Secret Passage..

Last night I couldn't get to sleep until around 5am ( T_T)...but I did have some interesting dreams during the early afternoon hours. For some reason, for as far back as I can remember, there has always been this small place that I can go to in my dreams if I ever find myself in trouble, or in need of something. The circumstances from which I get to this place is always different, and yet the entrance and the inside of this place is always the same. It's a rather comforting feeling, and disturbing at the very same time because I tend to wonder if anyone else's dreams have this unique feature. The inside is much like a large condo/apartment, and it always has the same things-- a comfy couch, a pool table, clothes for me to change into if need be, and everything else that a normal apartment would have normally. Usually no other person is in this place, or even knows how to get there, except for my father one time, although i can remember that dream in particular.

Anyways, last night, my dream involved me going back to this place...but I had forgotten about it, so it was hard to find. The entrance was boarded up and covered with spider-webs and dust. I felt like I was uncovering some ancient tomb or some sort of secret passageway---a place that was once important but had lost significance from the passage of time. Even odder is that the entrance (which usually looks like a small window) was placed up high in a wall of this woman's house. I don't know who she is now, but I did in the dream. Another thing that stays constant about the entrance to this secret room/place is that it is usually located somewhere high up that i have to climb or scramble to get to, and oddly enough, i've noticed over the years that each time i return to this room the entrance becomes smaller and smaller. I have no idea if this is in comparison to how large it was when I was little, or if it is literally becoming smaller because I am in a sense outgrowing it? If I am outgrowing it, then that's a thought that scares me. It's hard to describe,explain or understand the relationship I have with this place, unless you are me.

You know those dreams where you wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, sweating, scared and shaking? You are being chased by some insane person and you have no where to run. No matter how fast you are moving you somehow seem to be going slower. In those dreams, i have somewhere to run, hide, regroup and prepare myself in order to survive and beat whatever is after me. Dreams are a subconscious manifestation of our worries and fears in waking life, so i consider myself lucky to have a fort in my mind that i can use to protect myself against them. I noticed when I went through my bout of depression a few months ago, one of the first things to go where my dreams. Nevermind not getting enough sleep--it was when i stopped having dreams that I truly stopped and started to realize that something might be wrong with me. For me, it's NOT normal to not have a dream, if not several, every night.

Last night, my secret place was destroyed, and I'm not sure what it means. I hope it's not a sign of worse things to come--but for now, the optimistic side of me wants to think that it's a sign that I've reached an emotional awareness and courageousness that makes the special room no longer necessary for me to be okay...