Yesterday, we found ourselves in the middle of one of those conversations where people start talking about their recurring dreams. A friend who showed up late to an appointment mentioned that he'd overslept, dreaming that he and his girlfriend shared a 5,000 square foot loft in the city. Another friend had recurring dreams about finding a hidden door in his home that led to a huge extra room he'd never known about. Turns out, dreams like these are pretty common for city dwellers...
We even found a good question on Apartment Therapy about the "door to another room" dream. One of our friends said that the dream is a classic example of wish fulfillment, while there's another Jungian theory arguing that hidden parts of the home represent unexplored aspects of ourselves.
We're wondering: have any of you had similar dreams? What do you think they mean?
Photo: loft.box.pl via Apartment Therapy


Sprout Side Table
Yes! I used to get the "door to another room" dream pretty regularly. With all due respect to Jung, I'm pretty sure it had to do with my apartment, because after we'd figured out a way to move our computer and desk out of the bedroom and into the foyer, I never had the dream again.
I used to dream that my roommate and I shared this HUGE bohemian rooming house with a bunch of fun people. We lived in the attic and it was gi-normous. This rooming house was on a hill, so it would be two stories on the street side and three stories in the backyard, which conveniently was situated on a lake! Best house ever, I wish it was real sometimes.
I have a recurring dream that I find that I do have a terrace that I just didn't know about, I wake up extremely excited and then I am quickly disappointed and depressed to realize it was only a dream.
I always dream that I have a crazy big apartment on the beach with multiple levels but there is one major drawback in each dream. There's usually a sliding door where my landlady needs to walk through my apartment to get to hers. Or my kitchen is the only one in the building and several people have access to it. Not an ideal set up.
I've had a ton of dreams about moving and new apartments, but they're usually anxiety dreams, not wish fulfillment dreams...Either I've moved from my nice one-bedroom into a dorm-type situation, or to get into the apartment, you have to climb this horrible ledge and through a crawl space, or there are people in my apartment who shouldn't be there and who refuse to leave, or my place has been rearranged or remodeled without my permission, or I can't afford to rent anywhere, etc. etc. The fears of the city! I've had a ton of dreams like that over the years.
Though when my ex was about to change apartments, he had a dream about moving into a huge house with his friends with a giant kitchen as well as a big, deli-style fridge full of microbrew beers, which probably just means it's a pain to buy beer in Pittsburgh.
according to freudian psychoanalysts, dreaming about a home is dreaming about yourself and your various selves. when you dream about extra rooms you're discovering additional sides to your personality. of course, freud also said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar & i'm not surprised that city dwellers often dream about extra space (i know i have). this is just ordinary wish fulfillment!
When I was moving (beginning of this month) to my new apartment (exact same layout as old apartment, just with a furnished attic) . . I had a dream that my new attic bedroom had a ceiling height that was 3 stories tall and I had these lovely inward facing balconies on each level with huge windows and comfy seating.
The very next night I had a dream that I had to literally crawl into the attic space, because it was so small that the doorway was the size of a regular moving box. (I'm 6'1, so small spaces present problems!)
I'm sure it was anxiety over the move (old landlord was putting me through the ringer).
that should say "beginning of last month" :)
yeah, dream about the unknown room all the time...sometimes it's upstairs and sometimes down. also dream about walking around a house or building and it tends to "turn into" the house I grew up in.
I have definately had the door to another room dream plenty of times. But in my dreams the extra room is usually haunted and I have to convince the ghost to let me stay. And the other night I dreamt that as soon as I moved a bunch of stuff into that extra room, the rest of my apartment dissapeared!
No clue what that means.....
After AT June outdoor month, I'm sure I'm going to start dreaming about terraces and decks.
I have a recurring dream in which I have moved into a new apartment and it seems big and wonderful and cheap and then all of a sudden I find really terrible things wrong with it - like the shower is on the roof in view of neighbors, there is no stove, I have 12 room-mates, there are no windows, etc.
In my dreams all the walls have been knocked out of my apartment and replaced with Japanese Shoji screens. Every corner of my place gets sunlight! *sigh*
I have a recurring dream that I discover a new room in our condo. I first feel joy -- the room is big enough for parties and it is fully furnished! -- but that is replaced with fear as I explore the room and find it goes on and on...that it just keeps expanding and I can't reach the end of it. I begin wondering who is in there and if I can afford the maintenance.
Similar to emilyb, I have a recurring dream that I've sold my place and when I move into my new home I hate it so much and regret selling my current place. I wake up and am so relieved to still be in my current home. I recall those dreams everytime I consider selling and moving to another place. I may never know if there is something better out there waiting for me because of those dreams!
Dream? No.
Fantasize? Yes.
I should add that my current home is an 80 year old apartment that is full of great built-ins, charm and character, but in my recurring bad dreams the new apartment I move to is a white box totally void of any character which is why I regret moving in the dreams. I wonder what that could mean?
I've had the "hidden room" dream all my life. Sometimes it includes my love of flea markets and it's like discovering an old family attic stuffed with fascinating and sometimes valuable things that are mine, now. It's always so disappointing to wake up from treasure hunting to realize it isn't real.
Funny, I just had a home dream the other night...I had moved into a ground level apartment that was floor to ceiling windows on three sides, with beautiful, flowing sheers hung over them. The problem: people on the street kept using my apartment as a shortcut to somewhere else. I think the solution was to put up a chain link fence to keep people out while keeping the view.
Yes, I had the found-a-hidden-room dream all the time until I finally left Manhattan.
ALL THE TIME. Back when I lived in a Bachelor suite that was less than 300sq.ft. When I lived in a roomy 2BR, hardly ever. Now I'm in a smaller 1BR and I have the dream only occasionally.
i've had dreams about undiscovered rooms filled with cool-ass sheet-covered antique furniture and even extra tiled bathrooms with the best showers imaginable. i also have entire dream-buildings and beautiful landscapes and roadways and little towns that i always revisit! when i was around 5, i used to dream about the frito bandito chasing me across mexico, too. i always knew when he was catching-up because i'd hear that damnable, old frito bandito jingle! so, i guess i started young. :0)
I have a recurring dream that i am angry with my roomate for inviting people over to party in my bedroom when i am at work. she explains that there's simply not enough room in the living room for them. Suddenly, we both remmeber there is an entire second floor of our house, which is in a little bit of disrepair, but otherwise spacious and bright with great views of the beach we (apparently) live on. We move our bedrooms to the upstairs floor, and party on downstairs, but can never figure out why we didnt do that in the first place. In real life I live in a fairly spacious 2BR in the city, so not sure if its wish fullfillment or the personality jazz. Hmmmm....
I love the hidden door dream, even though waking up is bitter sweet. I'm always so very excited- and then the reality of my 1-bedroom sinks in...
Don't get the secret room that I can recall, but DO dream about cities, looking for a place, especially when I was living at home still as a young adult. Sometimes, I dream of going back to an old apartment I used to live in that was all funky and stuff in real life and often still was in the dream, but it never looked like the actual building, but something that represented it though.
I often dream about being in a city near water, often of the water (oceans or a lake or some such, 2-3 occasions, I'd be surfing or some such), sometimes a skyscraper or shopping mall/shopping strip is part of the dream, other times I dream of either an old job or old co-workers or of getting a new job and one time, I actually dreamed a preminition where I was excited that I might actually be getting a job (was unemployed at the time) and awoke with a phone call from a friend saying to be on the lookout for a call from the manager of a local restaurant shop and he called and within 2 days I had it, now that's only happened once however.
And at other times, I'm traveling and being in another state or city is part of the scenario and often highways and bridges get represented as well.
Schools, classrooms, trying to find classes, missing classes and such and I do get the occasional distressing dream and the occasional nightmare like dreams too, but not often.
I don't dream about a bigger place (after all the decluttering I've done, the place I have now is too big!), but I do dream about having a garage.
And maybe soundproof walls.
Actually, I have real nightmares in which my landlords sell my building. I've been here 20 years; you wouldn't believe my rent. In one nightmare, they turned the place into a Civil-War-era field hospital. Whenever I exited my kitchen and entered the ward, everything turned sepia. Yeah, I know, right?
When I lived in the dorms I always had dreams like that. Now, back home the only home theme dreams I have are usually of less stuff. My parents are pack rats & there is clutter everywhere.
"Another friend had recurring dreams about finding a hidden door in his home that led to a huge extra room he'd never known about".
OMG: this has actually happened to me! You have no idea the distress I experienced in the morning when, upon waking up, realized that it wasn't true!
So upsetting!
A few times I have dreamed our electrical closet (which is quite large - I'd say almost 3 feet deep and 4 feet wide) has somehow went away and there sits a half bath. I think that's personally because I would love more than one bath for when we're getting ready to go anywhere. I also have dreamed our balcony has turned itself into a den. That might just be because we never use it.
When we moved into our new home, I dreamt that we found a door that led to a 3rd floor playroom. The playroom had a huge stage completely covered in astroturf and music would play, upon entering, and spinning daisies popped up out of the floor. This led to another smaller room that held a fridge completely stocked with yummy junk food. The door off of that led to an enormous warehouse-like garage (yeah, on the 3rd floor!) which was filled with kid-sized tractors, riding lawn mowers and 4-wheelers.
Strange dream but I woke up so disappointed to realize that it wasn't real!
Oh yeah! I've had a recurring dream that I look into one of the tiny closets in my apartment and find a door that I never saw before. I open the door and find more rooms - oh joy! I am elated at finding more space, with a lot of light streaming from an unseen source in a room I have yet to enter. And yes, like so many others here, the disappointment upon awakening is intense. Jung didn't live in a small NYC apartment so I go with the interpretation that it is intense wish fulfillment for more space, more light...more more more