My sister's dollhouse dream

[feralkkitty]

Hi, My sister had a dream that I'm trying to help her with. It is as follows in her words: I had a weird dream last night. I looked out the window to see a doll house that I have in the basement on the curb, along with a box. I got hysterical that it wasn't supposed to be thrown out, but Kelly said that Bob told her to do it. I went downstairs to get it, but the neighbor across the street was carrying it to his house, and I was crying hysterically and screaming for him to give it back. Needless to say, I was in my nightgown and robe and walking in my present time condition, barefoot and with my cane, so I wasn't going too fast, but I was pleading with him to give it back, but he didn't understand English. Bob and Kelly were just watching me, and finally Ronnie was going over to try to help me get it back. I don't know if I ever did get it, but I also looked in the box and there were the collectible dolls that I have down there. I was so upset, and even when I woke I was upset about it. A little background: my sister is 70 years old and has very bad knees, thus why she says "walking in my present time condition". She is my oldest sister (of a total of 8 kids). Kelly is her youngest daughter who lives in the downstairs apartment of a 2 family house. My sister and her husband Bob live on the 2nd floor. Ronnie is Kelly's fiance who is a high-ranking cop in the same town they all live in. My sister has 2 other daughters (who aren't in the dream), Tra, who has 2 adult children (21 & 18) and Kris (middle child) who has two children (10 & 13). Kris is anorexic and doesn't seem to "get" how dangerous her situation is and won't listen to reason. The story of the dollhouse is, one of my uncles took my oldest brother and sister up by our aunt's sister's house and she gave them a bike and the dollhouse. Our mother eventually, gave it back to her (after she moved out, married and had kids), so the kids could play with it. While it was still home ("home" meaning our parent's house), one of my two brothers cut the stairs out of it. She always intended to get it back in condition and get furniture for it, but never did. Anyway, it is in her basement, and she wants to sell it, but her husband ignores her when she tells him. Some of the shutters are off or missing, and he needs to put the ones she has back on it, plus the chimney is missing. *Interestingly enough, my sister just told me that the chimney in their house is in need of repair too. If you need more background info, let me know. I'd love to be able to help her out with this.

[Athanor]

Just to start off by saying that the language of dreams is based on analogies and metaphors, so the various people in your sister’s dream probably mostly represent parts of her own psychology and how they interact. For example, each person could represent a trait of character or way of thinking etc. which your sister has that is similar to how the outer person acts and approaches various situations etc. To complicate things, each person could in addition symbolize certain aspects of how your sister interacts with the actual outer person. But to try a basic approach, the dollhouse could possibly symbolize a part of your sister’s psychology which has, on analogy, “been neglected” in some way and not “kept in good repair”. This is based on the analogy that a house in dreams usually represents the dreamer’s overall personality. In this way of looking at your sister’s dream, the dollhouse would therefore potentially represent a kind of very “undeveloped” and perhaps even “child-like” way of approaching some long-standing issue or problem etc. It might even stand for some kind of unresolved childhood event or situation etc. that was especially difficult to handle. In real life, the dollhouse is also kept in a basement, which in a dream would symbolize “in the unconscious” and therefore generally “outside of everyday awareness”, so this connection might help to shed light on the meaning of the dollhouse as it appears in the dream, i.e. a problem etc. that’s not examined very often although it needs to be. The result of not keeping a certain issue etc. up front is then possibly shown by the dream. That is, it could become “totally unconscious” and “unavailable for examination and repair” (e.g. in the dream, the dollhouse is thrown out onto the street and out of your sister’s “ownership”). The consequence of any such situation might possibly be a kind of eventual invasion of strong emotion or worry etc. (e.g. her hysterical reaction in the dream) without there being any noticeable cause on the surface. Any such anxiety or unpleasant physical symptoms etc., if not headed off by working on some unconscious problem etc., could apparently reach a level that would tend to become overly obvious to others in a way which could badly affect how she’s seen by others (e.g. she’s out on the street barefoot in her nightgown and robe while screaming hysterically). The neighbor who doesn’t speak English could stand for a kind of “foreign” part of your sister’s psychology that she’s not aware of, possibly one that might understandably go along with the “total removal” of something that’s especially painful from her conscious awareness. This possibility might be emphasized by the image of Bob and Kelly who do nothing to retain the dollhouse. As a police officer, Ronnie could represent the “right thing to do” and a kind of assertiveness which might be needed to prevent the “theft” of something which is vital to your sister by trying to face some issue or situation gradually over time in a consistent way. Your sister also looks into the box which contains her collectible dolls. On analogy, the dolls might possibly represent issues related to her children since dolls essentially take the form of “little children”. Being close to your sister, it’s feasible that your psyche made the connection clearer for you regarding the missing chimney on the dollhouse with the need to fix the actual chimney on your sister’s house. For example, a chimney “vents” the “heat” and “noxious gases” created by “combustion” in the furnace. So perhaps it may be that the dream is saying in a nutshell that there are some unconscious but very strong emotions building up to a dangerous level regarding your sister and her children which aren’t being “vented” safely. For instance, she might be unaware of how much Kris’s very unfortunate anorexia is really bothering her, maybe leading to unconscious questioning of her overall success and value as a mother regarding Kris and her other children. At her age, any such trains of thought, conscious or unconscious, could of course be very upsetting and potentially damaging to her health because of such things as increased blood pressure and potentially feeling down too often etc. If any of this way of looking at your sister’s dream seems to make sense in her overall circumstances, perhaps it might be useful if she were to, for example, take part in discussions with other parents of anorexic children or something similar if she hasn’t already tried this approach. Your sister could also try taking a few quiet moments and mentally focusing on the dollhouse as it looked in the dream. After a while, spontaneous memories, feelings and thoughts will likely start to appear. If she jots these down until they tail off, looking at them more carefully will then hopefully provide a clue about what the dollhouse symbolizes in her dream. Anyway, I hope that these ideas can be helpful in some way. Please feel free to ask any questions or to make any comments about this particular way of looking at your sister’s dream.