It shouldn’t surprise you that I dream about real estate. Often. Some dreams are wonderful, others are more accurately described as nightmares, but they are all dreams. I have always dreamt. As a child I had a few horrible dreams in which I would see Batman through a key hole. He would swing around as he came into the frame, facing me. I can’t describe exactly why that was terrifying to me at the time, but it was. I had other dreams back then, dreams that found me in the driveway of my parents house. I was playing or sitting, or just being. And a car, typically a 70’s era muscle car painted brown or dark red would appear, tearing around the corner of Upper Loch Vista and speeding towards the end of the lane where I was doing something in that driveway. I never knew who was in the car, or why they were speeding around that corner, but in those dreams I knew their intent was not noble.
When the car did skid around the corner, the engine revving, I would be frozen, unable to yell or move. The broken concrete driveway had become quicksand. Those were terrible dreams, but not so much worse than the Batman keyhole dreams. Those keyholes were the shape that would receive a skeleton key, in case that detail makes you appreciate how scary those dreams were. I had other dreams too, nightmares that found me surrounded by nothing but noise. Looking back, they must have been panic attacks of some sort. My great aunt has panic attacks sometimes too, but in hers she sees people sitting in her house even when no one is there. I’ll probably have a bad dream about that now.
But the real estate dreams are different. They are not scary in the way that those dreams were, though some are intense. I particularly enjoy those real estate dreams where I find extra rooms in my house. I think everyone has these dreams. A staircase that no one knew about before that leads to a great room over a garage, or a previously unknown addition accessible through a corner door in the way that Narnia was only accessible through that wardrobe. I so love those dreams. The thought of adding square footage, and always unusual and intriguing square footage, is wonderful. I like homes with unexpected rooms- a back room with french doors that was turned into an office- an upper lofted nook that was turned library- these are the rooms I dream about and these are the rooms that I’ve never owned.
The dreams are not always fun. Sometimes I dream that I’ve sold a house that I haven’t. Other times I dream that I see a seller and have to conjure up a valid explanation as to why her home hasn’t sold. Those are the worst of my nightmares now. To combine current nightmares with adolescent ones perhaps the wickedest combination of both would be to see an angry seller through a keyhole. Terrifying.
I rarely dream about lavish real estate. I don’t see gilded fixtures when I close my eyes. I don’t see ornate trim or delicately paneled corridors. I see plain rooms, with dust on the floors and cobwebs in the corners where walls meet ceiling. I see rooms as they were intended, as if they have been abandoned and I am discovering something that has been overlooked by everyone that has come before me. I don’t see much furniture either. I see a large room with a cut granite fireplace and an unkempt stack of logs nearby. I see a roaring fire and a single chair and a view through a window of woods or water, never with anyone in sight. These are the rooms I see when I close my eyes, and I suppose it all points to some unspoken goal of finding and embracing tranquility.
I’ve always been aware of my dreams while they are occurring. If something in a dream seems implausible, I will know that during a dream. It’s as if I’m narrating my own actions, offering direction and guidance to my subconscious self. I hate being aware of dreams. It takes all the fun out. If I were dreaming about flying it wouldn’t be that much fun because I’d know I was dreaming about flying while I was dreaming about flying. This recognition of dreams is a good thing when I dream that I’m about to be killed or somehow harmed. I can wake up before the knife comes or the plane crashes. I did not have this power over my dreams when I was a kid, or I would have woken myself up before Batman appeared in the keyhole shaped frame.
The dreams we dream while asleep are wild and they are varied, but when I open my eyes there is just one dream. Yesterday, while walking the front lawns of fantastical lakefront homes on a most precious lake, my dream was narrow and focused. When I am awake I want to be near that lake. I want to glide over it and rest next to it. I want to splash through it over a long summer, with a rod hanging lazily over the edge of a resting boat. And when summer is over I want to walk along its ample path, crunching leaves and smelling woodsmoke. I cannot necessarily control the dreams I dream while I sleep, but when I wake, my only dream is to get as close as I can to that great big blue lake.