In a previous post, I mentioned talking to someone at a bar about dreams and psychology. I’ve been meaning to write about that particular dream, but just haven’t gotten around to it. It’s kind of a spooky dream, to be honest, but maybe there is something to be learned from it. Hope you enjoy reading about it.
My great grandmother’s house
When I was growing up, my great grandmother lived right next door to us in a house on the same property. The house she lived in was very old, so old in fact, that the indoor bathroom was added on later. It originally just had an outhouse. I remember it being a beautiful home, with a large porch, and a well-tended flower garden out front in a fenced lawn. I have so many fond childhood memories of this old house and my great grandmother’s beautiful flower garden.
The house was really quite a marvel of craftsmanship. Every part of the house was made of solid wood. The walls were not built using plywood like many homes are today. They were constructed of grooved planks that fit neatly together, and the doors and paned windows were all made of wood and looked to be from the original construction.
I remember the windows very well. They were solid and heavy, and would be very hard to lift, except the frames contained a rope and pully system with counter weights that hung inside the walls. Without these counter weight, the windows would prove impossible to lift by a weak individual.
Every ceiling in the house was also quite high by modern standards. I would venture the original ceilings might have been fifteen or twenty feet high. I was told that they used to build houses that way. I’m not sure why. I know the construction of the house predated modern air conditioning, so perhaps the high ceilings added some benefit in cooling or heating the house.
I didn’t realize how high the ceilings were at first, but being the adventurous kid that I was, I once decided to climb up into the ceiling. To my surprise, there was a whole other ceiling above the one I climbed up into. Standing within that ceiling, which was hung in place by wires, I was able to reach the next ceiling and enter the attic. There wasn’t much up there as I recall, just a lot of very ancient dust, but it was fun to explore. I’ve always liked attics for some reason.
I also remember that the roof of the old house was built with a pretty high incline. This allowed snow to slide straight off the roof in the winter. If you haven’t figured it out already, I was a kid who really liked to climb. I had a funny way of getting onto the roof of this old house. I would first climb onto a smaller building that was next to it, then take a running leap across a gap to land on the roof of the old house. Yea, you heard that right. Luckily, I was also quite the jumper, otherwise I would have plummeted to the ground below, probably killing myself, or at least breaking a few bones. I did it many times though, and nothing ever happened. Scaling the steep rooftop of this old house wasn’t easy either, but the view from the top was quite spectacular, at least until my parents spied me on the roof again.
From the rooftop, I could see a brick chimney coming out of the roof, but the house did not have a fireplace inside of it. I remember once asking my grandparents about this and they said the house never had a fireplace, but it did have a stovepipe for an old wood burning stove that used to be in the kitchen. Sure enough, I managed to find a stovepipe sized hole in the kitchen where the old stove must have been. For some reason, this old stovepipe hole and chimney managed to invade my childhood imagination and infiltrate my dreams.
Haunted by dreams of splendor
As a child, I would periodically have this odd dream where I found a secret passageway in the area of that old chimney. It was a small opening, but being a small child, I was able to climb up into it. There was a cozy little place inside of the walls of the chimney where I could just hang out. It was like a clubhouse of sorts, but it only existed in my dreams. In real life, there was nothing but a stovepipe hole. I also remember the space having things in it, but I can’t remember what. It was like a place where someone lived.
There was also another place that began to appear in my dreams. I would dream that the house had an upstairs, which it didn’t. The upstairs was also a secret place, just like the chimney. You had to climb up into it. Once you made it upstairs, there was a fine dining hall with a long table. The table was all set with fine plates and beautiful shiny silverware. There was also crystal everywhere. It had sparkling crystal dishes with covers, and glittering chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The walls were also brightly colored and the whole room glistened with gold and silver trim. It was like the dining hall of a great palace, and I loved to visit it in my dreams.
In time, I moved far away from the house where my great grandmother used to live. I also stopped having dreams about it, but then something very strange happened. I had another dream about the house. The dream made me want to visit the old house again, just to take in the scent of aging wood and old dust, while listening to the creak of settling planks.
The dream was basically like the old familiar dreams I had of the house. I climbed up into the upper floor and once again beheld the glistening dining hall, just as it had always been, but there was something amiss now. The floors were shaking, and the walls were coming apart. I felt like the whole house could come crumbling down at any moment. I walked to the end of the dining hall to look out a window to see what was happening. It was indeed falling apart.
As I stood by the window, I happened to look down. Lying beside the window was the dead rotten corpse of some sort of black feathered bird, probably a crow. As I looked at the body of the bird, it began to move and come back to life. Right before my eyes, it began to shapeshift into a lady in featherlike clothing. I could tell she was very ancient, but she also looked very glorious and powerful. It was like she was being resurrected as the old house began to fall apart. I could also sense that she was somehow connected to me, like maybe an ancient ancestor or something. She looked back at me as she exited the window, and I saw that the look on her face was not disturbed or unpleasant. It was the look of a loved one giving me her farewell.
A week or two later, I managed to break away from my busy schedule to visit my parents, who still lived next door to the old house. When I drove up into the driveway, I was met with a very real surprise. The house was completely gone without a trace. My mom had hired someone to tear it down without telling me. Dating it back, the house was being torn down at the same time I had the dream. The house, or something in it, was literally talking to me from miles away through my dreams.
A great sadness came over me, as I knew I would never stand in those hallowed halls again. I also felt like a great spiritual power had left me, like somehow, this house was a part of me, and now that part of me was gone forever. I wasn’t mad, but I was very disappointed by what my mom had done. It was definitely a very old house but still quite sturdy for a structure that ancient. I had honestly wanted to one day gather enough wealth to restore it completely, but I guess that day will never come.
What do you think happened here? Have you ever had a dream like this? Have you ever visited real places in your dreams? Do you think the house was haunted? Have you ever been in a haunted house? Have you had a dream that somehow connects to reality? Do you think the spirit of my ancestor lived in the house? What does the symbolism of the grand dining hall mean? What is the symbolism behind the dead crow being resurrected? Let me know in the comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!
Ken's Life 