Saturday, July 5, 2014

Mansions of the Mind


I have long recognized that when I dream of houses, I am really dreaming about my mind.   More specifically, if I dream of attics, I am dreaming about my intellect or brain.  If I am dreaming about basements, I am dreaming about my physical body, sexual parts or root chakra.  The "house" is a symbol of me.  Many times I dream about "returning" to houses I have never seen before.  Other times, I return "home" to an apartment that feels unnaturally familiar.  As though I lived there - or perhaps desired to live there - and discover them in my dream.  Very often, as someone who lived in Manhattan for nearly 25 years, I return to my "home" in New York. 

Last night I dreamt that my husband and I went apartment-hunting in Manhattan.  I don't recall what section of town, but the real estate agent brought us to an elegant, upscale apartment.  It could not have been more gorgeous.  The kitchen had marble counters, modern appliances, gourmet amenities.  The living room, fully furnished by the wealthy current owners, was sleek, modern, and filled with beautiful artwork.  As we wandered down the long winding hallways, the real estate agent brought us to a large picture window with a spectacular view of the East River.  The apartment was strangely whimsical.  The architectural contained colorful curiosities like carved wooden swirls on the doors and multi-colored ceiling beams.  My husband was sold on the apartment.  He was ready to buy it.  So was I.  Amazingly, the price was affordable.  It was only a quarter of a million dollars.  A bargain in New York City!

We all walked back to the front door and the kitchen, and my husband exited my dream.  I stood there with the broker and began to have second thoughts. 

"Wait a minute," I mused out loud. "There is only one bedroom in this apartment.  I think we might need at least one more bedroom as a guest room or study." 

"Oh, didn't you notice?" she asked.  "There are plenty of other bedrooms."

Well, no, in fact, I hadn't noticed.  I hadn't seen any other bedrooms on our little tour.  I decided to do another walk-through of the apartment, but this time I hyper-focused on all of the minute details of the apartment.  This is where it became very strange.

As we walked through the gorgeous kitchen, dining room, and living room, we made our way back to the bedroom area of the apartment.  This time, I noticed that the floors were bare planks of wood with giant cracks in between - sometimes we had to hop over large crevices in the floor.  Many of the walls were unfinished.  Closets were either non-existent or barely framed out with 2 x 4 wooden beams.  The ceilings were now two or three stories tall and had peeling paint and broken sheetrock.  What the heck?   Yes, the broker was correct in telling me this was not just a one-bedroom apartment, because now I saw there were tiny bedrooms off of every hallway!  The problem was that they were all dark, dusty, and under construction!

As I wandered on my own throughout the long hallways, the size of the apartment began to morph - Alice in Wonderland style.  The apartment was now the size of an entire building. The ceilings had expanded and were now at least 7 or 8 stories tall.  The girth of the apartment was now several acres.  The apartment had lost its luxury gloss and was now was disturbingly unfinished - it was under construction and clearly unsafe.  I spotted a half-hidden doorway leading to an unnaturally narrow staircase into the bowels of some basement.  I called to the real estate agent and asked her where this led.  I did not want to buy an apartment if it could be accessed for deliveries by other people or was unsafe.  She didn't know.  Then I looked up and saw the 80-foot tall walls and ceilings were actually a giant parking lot containing cars.  I just couldn't reconcile this with my idea of a luxury apartment.  Car oil might drip on us!  Cars might fall on us from the ceiling.  Why hadn't the previous owner taken the time to cover up all this functionality?   It wasn't pretty. How was I going to ever finish working on this apartment to make it presentable?

My dream ended because the telephone rang.

Clearly, my dream was about my feelings about my mind.  Due to all my research studies and work in the psychic field, I felt - at least initially - that I must have a super-toned and luxurious brain.  I was clearly proud of my brain.  I was ready to "buy" in to it!    The initial luxury brain had come at virtually "no cost" to me.  However, upon closer examination, I discovered my mind was only a work in progress - and not a display home.  I was disappointed because I couldn't showcase my brain, but on the other hand, I was amazed to discover that my brain is much, much larger than I ever imagined.  With enough work invested in its "construction," I can clearly build a far more amazing mind than even I ever imagined!

The moral of this story:  The real estate of the mind is always a work in progress.


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