10-19-02 @ 2:48 am EDT

I actually had a spinoff dream yesterday.

Ever Downward

Know how I found that entry so quickly? I searched my journal at Diaryland! They can search the entire text of entries, not just the titles! So I did a search for the word "attic" and came up with three entries, of which that was the desired one. Neat, eh?

Anyway. The dream I had. A couple of nights ago I had a dream I went upstairs into the other room and again it was clearer than usual, though it was in the process of being cleaned. I think I was looking for photos...was I doing that in the old dream? Stuff to scan. Anyway. In this dream I seem to remember yellow cloth or carpeting or something. I turned around to face the other way and there was a lot of clear space, but there was a mattress and a couch and such, furniture, piled in the middle of the room. Meaning the room was a lot bigger than in real life. And the floor was sloping downward, like it was collapsing. This was an old bad dream theme of mine, sloping floors in the upstairs of our house. I would slip on them and fear falling. I wasn't terrified in this dream, but I did walk carefully. I seemed to jump or stomp at one point, then was afraid that the pressure from the piled furniture would cause the floor to cave in. (In real life, Dad once claimed the top story of the house would cave in because of all the junk we've got piled up there.) So I walked carefully back to the higher part of the floor, near the window. There wasn't much more to that dream. I seem to think of stuffed animals, but can't be sure.

The one I had yesterday was more detailed, and sticks with me even more. (Though I might have trouble getting the details straight--rather it's the FEELING I got during the dream that sticks with me, this weird feeling.) In this one, I went upstairs to the other room. Again, it was bigger than usual. Again, there was a doorway where the attic should be, and I went through it. Again, there were more rooms. This time I had a sense of deja vu--I remembered my old dream described in the entry above. I believe I also remembered that had been a dream; so now I was like, "I KNEW there were more rooms up here! Just not this MANY!" Because there were a great many more rooms--much more than the floor size of our house would permit!

I can't remember the order they went in or how I saw them...sorry...I started walking southward and got an anxious feeling, as if I would walk into something frightening, but I forced myself to continue...which is good. Drat, why can't I remember the specific rooms now? *sigh* All I know is there were a lot of them, some pretty decent sized, too. All seemed to have been abandoned a very, very long time ago (our house is from around the Twenties, I think), and had a dusty, ominous air to them. They were lit, as if lights had been put in there and left on...for ages and ages. Creepy. They all seemed to be in grayish tones, too. They weren't cluttered. There might have been a storage/jar room like before, and some plain atticky-type rooms; but the only one I can remember specifically was one on the left, a little tiny office.

I paused in the doorway and debated going in. I think I knew that it had been Dad's once, despite its age. Dad in my dream seemed to be different, though I don't remember actually seeing him. He would do things in this room like taxes or something. It was smaller than most of the other rooms, with a little splintery wooden desk, a lamp maybe, a shelf, and some kind of piece of art on the wall...maybe a bookshelf too. I debated whether or not I should go in and look around; for some reason I felt it would be wrong, but then I think I decided to go in after all. This whole place had the feel of a haunted house with how abandoned and burnt-out and drab and ancient it all was.

I think I started to go into the office...I believe it was that little bit of artwork or painting on the wall that attracted me. I wanted to know more about it, and about any papers or belongings that might be in/on the desk. I had an ominous feeling, like something was being hidden from me, something in the distant past, and I wanted to know what it was. BUT...I don't remember what it was. Never found out. I seem to recall going to see other rooms. I had to walk carefully as there were wooden slats in the floor that were very old and rotted and I could feel them creaking underfoot, and knew they could break at any time. So I had to watch my step, balance myself carefully, and be aware that just like in my other dream, I could plunge through the floor to the rooms below.

I seem to also remember the floor being VERY dusty. This thick coating of whitish dust. It was solid wood, but it was like only certain of the slats were very stable, and even those, the ones I walked on, were old and creaked. So there was a feeling of both excitement and potential discovery, and yet anxiety, at the same time. Yet another dream where I felt there was something deeper just beyond my comprehension (like my tunnel dreams and darkness falling dreams), but I never figured out what it was.

Well, I feel as if I should describe the dream more, but unfortunately, even so soon after it the details of the rooms themselves are vague. *sigh* Hope I conveyed the general idea though. In the dream, I remember thinking, MAN, our attic has gotten huge!