What Do Houses Mean in Dreams?

A cigar may sometimes be a cigar but in dreams it's likely your dream house isn't a house at all.

It's you!

Because houses are the place in which we live out a large portion of our physical lives, the places that literally "house" our bodies, houses in dreams often stand in for ourselves. Our bodies "house" our lives. Dream houses symbolize that life.

How to interpret houses in dreams?

Start by asking yourself these questions:

• Is the house known to you?
• What condition is the house is?
• Where is the house?
• What type of house is the dream house?
• Is the house an old or new house?
• What color is the house?

An additional aspect in dreams about houses that is finding hidden rooms or rooms that were previously unknown to the dreamer inside the house.

So let's have a look at all of those ideas and see if we can make you more at home in your dream house.

Is your dream house one known to you in your waking life?

Is it the house in which you currently reside or one from another time in your life?

If the house is the one in which you currently reside have look at its condition.

Does it look like your home? What condition is it in? Is it in good condition or does it need repair?

If the house is not the one in which you currently reside, but one in which you lived at some point in your life, consider what was occurring when you lived in that house.

Were you happy there? What was going on in your life at the time you lived there? Is the house your childhood home or one from adulthood?

Sometimes the events that happened in homes in which we once lived mirror our current life situation. For instance, current emotional turmoil might elicit dreams of a home where one lived that was fraught with conflict.

Alternatively, dreams about homes in which we once lived may mean that issues, such as childhood traumas, may be intruding into our current lives.

Houses that need some sort of work indicate something in your life that needs attention. What needs attention can be of a spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical nature.

Look at your life and ask yourself:

• Am I getting enough rest?
• Am I taking care of myself emotionally by associating with positive people and setting healthy boundaries with other?
• Am I nourishing my soul as well as my body?
• Am I seeing to my physical body by eating healthy, nourishing foods, moving my body, and getting time outside in the fresh air?
• Am I taking care of any health concerns I might have or am I ignoring them?

A dilapidated house can symbolize old habits or ways of being that no longer have a place in our lives and are not worth patching up, but which should, rather, be torn down.

While moving into a new home in waking life may be exciting, it's also a stressful proposition. Moving is near the top of the list of stressful life events.

Dreams of a new house can symbolize change and transformation. Dreams of moving into a new house can mean that you're moving out of old life patterns and into new ones.

Change is something many people dread, even if the change is positive.

Why?

Because the psyche often interprets change as death--the death of way of life we know for certain we can sustain ourselves in in favor of a way of life we haven't experienced before and aren't sure how to navigate. Even positive change, feels terrifying to the psyche. We all find the unknown the scariest place to live!

However, don't let that fear put you off! Dreams of a new house are typically wonderfully positive dreams and signs of a healthy psyche.

An interesting house dream is the one of the discovery of a previously hidden or unknown room in the house.

Sometimes the room is one the dreamer never knew existed, sometimes it is a room known to the dreamer but which has undergone radical expansion or remodel.

If you've had a dream with the hidden/unknown room aspect consider these points:

• Is the room in good shape and/or furnished or bare and in disrepair?
• Does the room look like it's being used or no?

If the room is in good shape and/or furnished then this dream can be a powerful symbol from the unconscious indicating expansion in the psyche or latent talents that have been growing waiting to spring up and blossom into the conscious mind.

If the room is in disrepair, this may indicate issues in the unconscious you're in denial about but which you definitely need to get a grip on.

If the room is in habitable condition but unfurnished and unused, it may symbolize talents and gifts which you either aren't acknowledging or aren't using.

Glass houses in dreams can have both positive and negative meanings.

A glass house is one in which everything can be seen. There are no surprises hiding in a see through home. On the positive side, then, glass houses in dreams can symbolize complete openness, with ourselves and the world. Glass houses can symbolize a clean conscience, free from guilt and shame.

However, glass is also fragile and does lead one to exposure. There is nowhere to hide in a glass house. There is no privacy. There is no place to retreat from the world. Therefore, on the negative side, glass houses in dreams can symbolize feeling of exposure, feelings of having no retreat, no safe place to go and retreat from the world.

The best way to decide if a glass house in a dream is attempting to communicate a positive or negative message is by looking at the other imagery in the dream, our own actions in the dream, the actions of other dream characters, and finally, the feeling-tone the dream left us with upon waking.