Blue_Opossum

Morning of June 23, 1998. Tuesday.



I am not sure of the time but the front door to our apartment is rattling as if someone is trying to come in.

I carefully check it out and open our front door. Our (real-life) landlord is there doing something with a ladder in the hallway of the apartment house.

I say, “Oh, it’s you. I thought someone was trying to break in here.”

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A ladder usually represents an autosymbolic precursor for the return to full consciousness, which is something I clearly understood even at four years of age. The hallway setting is mostly incidental but still represents a “conduit” associated with the waking process in a similar manner as an alley.

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Either our landlord or an unknown intruder would still represent RAS personification, which represents the preconscious state. Still, as our landlord, it would suggest that I perceive my emergent consciousness as the “owner” of the dream state (at least to some degree) whereas burglars (or unexpected or unwanted intruders) suggest that I am not non-lucidly controlling my dream to the extent as in this scenario. However, in non-lucid dreams, intruders or imposers are sometimes more assertive and knowledgeable than my temporary dream self, which confirms the (precursory) essence of the conscious mind my dream self lacks and of which the preconscious only has to a limited degree. Being near a doorway also represents being closer to the waking point in many cases (though can also serve as induction into apex lucidity and full awareness and control in the dream state).

Checking a door to see if it is locked in a dream (or an event that implies potential intrusion) is usually RAS (reticular activating system) mediation, sometimes caused by a real environmental noise at the time of the dream and sometimes with preconscious concern over whether it is locked - as I once discovered that our door was indeed unlocked after getting up after a waking start from a similar dream as this one. This is otherwise a common type of waking process autosymbolism, which I label “doorway waking symbolism” (though remember that dreams are not symbolic in the way of popular misconception, and that this refers to the dream state, not waking life, and my dream’s dynamics in real-life context are literal here).

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