I Don't See It But I Know It's There

I had this creepy dream last night, and it's unnerved me all day long.

We had rented this shit-hole apartment in New York City. My bedroom was as big as a closet. I was thinking I might paint it, but then I realized that the paint was so old that it was peeling off the walls. In fact, some of the drywall was also missing so you could just see the frame of one wall.

There was a was a small living room that we had kept tidy but everything was just old and dingy. There was a couch and a record player and some records. Arli was on the couch. There was a record on the record player. When I stepped into the room, the needle played one word on the record, in an eerie sing-song voice - "ka-boom". It did this repeatedly. I got a bad feeling and I left the room to get some space between me and whatever that voice was.

I was suddenly sure that the place was haunted and that there was a menacing sort of spirit in the room. I called Arli to come out of the room. For whatever reason, I just wouldn't go back into that room but I wanted her out of there. She hopped off the couch, staring at the record player, and ran to me.

I knew that we had to get out of that place. I quickly pondered what kind of effort it would take to pack everything back up and what it would cost to get out that day. I decided I didn't care what it took but that there was no question that we had to leave immediately.


Ok, so I thought that I had outgrown the haunted house dreams. I used to dream that I lived in these huge mansions, with 7 stories or more, and the higher up you got in the house, the more haunted the rooms were. I was always too scared to go into any of the upper rooms. Over the years, I grew more confident and bold and after awhile I was no longer afraid of any rooms in my house.

They say that dreaming about a house is like dreaming of your own emotional interior. More recently, I will actually challenge any negativity that I encounter in my dream environment. I like to think that I had conquered whatever it was that was in my emotional tapestry that had been haunting me in my life.  It is a powerful practice to train your mind in your dream world.

That's why I'm particularly bugged by this dream. This was a new place for me. The mansions at least were expansive and grand in their own way. This apartment was confining, dark and ugly. I didn't try to confront this menacing energy, and I didn't even jump in to save my baby from it, but rather I tried to get her to get herself out. What is that all about? "Ka-boom" seems like a very obvious threat. What do I need to avoid before it blows up?

I don't see any danger on the horizon but I trust myself enough to know that I will know when it's time to take action and I will know exactly what that action is.

Or, maybe, it just means nothing at all.