glass house / one particular room that is dangerous
There are two buildings that have featured prominently in recurring dreams (one of them still ongoing):
As a child, I used to have a nightmare - frequently enough that I can still remember it - that I lived in a large glass house on the top of a hill. I remember it in bright sunshine. At the bottom of the hill, visible from the house, was the edge of dark, dense forest. The house was made entirely of glass, two stories high, and large enough to accommodate my rather large family. In my dream I'd be playing outside, near the edge of the trees, when suddenly I'd realise there were wolves in the forest (fairytale wolves with eyes you could see through the gloom) and I'd start running up the hill towards the house. By the time I was halfway up the hill the wolves were streaming out of the forest behind me. I'd reach the glass house, close the door, and run upstairs, and though the wolves would be close behind me I would think for a moment I was safe. But I could see everything (thanks to the glass house), including the wolves smashing through the glass door and walls downstairs - I'd know I was about to be killed and I'd wake up.
The second recurring dream is more peaceful and I still have it:
There is a house I have been dreaming about for years that only occurs in my dreams - every time I dream it, I recognise it as the same house and am glad to be back there, but it isn't like any house I've known. It's a big old rambling house, perhaps a few centuries old, with more than several different and unexpected, interconnected rooms. Upstairs it is somewhat rickety in places, with sloping floors, and there are rooms I feel I recognise very strongly from previous times I've been there, previous dreams (though sometimes I also discover new ones). There is one particular room that is dangerous to get to, involving walking over a very narrow walkway or dangerous stair (it varies), but it is the most beautiful room of the house, hanging out over the garden, with a great view (it's very high up, higher than the rest of the house) and though it feels unsafe, I love to go there.
I thought about this "dream house" last year when National Poetry Day was on the theme of dreams, and tried to write about it, without any great success (failing to create the dream feeling, the specialness). But I feel it represents the inside of my head, and the upstairs is all to do with writing. I think the beautiful dangerous room is my subconscious's metaphor for writing poetry, which might explain why I'm drawn to it; why it's deeply familiar.
Female. Born 1964. Writer