Spooky House Trilogy

I have had the following three dreams over the past few nights. They all involve the same house, at different points in time (from many years past to the present). I'll tell you a bit about myself after I explain my dreams:

Dream #1

I'm working as a maid in a big old mansion/castle many years/centuries ago. I'm carrying a silver pot of tea on a tray upstairs to the master bedroom to the owner of the house. Actually, another servant was carrying it up, but handed it over to me. It's storming really hard, and it is very dark. The man laying in the bed is very old and he has a huge window overlooking the sea. It's nighttime, and I notice the waves are pounding. He is very sad and starts talking to me about something I can't seem to remember, but I know he is sad.

Dream #2

It's present-day and a friend and I go to visit this same house for some reason. It's falling in, and looks spooky. We're the only ones there. In the basement, we find an apartment-type area that is modern - probably built for a former tenant? We also found a secret door somewhere in the house, but I can't remember where. It leads to another living area and bathroom. We put our things in the apartment area and go to check out the rest of the house. Almost immediately, we are surrounded by ghosts and bad spirits. The whole house is haunted, and we're terrified. I can't remember all that happened, but someone we couldn't see told us to go back to the apartment and we'd be safe. While running back downstairs, we saw this line of big men (also ghosts) hammering something on a worktable. They were working on something, and didn't notice us. They were also singing/chanting while they worked. Back in the apartment, there were no ghosts. We left the next morning.

Dream #3

I'm back at that same house, and I can't remember why. I don't know if it is present day, or in the past, but I'm staying there for a certain amount of time. An older lady and her daughter and granddaughter own the house now. I go to pick a bedroom and the two doors I try are locked. So I pick one downstairs (may have been the same basement apartment?) But I decide to claim the bathroom upstairs because it is so beautiful. It has a big claw-foot tub and stain glass everywhere. But the daughter whose room is beside the bathroom gets angry about this so I decide not to take a bath there. I also remember that the daughter's name is Natalie. Later, I am talking to the old woman and she says that she'd like to remodel a part of the house that is falling in, but she can't because of the bodies buried in the yard. I don't know what that had to do with remodeling the house, but that's what she said.

I don't really remember the feelings I got from these dreams. The one where it was haunted certainly terrified me. I remember a general tone of unfriendliness in all of the dreams also. Not necessarily meanness though. And it was always dark inside the house. I also remember that the house had a circular driveway, surrounding what used to be a pretty garden.

I can't figure out how this dream relates to my life. I haven't saw any movies or read anything that would cause this. I am currently happy and stable. There really isn't any stress in my life. However, I am planning a trip to Ireland in the fall. And for some reason I keep connecting this dream to that in my head. I have no idea why, or how the two are related.

Do you have any idea what these dreams mean? If you need any more information, let me know.

Crystal

Good morning, Crystal.

Houses usually represent the dreamer more closely than most symbols, because it's a symbol of "where we live." In these dreams, though, the house is never yours - you are a servant, or a not-very-welcome guest, or even a trespasser. This reflects a feeling of being out of one's place in waking life.

Having the same house in every dream certainly ties them together, but I'm going to try looking at each dream individually first.

#1
This has the flavor of memory/nostalgia. It could represent a time in your own past marked by stormy emotions, a time when you felt that your life was lived in service. Inside the house, it seems safe enough, if somewhat gloomy - perhaps this symbolizes a withdrawal from interaction with others. You let the old man talk to you, but the details of his message are lost - only the emotion is evident, and I think it likely that the sadness is yours. The withdrawal could have been marked by an artificial interest in school or religion.

#2
A revisit to your past goes badly. The only place free from unpleasant memories (ghosts) is the modern apartment in the basement. This is a small place in your own mind specifically built to be free of such thoughts - only happy memories are allowed here, and you don't even go there very often. At this point, you are not comfortable dealing with some unresolved trauma, and abort the attempt.

#3
I think it's likely that the bedroom you chose was, indeed, the same one which was free of ghosts in the previous dream. But at this point in your life, you seem more willing (or able) to explore your memories and your feelings. By this time, however, many of them are shut off (the locked rooms) and you no longer know the secret way to get into them.

You feel that you want to reclaim yourself - this is from both the beautiful bathroom upstairs that you want to use, and the older lady's desire to remodel. But something still prevents you. There are bodies buried in the yard - buried bodies relate directly to secrets we would prefer to leave undiscovered - and remodeling (rediscovering yourself) would involve digging them up. You're still not ready to deal with that.

And then you have the daughter unwilling to share the luxurious bathroom. I get from this a feeling of being undeserving of luxury - guilt when trying to claim it as your due.

--- Wrap-up
So I think that the house is you, after all, but for a long while you did not feel as if you "belonged to yourself," if that makes any sense. The stress causing these dreams comes from the past, not the present.

I can think of a couple of possible tie-ins with your trip to Ireland. One is that the trip is a luxury, which dream #3 denies that you deserve. Another is that Ireland ties in with this part of your past somehow - is it an ancestral homeland?

Aside from this, however, it occurs to me that a tranquil period in your life may be the best time to deal with what has before been too disturbing.

Understand that all of this is one person's conjecture, based upon my perception of your dream symbols. It could be way off the mark, but hopefully you will find some of it useful to you.

Pleasant dreams,

Peregrin