Dream Symbols

Houses, rooms and doorways in dreams

Jung dreamed of a house whose upper floor was his own century, whose ground floor was older, whose cellar was medieval, and whose foundations were prehistoric. He took it as a map of the psyche, layer beneath layer, and the dream house has been read that way ever since. The rooms the dreamer knows are the conscious personality; the rooms they discover are what has not yet been lived.

The parts of the house carry their own meanings. Doors and keys govern access, to a memory, a feeling, a possibility. Stairs move the dreamer between levels of awareness. The roof is what keeps the weather of the outside world out, and a leak means something is getting through. The bathroom is where the private and the unpresentable are dealt with, which is why a dirty or doorless one is such a common and such an uncomfortable dream.

Being locked out, and finding hidden rooms, are the two most telling house dreams: one says the dreamer has lost access to a part of themselves, the other says there is more of them than they knew.