A dream, on 27th September 2022. A hotel-based one. Not my usual hotel-based dream, with its long, lonely corridors, unknown faces behind closed doors, the sense of being lost and unable to leave. This dream was very different and vivid. It stayed with me all day so I assumed it was worth paying attention to, especially as it is a variation on a recurring hotel dream theme … What could it mean?!
“[…] it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” – Virginia Woolf.
In the dream, I was walking towards a hotel, located in the desert. The locale reminded me of Flagstaff, Arizona, where I once stayed and had some of the worst panic attacks (I had arrived at midnight, without my luggage (delayed, on another plane), via a taxi, the driver of which was talking about gun laws, having no sense of what was around me (sand and cacti, mainly)).
I digress.
In the dream, I approach the hotel via a paved walkway. I notice the nothingness around the hotel, and the four parking bays outside it; specifically, two for hotel staff, two for guests. This seemed peculiar, though I suppose there was enough desert around to park on, should it be required.
I enter the hotel atrium – very shiny, spick-and-span. There was a lonely receptionist behind a lonely desk in the middle of this cavernous hall, empty apart from the reception desk and a few other people in business suites milling around, zombie-like. I was disappointed – where is the welcoming bar/restaurant, the comfy armchairs, the murmur of bookings and checkouts and complaints, the ping of the lift?
I headed down a narrow, winding staircase, feeling anxious in the way I do when entering anything tunnel-like with no windows and scary push-button doors (what if the doors stop working and I’m stuck like a spider under a glass, between two push-button doors?!)
This is where the dream veered. Unlike the usual long, lonely, capillary corridors that typically characterise the hotel dream, instead I came to, beneath the barren reception, I a sprawling entertainment multiplex. An ice rink, cinema, swimming pool, shopping mall, a fairground … bright, busy, bustling, and buoyant, everyone happy there, having a wonderful time. My overwhelming feeling was one of astonishment that all this existed in the desert, below the lonely lobby.
I knew some of the people there. The only one I remember now is my cousin, our ages the only thing in common. Confident, beautiful, stylish, charming, funny. We aren’t close in life but here in the dream we were arm-in-arm. She was laughing at something I had said, not in an unfriendly way, but in a way that said she was nothing but delighted to be in my company. We seemed to be heading towards the cinema with many others, all of whom seemed to be following me.
What can I take from this?
Does this represent the discovery of my inner self and source of joy? That part that can always be relied upon, rather than seeking it outside, in a world that can often seem barren of care?
Everyone is busy caring for themselves, and rightly so. Yet without that inner resilience and feeling of being worthy of care, it is hard to care for oneself. Perhaps this dream is reflecting how I’m finding mine.
“Life […] is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything […] it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle.” – Virginia Woolf
I feel so tickled when exploring my dreams, when I manage to connect with those small, at first seemingly insignificant details. They’re such a delightful wink or nod from the unconscious. Like the parking spaces outside the hotel – why am I able to recall this? Two for staff, two for guests. Why so few? Why so precise as to be recalled? Perhaps for how few people I let in, how I control that, monitor it, restrict it like lines on the ground control the traffic.
I love the sensation of the realisation that comes from examining dreams, like the steps taken down to that wide world below. As I recognised the basement multiplex as perhaps representing my unconscious/repressed/disowned parts, I said to myself, how strange, that I should be thinking of myself as a hotel with limited parking and a hidden funhouse beneath.
And as I said it, within 2 seconds it transformed from perplexing to painfully obvious. But of course, I think of myself as a hotel! It makes sense, in the context of my interest in theories of psychological parts (trauma parts, Internal Family Systems, archetypes etc.), that I should imagine myself as a hotel containing all of mine; that my exterior should be plain and barren, unassuming, a lobby area where a few people float in formality (my defences), not interacting with anyone, with all the joy and spontaneity and fun hidden beneath that.
All my parts staying there, guests at the Hotel Fee, are parts of me. The quiet, formal exterior, my facade – all control, compliance, professionalism – with chaos underneath. But fun chaos. The ignoring of the external in favour of introspection, the number of visitors tightly controlled.
The assumption of my dream interpretation is that all aspects of the dream – the environment, layout – represent parts of me. The lonely receptionist and unknowable businesspeople, they make sense to me. So why my cousin? Is this a part that can believe I am beautiful and confident and joyful, capable of unabashed, full-on laughter and gaiety? Or rather, the part that is all those things?
I love this – my conscious self, observing my parts and self-structure through dreams.
Another dream 29th September 2022 – I’m in a pub, the one that used to be just around the corner from the family home I lived in from age 11 to 18.
In the dream, the inside of the pub started off small, constricting. As I was looking for a table – I wanted the right location, to read in comfort and peace, away and out of sight from others – I continued walking around, coming back to the start, in fascination at how much bigger it was that I’d initially thought, seeming to grow the more I explored. I found myself wanting to keep looking around, to make sure it stayed that way, and to get my bearings: if I sit here, I’ll be relative to that, there, and over there, ok I know where I am.
What can I take from this?
Not sure. Why a pub? Why that pub? I remember going there a few times but only to the separate function room they had around the back (many a family and school friend’s birthday party).
The pub proper was always a mystery. There is something for me about places that are familiar yet unknown. Like a pub around the corner from my house that I’ve never entered. A kind of fascination there, like something so unknown that stepping in would be like stepping into another country. The juxtaposition of the familiar with the unknown.
So perhaps the dream was about entering the unknown, with a sense of curiosity and wonder, rather than anxiety, supported by the fact that it is at least vaguely familiar.
This dream took place the night after winning an award for work. During the event and following I have observed myself intensely. The event was an overwhelming somatic and emotional experience. Receiving the award, the photos, and the congratulations after – I wasn’t in my body, my body was so tense, I just wanted to escape. And who would suspect? What a pleasant, laid-back evening. It was lovely, but I wasn’t really there.
Now, the attack: people don’t believe you deserved to win. You didn’t deserve to win. They think Debbie should have won instead.
Exhaustion.
Withdrawn and feeling bitter at work because no one cares, it’s only you, no one believes you deserve it, would rather it had gone to Debbie (I get it, go away already*).
Is the pub dream reflecting my recognising the familiar yet somewhat still unknown and mysterious parts of myself? The descent of this grumpiness that overwhelms me in response to an undeniably positive and affirming situation, leading to suspicion and mistrust of others, followed by shame and guilt as everyone really has been so nice about it all.
Familiar feelings. How much more can I know about them? How much difference will it make?
Perhaps, like in the pub, as I continue to explore, the more I will find that I didn’t even suspect was there, those mysterious, hidden nooks. Perhaps the act of looking will expand the scene.
Parts work
*We all have parts to our personalities and psyches. Each part has different wants and needs. Some may be stuck at a younger age, with the wants and needs of a child of that age. Becoming aware of them allows compassion for ourselves at that time, context for those wants and needs, observing from an adult place for where those parts can be guided and integrated. So, don’t go away, stay, and talk a while. Just … take it easy, okay?
A last-minute thought: pubs and hotels. I like them, clearly! I like that I can be around people in them, but still enjoy solitude, in a room of my own or at a table in a cosy, cushioned corner somewhere, with a wine and a book.
