The night before, I had another one of those recurring haunted house dreams. It was so vivid that I can still see segments of it even today. I remember what the house’s interior looked like, how the temperature felt, the grounds, the other characters involved – all of whom were strangers and yet were supposed to be family members, according to dream logic. Andy was in it, though, and he was the only familiar face there. And like all other haunted house dreams in the past, this one had a ghost, but it was never seen. Only felt. I never freaked out over the ghost, but I was unsettled or unnerved enough by it, and my skin crawled, just like in all those other haunted house dreams I’ve had through the years.

Photo by Susan Bartlett

On the whole, I’m kind of a weird hybrid of skeptic and believer, and I love reading up on dream interpretations even though half of me constantly rolls my eyes and goes, “Pfft!” But, hey, seeing as how I find writerly inspiration in fantasy, folklore, and horror, that skepticism tends to know when to be quiet and let my other half go nuts.

So anyway, I dug around and saw this:

Dr. Daniel Condron (Director and Dream Researcher at the School of Metaphysics) believes the dream represents a question or message (often related to a limitation, habit, fear or doubt) of the dreamer. And he thinks that the dream will stop repeating once the dreamer understands the message and resolves to make the needed change. Read more

Well, I can see that happening in my case, though I have pretty much made my mind up as to what I need to do – that is, if this really is what I think it is. That said, it also means that these dreams will continue because my decision tipped the scales in favor of ongoing uncertainty and angst seeing as how I plain can’t see myself doing anything else.

I’m talking about my writing in this case, over which I’ve been brooding for the past several weeks. Oh, I’ve been tempted to up and move on, all right, and aim for “greener pastures” in mainstream fiction, but I can’t. I’m incapable of thinking outside whatever worlds I’ve already made up for my young ‘uns because I just plain love writing about them in this strange world or that. So I’ll continue to be salmon fighting against the currents, and those haunted house dreams will never go away – unless I learn to work with the angst of obscurity and quit with the strong negative associations that come with it.

Of course, I don’t even know if this is what’s causing my recurring haunted house dreams, according to those interpretations. It could very well be something else entirely, but writing’s always at the forefront of my mind, so that’s got to figure in there somehow.

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

As for the ghost:

Ghosts are associated with haunting and haunted places. They are also almost always symbols of the past. As such they may also symbolize some painful aspect of the past that has never been dealt with, yet still haunts the soul. Looking at other symbols in your dreams, such as its location, may provide clues as to what it is that hasn’t been processed. Read more

None of what I’ve seen comes close to my dreams, anyway, so I’ve no idea what it means. Like I noted, I never see the ghost at all. It’s there, somewhere in the house (the house isn’t mine, either, and it’s never a familiar one), and I feel its presence and am very much aware that I’m not alone. I never run from it, either. What usually happens is that I’m exploring the house, and then once I’m aware that there’s a ghost in one of the rooms or wherever, I wake up. So, yeah – absolutely no idea what that means.

It’s also worth noting that I’ve been packing my Kindle with all kinds of ghost story anthologies. :) I can’t help myself. I love those stories.