of them, and I kept getting frustrated because there was never a real message, just directions to another hiding spot. The last one led me to an old wooden box, in which I found a stack of old black and white and sepia toned photos of people I didn't know, but KNEW. On the bottom of the stack was a family photo of about 20 or so people in very old-fashioned dress. I felt such a strong connection to this picture and stared and stared at it, sure that I knew these people.

As I held the photo, the rocking chair began rocking, and the ghost or apparition of an old woman appeared in it, very dim at first, but becoming much more solid as I watched her. I had no fear at all of this woman, but was very excited to see her. She held her arms out to me, smiling, and I went to sit on her lap. She held me and rocked me, explaining that the people in the photos were "my people". I really don't remember anything else that she said, but I had such an overwhelming feeling of peace, and love, and belonging as she held me, something I had never felt, even in waking life.

After a time, she told me it was time for her to go, and I was distraught! I got up off of her lap, and she slowly faded before my eyes, smiling softly the whole time as I begged her not to go. Somehow she assured me that she would always be with me, though I don't think she ever really said those words. When she was completely gone, the rocking chair continued rocking on its own. I felt such a strong sense of loss that I was sobbing in my sleep, and awoke still crying.

This dream has always stayed with me, and I would love to know what it means.

[rocketsquirrel]

I think that all of us have had the experience of dreaming about an abandoned house that represents the memories from the past left behind.

The house in your dream is not just personal memories left behind, but family experiences, a place that represents the experiences of all the generations before you...your experiences, your mother's, your grandmother's, your great grandmother's and so forth (I'm not sure which family line of the past this house represents, could be both your father's and mother's line). Those family photos and the connection you felt represent your ancestors that you never met but if it was not for them, you would not have the life you have now.

It's my personal dream experience that somehow, memories are encoded in not just your brain, but what your ancestors experienced also gets passed down in part, I don't know how, maybe their genes and characters make a long lasting impression that make it seem like you are connecting with the experiences of your ancestors, of people you never met. The influence of even a single ancestor can last for generations, even after that one is dead.

The house is the house of your ancestral and personal past. The poor condition, the graffeti, the pea soup color, represents that your family's past has been both neglected and slandered, and not shown the proper respect.

You try to fix it, but you only follow the pattern of behavior that was passed down to you (re-painting the same pea-green color) and this is not right. It's time for a new image...maybe the truth of the good that was done needs to come out instead of focusing on the bad things that happened. I don't know. I would only be speculating but the paint represents the image of the past, and the color is something I personally associate with a reputation of a bad character or mental illness. Maybe you were just taught to always to dismiss your ancestors contributions because they were seen as a little crazy or not quite right somehow, and they were not.

The woman represents the warmth and the love that has been passed down through the generations that was hidden from you. All that slander, all that neglect, hid the good foundation that your ancestors left for you, they loved.

You wake sad because it feels like the love isn't there anymore. What happened to the love, comfort, and support that family is supposed to have for another? For most families, there's not enough love and support anymore.

This is my impression of the dream.

[Athanor]

It’s usually not possible to provide a very accurate interpretation without knowing a lot of background information about the dreamer, but one way to approach your dream is to view it as having come from the deepest layers of your psyche at a time when you were close to entering adulthood.

The markers for its being of deeper importance than most dreams include things that are far removed from daily actual experience such as the breathing walls, angry house, and the old woman who materializes and then dissolves. There are also echoes of folktale themes such as the frustrating notes and an old chest, again pointing to levels of the psyche that instinctively rise up at certain transitional times or during crises in life to help the ego deal with them in some way.

In this take on your dream, the lush green scene (green usually being a color that’s linked to reality and the five senses) and the flowing brook (often representing energy) along with the rabbit that would likely partly include the idea of fertility could be taken as a picture of your overall situation as you started out into adult life. Your companions could represent aspects of yourself that would be part of the journey.

The dream might have been partly saying that the old neglected house didn’t fit into this picture very well at that time, that is, premature attempts to cover over the effects of your Fate with the greenish paint of incomplete life experience and understanding (echoes of the green field) wouldn’t work.

Pea-soup is also sometimes used to refer to fog, that is, not seeing things and being unconscious. Also you all fell asleep, that is, you were unconscious of many aspects of the situation. Perhaps you were in danger of just using the usual family ways of “understanding life” (pea-green paint) instead of looking at things in a different and more comprehensive way.

The house (in this approach to your dream, a deeply important aspect of your personality related to Fate and meaning) apparently is angry at the well-meaning but “cosmetic” approach to understanding life as a whole. It however appreciates a more thorough examination of the problem (exploring the various rooms or aspects of the issue).

“Fate” in this context means a set of givens such as genetic inheritance, a family of origin carrying its own experiences and problems related to unlived life for example, as well as the values and goals of the society around you that silently infiltrate your psyche and influence decision making.

The bedroom suggests sleep, dreams, and therefore an exploration of the unconscious. The unconscious is often pictured as a “problem” or maze, perhaps suggested in the annoying search for each subsequent note, none of which really provides a final “answer”.

However, the family pictures are very closely linked to the old woman who may be the “answer”. In one school of psychology, the wise old woman would represent the organizing center of your personality, meaning, the sum total of your body and mind, the result of eons of life now present as a unique new potential within yourself that you would have to someday sort out and try to understand (for example you “know” and “don’t know” the people in the pictures, that is, the inner and outer motivators of how your life would proceed).

One view is that the first half of life has to be spent in establishing the outer necessities of life and having a family. Understanding it all is reserved more for the second half of life.

It’s possible that your other post about the threatening forest fire brought this dream about the wise old woman back to mind once more and prompted you to ask for an interpretation because the dreams are deeply connected.

For example, since you are now past age 35, the arc of your life has begun to change like the sun from rising to the zenith to sinking to darkness. It’s possible that certain events or an important anniversary occurred recently that brought this theme to the fore.

In this view of your forest fire dream, the encircling fire could tend to represent a shift where dealing mostly with “earthly matters” and desires (fire) could become destructive. Fire also suggests the idea of movement, transformation and change. The idea of the circle also points to the idea of wholeness and meaning, as previously pictured by the wise old woman.

Often, natural disasters point to the possibility of a challenging change in the ego’s overall view of life, one that can be very difficult to absorb and “survive” in a productive way.

Once again, the “way out” echoes the idea of a maze, that is, the unconscious which must be explored to handle this very demanding shift in life’s overall arc.

The dream seems to be saying that you should trust your instincts (riding the dog and horse) but this will only take you so far (horse ages drastically).

Recently there was another important dream about a horse posted on this forum and I provided the following ideas about the symbolism which would also apply here.

The following quote is from Carl Jung (“The Practical Use of Dream Analysis”) who was analyzing the upsetting dream of a patient which contained an image of her mother and also of a horse. After describing the symbolic meanings surrounding the idea of “mother” he turned to the symbolism of the horse:

“‘Horse’ is an archetype that is widely current in mythology and folklore. As an animal, it represents the non-human psyche, the subhuman, animal side, the unconscious. That is why horses in folklore sometimes see visions, hear voices, and speak. As a beast of burden, it is closely related to the mother-archetype (witness the Valkyries that bear the dead hero to Valhalla, the Trojan Horse, etc.). As an animal lower than man it represents the lower part of the body and the animal impulses that rise from there. The horse is dynamic and vehicular power: it carries one away like a surge of instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures who lack higher consciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magical spells – especially the black night-horses which herald death.
It is evident, then, that ‘horse’ is an equivalent of ‘mother’ with a slight shift in meaning. The mother stands for life at its origin, the horse for the merely animal life of the body…”

Perhaps in your dream, the idea is that the acceptance of the ultimate reality of age and death (the rapidly aging horse) could lead to a resolving of tension within (the heavy rain) and this would tend to quench the now-disturbing and potentially destructive habit of pursuing mostly outer goals.

Perhaps the circle of value and meaning gained from living material earthy life (ring of dark grey smoke) can now transform further into a more spiritual meaning (circle of blue sky) during the second half of life.

If this approach seems to click in any way regarding your own situation, you might like to explore these ideas further by reading some of the books by analyst James Hollis for example. And if you’d like to further explore how to look at your own dreams, “Inner Work” by Robert Johnson is a reliable starter book, and the inexpensive set of two audio tapes by analyst Marion Woodman, “Dreams: Language of the Soul” is also very helpful. You might also like to visit the website Marion Woodman Links to get a taste of her ideas overall which are very useful to many women.

Both of your dreams have a great depth that can’t really be touched on too well via the web. You might like looking at them further by jotting down all of the spontaneous memories, thoughts and feelings that come to mind about each image and event in the dreams. Then by going through what emerges, various interconnected ideas and themes should emerge to make their personal meaning clearer.

I hope that at least some of these ideas will be helpful.

[WeepingWillow]

Because of the vividness connected to your dream... the fact that you've remembered specific details all these years... the emotion and feeling connected to your dream... your certainity that you "Know" the people in the photographs... I would think that the dream... the place... the rocking chair... and the old woman were a part of a past life... and that the old woman was someone you loved dearly...

I have only come to believe in reincarnation in the past six months... before then... I would have never considered it... or given it a second thought... the reason that I believe in past lives is because of my personal experience... specifically through analysis of my dreams... I have dreamed of specific places... a Babaob tree in Mannar, Sir Lanka... that I actually seen on google images six months after the dream... The dream was one in which I was standing in the tree as a little child... my parents and my grandmother there... I awoke crying... and was deeply disturbed by the dream...

I believe those dreams that we awake from crying... are have the connection of a feeling of loss... are from a past life... I have only had a hand full of these dreams... but I know from research after the dreams that I have actually been to the places I dreamed of... only not in this life time...

[Hespeaksindreams]

was this dream in color or mostly grayscale, such as the house, the new paint?? Particularly the old woman, anything colorful about her, and could you see her face clearly?

Hespeakindreams