Churches and religious buildings offer us hope and quiet reflection, libraries and museums supply us with information and stimulate our minds. Courts provide social justice, whilst public buildings symbolize work, tax, bureaucratic or legal matters that need to be sorted. Hospitals are centers of healing and castles are historical icons. Houses, bungalows, flats, mansions and palaces offer different types of accommodation for different types of needs. Prisons are places for criminals to learn the consequences of their actions, and hotels provide a welcome break from home. If any of these buildings appear in your dream, this chapter will help you interpret the meaning; but for domestic buildings, homes and shops you may want to refer to HOME and MONEY AND SHOPPING. For places associated with entertainment, such as cinemas and theatres, you may want to refer to ARTS AND CRAFTS and LEISURE, and for places of work and learning consult SCHOOL AND WORK.
Building Types A to Z
ANCIENT BUILDING
The pyramid is said to be a focus of spiritual energy, so it if appears in your dream, your unconscious is drawing your attention to the power within. Dreams about old or ancient buildings refer to the past and experiences that have been lived through, such as a former life with another person. Ruins suggest a now irrelevant way of life or approach to life. The ruins may belong to a castle, and this suggests that the defenses you once built up are no longer necessary. Mansions and palaces in dreams have a similar interpretation as houses, but with the emphasis on those possibilities within us that have yet to be developed and explored. There is a sense of something special or wonderful happening within yourself, as palaces are places of enchantment and treasure in fairy tales. However, palaces may also represent a warning against adopting a pretentious façade and living beyond your means.
CASTLE/CITADEL/FORTRESS
If you dream of any of these, it suggests a defensive attitude. Do you have a real fear of being overwhelmed or defeated by a group of schoolmates or colleagues? Or are you feeling so vulnerable that you are putting up emotional defenses to protect yourself? The symbol of the castle is that of a place where you can defend yourself from attack, so it may represent the methods you use to protect yourself from ‘attack’. On the other hand, your dream may highlight your self-imposed isolation from others, and the sense of security you get from being self-reliant.
If your stronghold came under siege, did you identify the faces of your attackers? Are these people you know in waking life? And did your dream defenses hold firm? If they did, this suggests that you are successfully fending off attempts to wound or get through to your emotions. If you are a man who dreamed that you are laying siege to a castle, the Freudian interpretation is that it expresses your desire to have sex with a woman who has resisted your advances. The castle is also a place of historical interest, so it may suggest a need to look to the past for inspiration. It can also represent a mandala, a symmetrical pattern that symbolizes the psyche. If a courtyard or moat appears in the dream, this again refers to protection or the desire to feel safe and secure. The shape of the moat or courtyard will also be relevant.
CITYSCAPE
Did you dream that you were wandering around a city, either familiar or unfamiliar to you in waking life? If you did, were the streets friendly and welcoming, and the buildings clean and bursting with life and activity, or did you feel unwelcome, jostled about and intimidated by the place? According to Jung, places in dreams where people group together to live and work, such as cities, towns and villages, refer to how you perceive yourself within the community, and how well you are fitting in. So if you dreamed that you felt happy and secure in your dream city, the chances are you relate well to other members of the community in waking life. But if the buildings on the sidewalk or pavement seemed to close in on you, or you were wandering around hopelessly lost, perhaps you are feeling intimidated by others in waking life and have lost your sense of direction, or even identity. If the city was abandoned like a ghost town, does this mirror your feelings of isolation in waking life?
COMPONENTS OF A BUILDING
If you dream of a balcony, ledge or sill, this suggests a need for support and protection in your life. An elevator or lift in a dream usually suggests how we deal with information. If the lift is going down, we may be going down into our unconscious for self-understanding, whereas a lift going up could represent moving towards greater self-understanding. Halls or passageways in a dream can, for Freudians, represent passages within the body, such as the vagina or penis. On a psychological level, they can suggest how we let others invade our personal space. On a spiritual level, passages can represent the different stages of our life. A hall is the center of a building and to dream of entering a hall may therefore represent the beginnings of a journey towards self-awareness. According to dream lore, to dream of a long hallway suggests a period of worry ahead.
Walls in dreams indicate potential blocks to your progress, or difficulties you may be up against in waking life. They suggest obstacles that are stopping you from getting what you want. This may be something from real life or something within yourself. Perhaps you are being like a brick by refusing to show your feelings, or have come up against a brick wall with a particular problem or issue. If the wall looks old, this suggests the problem is old. If the wall is made of glass, this suggests problems with perception. If the wall is closing in, the dreamer may feel trapped by their current lifestyle. A brick wall, rampart or dividing wall all suggest the difference between everyday life and the inner psychological state. According to dream lore, if you find a gateway through a wall, this is a sign of good fortune. See also entries for doors, rooms, stairs, staircase and windows in HOME.
Exploring a building
Dreams about exploring a building are encouraging you to explore your own personality or resolve an ongoing conflict. In other words, the dream is encouraging you to make more of your attributes and abilities, as unexplored potential and new ideas lie within you. This is especially true if you find yourself exploring unfamiliar rooms in a well-known house in your dream. If the building is run down or dilapidated, this may suggest a personality or body in need of attention, but if the building is well cared for and clean, it suggests confidence and good self-esteem. A building under attack may suggest that someone or something is trying to break in. If a building is under construction or being demolished, this refers to your own ability to construct and destroy your life. If the building is familiar, the reference may be to the actual building itself; for example, if you dream of a structural fault, you might want to get the design checked out. If the building you are exploring in your dream is a public building such as a factory, law court, prison and department store, the building often represents the function suggested by its nature, such as work, education and healing. Bear in mind, though, that if these images appear in your dreams, they will also have personal connections and feelings associated with those buildings. For example, if a factory feels like a museum, both associations should be considered. Finally, consider carefully how you react to the building in your dream. Were you intimidated by it or did you feel comfortable? If the former, your dream may be warning that you are over-reaching yourself in waking life. The latter is more reassuring.
FACTORY
A factory in your dreams is likely to refer to conformity with society, a typical reaction to a life that lacks individuality, productivity and work. In some cases, it can also refer to the automatic functions of the body, such as breathing and digestion. A factory on strike may suggest an obstacle to hard work, such as lack of discipline. An endless production line clearly suggests frustration with your career or relationships. A dream of waterworks can suggest associations with water and the womb, turning the dream into a gigantic representation of the mother figure in your life. A dream of being confined in a barracks may be a warning that your life is too restricted, and that you are too much under the influence of someone else. If you dream of a warehouse or other storage place, this suggests memories, past experiences or aspects of yourself that you have put on hold; for example, career ambitions whilst you raise a child.
FARM
If a farm appears in your dream, you may be longing for a more simple, down-to-earth approach to life. If there is manure in the yard, this may point to obstacles that prevent you realizing your dream. If you dream of a windmill, the windmill may represent your creativity as the windmill grinds flour for bread. If you are the family breadwinner, you might identify with this dream. Images of a stable in your dream may suggest repressed sexuality, as horse-riding is a Freudian symbol of sex. For Jung, the horse represents humankind’s harnessing of natural forces, making the stable a place where the dreamer can face these forces with confidence.
HOSPITAL
In dreams, hospitals can either mean a place of safety and healing if you have had a positive experience of hospitals, or vulnerability and disease if the experience was negative. Generally though, hospitals are symbols of healing, representing an aspect of yourself that longs to be pampered and cared for, relieved of the burdens of responsibilities in the waking world. If you find hospitals threatening in your dream, this may suggest that you feel apprehensive about putting control of yourself out of your own hands and into those of others in your waking life. If you are a hospital patient in your dream, this suggests a period of transition after something has not gone well, or a time of rest when you can learn from the experience and find new ways to get back on track. If you are visiting someone in hospital, is a part of you diseased, not well or in need of special attention? Either way, if you have a dream that focuses in some way on a hospital, this suggests that you are in need of some tender loving care, both physically and emotionally. See also SICKNESS AND HEALTH.
HOTEL/B&B/PUB
Dreams that highlight hotels, bed and breakfasts, and boarding houses suggest that you are not currently feeling secure in your situation. They can also indicate a short-term situation, relaxation and escape, or activities separate from home life. For business people, hotel dreams may refer to work. If you are about to take a vacation, your dream may simply reflect your excitement at the thought of the holiday. But if you are not going on holiday, the dream implies that you have reached a transitional stage in your life and the dream hotel mirrors how you feel about this change of circumstances. Perhaps you have recently moved to a new area, or a relationship has broken up and you are adjusting to your new single status. Was the hotel a bright, uplifting place or was it depressing and dirty? All these details will help you with the interpretation. Bear in mind, too, that hotels, although advertized as home from homes, are in fact impersonal places run by others—so do you yearn for anonymity or do you dread losing your identity? If the hotel has a gymnasium, this suggests challenges, finding ways to gain new skills, or concerns about your physical health and well-being.
If you were in a public house or bar in your dream, this suggests the sociable, easy-going side of yourself, as a bar or pub presents an arena in which you can overcome your inhibitions. If there was a jovial atmosphere, this can suggest a wish to be less isolated in waking life or a new, optimistic approach to life. If, however, there was a brawl, this can suggest repressed emotions boiling over into anger. Drunkenness also suggests loss of control, a desire to forget the past, or an avoidance rather than a facing of emotions. An inn is like a pub, but with the difference that it offers a place to sleep overnight. It also suggests a more tranquil, rural environment, perhaps pointing to your desire to deal with repressed impulses from the unconscious in a secure, secluded environment. (For dreams of restaurants and canteens, see also FOOD AND DRINK.)
HOUSE
For the psychologist Carl Jung, building a house was a symbol of building a self. In his autobiographical Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Jung described the gradual evolution of his home on Lake Zurich. Jung spent more than thirty years building this castle-like structure, and he believed that the towers and annexes represented his psyche. In dreams therefore, houses may represent your life structures or what you have created for yourself as a way of life; for example, values, attitudes and goals, or things you feel ‘at home’ with, or feel you can be yourself with.
When interpreting dreams of houses, how you feel about the house is of particular importance. Houses can be forbidding places, and if you feel anxious in your dream, this suggests that something about your personality is bothering you. That you noted a particular part of the house in your dream may offer a clue, and the different rooms and everyday things in the house are also important as they represent different aspects of your feelings and make up. It is common to dream of returning to a house from your past that you knew or lived in. This dream may be nostalgic or it may reflect a longing to return to the innocence of childhood. If you dreamed of leaving a house, the message is that you are ready to move on in waking life. If the house in your dream felt like it was your home, see also HOME.
LAW COURT/PRISON
A law court in a dream may make you focus on your capacity to make fair judgments in complicated matters concerning work, friends or family members. It may also highlight your feelings of being on trial in waking life, or a sense of guilt about having broken a promise, or a moral or social law. Perhaps you are anxious about being judged by others or feel that there something that you should be punished for. If you find yourself bundled into prison in your dream, perhaps with the clang of heavy gates swinging shut in your ears, this may be drawing a parallel with your sense of confinement in waking life. So, if you have any kind of dream about prisons or being jailed, ask yourself who or what is restricting your freedom in waking life. Do you feel suffocated emotionally by your partner or parents, or do you feel trapped in a dead-end job? Or has your own shyness locked you into a self-made prison in the waking world?
Dream houses
The front of the house and activities outside the house represent your persona, the face you show to the world, whereas whatever is inside the house reveals your inner life. If the house is being attacked or burgled, this suggests criticism or social pressure from others. If the house is burning or falling down, this represents leaving old attitudes behind. If the house feels cramped and dark, there is a feeling of restriction in waking life, whilst structural faults suggest broken relationships or illness. If work or repairs are being carried out on the house, perhaps certain relationships are breaking down or health matters need to be attended to.
An impressive big house in dreams suggests that we are conscious of our potential. If the house is small, the dreamer is perhaps seeking security and freedom from responsibility. If you were living in a bungalow in your dream, there may be a suggestion that you are living too much on one level, both practically and emotionally. If there are unfamiliar rooms in a well-known house, this represents unexplored potential. If other people are in the house, they suggest different aspects of yourself you may feel threatened by, or other people you are involved with, or about to be involved with, in waking life. Going into or out of the house suggests that we may need to decide whether we need to be more introverted or extroverted. If you go into another person’s house, this suggests that you are getting involved with that person, perhaps being a part of their life. If you see a loved one move into someone else’s house in your dream, this may be your fear of their infidelity, but it may also reveal a growing distance in your relationship. Planning or altering a house, or building an annexe may refer to a change in your lifestyle or approach to life. Rows of houses represent other people. According to dream lore, country houses suggest tranquility; building a house, a growth in confidence; a new house, a busy social life; an empty house or moving house, financial worries; a big house, good fortune, and a small house, misfortune.
If you are buying a house in your dreams this may relate to making a decision to change in waking life, or wanting to make some kind of change. Buying a house involves decision making and this points to the importance of clarifying what it is that you want in waking life. If the house in your dream is an igloo, this is a symbol of security and completeness and, because it is warm on the inside and cold on the outside, it points to differences between what you feel on the inside and you do and say on the outside. In general dreaming about a flat or apartment has the same meaning as dreaming about a house, but the interpretation depends on whether or not you have lived in an apartment or flat before. If you did, were you living alone in the flat or did you share, and what was this like? This will influence the feelings associated with the image in your dream.
LIBRARY/MUSEUM
In dreams, a library can represent a storehouse of your experiences in life as well as your intellect. If the library is well ordered, this suggests that you handle knowledge well. If the library is chaotic, with books missing or wrongly shelved, this suggests that you may be suffering from information overload or have difficulty processing information. If someone distracts you in the library in your dream, it may suggest that the ideas being considered in waking life are not worth your attention. If you are working on your psychic and spiritual development, the library will have added significance as a place where the collective wisdom of humankind is collected. The more we develop psychically and spiritually, the more we have access to this collective wisdom—also known as intuition and the collective unconscious.
Like libraries, museums feed minds by giving people the opportunity to study objects from the past for their historic, scientific and artistic interest. When trying to interpret dreams about museums, any exhibit that caught your eye is important because it may be pointing to something from your own past that has a bearing on your present situation. If your dream involved visiting a cinema or theatre, refer to the relevant entries in ARTS AND CRAFTS and LEISURE.
LIGHTHOUSE
A lighthouse may appear in a dream as a beacon guiding you to safety through dense fog. Bear in mind that a beacon or lighthouse can also indicate a rocky area you should avoid, and therefore contains a warning about the direction in which you are heading. Such a dream may be urging you to rely on your own resources to avoid floundering. For Freud, the lighthouse was, of course, a phallic symbol rising above the maternal symbol of the ocean.
RELIGIOUS BUILDING
Any religious building suggests a refuge where you can gather your thoughts and consider your beliefs. Even if you are not religious, in dreams religious buildings highlight your spiritual, peace-loving and idealistic potential. Most of us have principles we live by and these may surface in your dreams in the symbol of a religious building. If you are walking past a church or religious building in your dream, this suggests that you are not making contact with the best part of yourself. Is your waking life so crammed with obligations that you don’t have time to explore your inner world for some much-needed reflection, meditation and contemplation? If you entered a temple in your dream and immediately felt enveloped in a sense of calm, was your unconscious suggesting that you would enjoy better health if you treated your body as a temple, putting your physical, emotional and spiritual welfare first? Dreams about religious buildings may also be an expression of anger against dogma; again it depends on the feelings evoked by the building in your dream. Did you feel relieved or tense? If a vault features in your dream, it may represent your highest spiritual ideals, as vaults often appear in churches or temples with painted stars in imitation of the vault of the heavens. A vault may also recall a crypt or burial chamber, and as such, it may conjure up thoughts of death. See also RELIGION.
TOWER
According to Freud, a tower is a phallic symbol, signifying in its sturdiness the sexual self-confidence of a male dreamer. In dreams, towers represent psychological constructions you may have built in your life, ranging from an attitude to an entire way of life. For example, a tower may be a defensive erection of inner attitudes, suggesting an imprisonment by your own anxieties or a desire to shut yourself away from the world; alternatively, it may be an attempt to reach the heights of awareness or recognition.
If you are standing at the top of the tower in your dream, observe how you feel
Towering above the rest
Freudian dream interpreters relate towering structures in dreams to phallic symbols, and therefore to macho tendencies, on account of their thrusting shape. So if you dreamed you were living in a luxury penthouse thousands of feet above the city or that your office occupied the top floor, could your dream have highlighted your ambitions? Do you secretly long to rise above everyone else financially, professionally and socially? Dreaming of a spire may indicate pride and ambition or yearning to attain spiritual heights, and an obelisk in a dream may be a phallic symbol. A chimney in a dream may be another phallic symbol especially if it was a tall factory chimney. In both the waking and the dream world, skyscrapers are symbols of elevated social and professional status and the ‘greed is good creed’, so if you dreamed of them, perhaps your unconscious was highlighting your waking ambition.
The most prominent and famous landmark in Paris, the city of romance, revolution and passion, is the Eiffel Tower. If it appears in your dream, it presents a powerful erotic symbolism, as it is a strong image of thrusting sexuality. The clock tower, also known as Big Ben, which sits alongside London’s Houses of Parliament, may be a symbol of an encounter with destiny or some life-changing event. Ticking clocks often represent the passage of life (see TIME) and the clock tower combines this with the phallic form to form an image of courage and emotional development. Evoking great and solemn occasions, the chimes of Big Ben, or any clock in a church tower, relate to important life changes, such as marriage, the birth of a child or moving house, or important shifts in attitude, such as forgiveness, resolve and determination.
Some other buildings
Airport
A desire to rise above worldly problems and responsibilities; may also be associated with high ideals. See also TRAVEL.
Bank
Where ‘treasures’ are stored; material security. If you are making a deposit, you are adding to your assets. If you are making a withdrawal, you are calling upon them.
