When I went into one room it turned into a huge new hotel and I was at the check-in desk. It was a beautiful hotel and looked like I had suddenly gone to Japan. I checked in and realized that my graduating class was all there and finding their rooms upstairs. I saw my current boyfriend (real life) walking across upstairs and he was dressed very business like; a suit, suitcase, talking on a blackberry.. the whole deal. I tried calling his name but he was too busy talking on his phone to notice.
I found my hotel room and there was already a note that I needed to attend an interview for a job in 30 minutes. Figuring I should get ready, I went into my bathroom in the hotel. Immediately upon entering the bathroom the eery feeling that I had in the mansion I began the dream in returned. I felt really scared and looked into a full wall mirror to see an asian man and woman (never seen before in my real life) looking at me from the shower. I quickly turned around and slowly walked towards them with my arm extended to see if they really existed. In my dream I felt like they were maybe ghosts or I was just seeing things. They gently touched my hand and pulled me closer to them as they stepped out of the shower.
They both looked at me and then at each other and smiled before my "mother" told me "we've missed you for so long". My heart was beating really fast and I thought "I've never seen you before, who are you?". They led me back to my room and sat me at the head of the bed. My "father" stood behind my "mother" who was sitting in front of me and my "mother" told me "we are your real parents. we are so sorry". While I never spoke to them, I still thought "what do you mean?" And without me saying that, they answered the questions I thought directly.
I glanced at the clock beside the bed and noticed that I really needed to leave for my interview. I thought that I had to leave soon and my "mother" said "We will see you later, we love you so much and we are so sorry". She leaned in to hug me and I became more scared and felt very trapped. She began crying and hugging me tighter and then I felt a burning pain on my upper right ribs. I looked down and realized that she was pulling my rib out and making it poke out of my side. I was shocked and felt more scared than I had throughout the entire time; I kept trying to push her off but she was immovable. I was thinking "what is she doing? please make this stop." In which she answered "this is the asian tradition". They both left my room quietly and I remained confused and frightened.
In order to make it to my interview on time, I ran through the hotel trying to find my interview room. While running I noticed a teacher from high school that I had a crush on sitting at a table eating lunch and laughing. I did not stop to talk to him but continued running. I ran to a night club within the hotel and it was a complete obstacle course - it was an ice rink with large glaciers and even ice slides. I tried running through but was thrown down multiple times. When I finally reached the interview door, I opened it only to be returned to the room I originally had entered from the mansion. I ran through the mansion attempting to find the elderly couple who had let me stay there but the mansion was completely empty.
I'm sorry this dream description was so long, this dream has just really scared me and I've been dying to get some insight on it. I hope you can help."
Thank you so much, dreamer, for taking the time to write out this "long" description of your dream, for sending it to me, and for waiting for so very long while I got myself together in order to respond to it! I will be in the process of catching up on the dreams I've been sent over the summer, so if you've sent me one, don't worry, you're in the pipeline!
As has been discussed before in the blog, dreams in which a house plays a key role are simply expressions of the self. The characteristics of the house correspond to the feelings that the dreamer has about themselves- so in this case, I'd venture a guess that overall, your self-image is fairly good. That the house is a mansion, and that you describe it as lavish suggests that you at least like the way the world perceives you. Additionally, the elderly couple and the young girls in the house are again reflections of aspects of yourself. Elderly people tend to take on roles of wisdom in dreams, while young girls tend to reflect naivety, impulsivity and emotionality.
Interesting that you feel that someone has died in the mansion, and that this sense is what sends you on a trip through all its various rooms. That a presence remains in the rooms of your mind, so to speak, makes me believe that what has "died" is some aspect of your self, or of your self image. What that aspect is, I cannot say for sure, but there are some other details of this dream that suggest possibilities.
So you enter into a room and suddenly find yourself in a rather exotic hotel. Hotels are places of transition, change, motion and public image, and the fact that you mention the appearance of your graduating class furthers this idea. Graduation is also a time of shift, transition and in this economic climate, uncertainty. You also see your boyfriend, but he's too wrapped up in "business" to pay you any mind. Just from these few lines alone, I would suggest that the entire dream may be a reflection of your fear of not finding a purpose or occupation post-graduation. Since I have just recently graduated college myself, it is certainly possible that I am merely projecting my fears onto your dream- only you can know for sure! However, this idea of your boyfriend not hearing you call his name, well, it seems clear cut to me that you're anxious that his professional life will divide the two of you.
The next set of images reinforces the idea that the dream may be about a fear of a loss of identity, or a confusion of identity, surrounding the complex issue of what to do post-graduation. You arrive in your place of transition (aka your hotel room) and you receive a note that says you have a job interview that you need to get to. When you go to prepare yourself for the interview, you find a couple whose ethnic/national identity presumably does not match your own, yet these people claim to be your biological parents. The confusion comes with the fact that if they are your parents, you must now question the most basic things that you know about yourself, from your lineage forward.
That these people appear, and that your eerie feeling returns, as you are supposed to begin your job hunt suggests to me a definite link between questions of personal identity and questions of employment or occupation. On a social level, this link makes perfect sense, after all, one of the first things a new friend will ask any of us, after our names, is "what do you do?" And the response that you give them says something about who you are!
Here's where it gets really interesting, at least to any readers who may also be horror fans: your "mother" begins to pull a rib out of your body! Let's think about the implications of this injury for a moment, on both the literal and figurative levels. I wouldn't be a good literature graduate if I didn't mention that in the Christian version of the Creation Myth (big EMPHASIS on the MYTH part) God pulled a rib from Adam and used it to create Eve. In this instance, your "mother" (person you should be able to trust with your life, confide in, etc) is a God-like figure, so I couldn't help but bring this myth up. She is someone whose appearance changes your mental landscape, she is a mysterious figure who claims to have brought you to life; yet when you succumb to her embrace, she injures you. Not only is this injury physically painful, in real life, this could be a life-threatening injury. The ribcage of a human being contain ones most vulnerable, and vital, internal organs. The ribcage is the protective housing for the parts we cannot live without.
To have a rib pulled out, then, by a mother figure, suggests that the changes you are facing are ones in which you have been left in the hands of a mysterious force which you cannot control, and that there is a good possibility that you will be in great peril. Again, this act is a reflection of a deep-rooted fear.
You escape from your "parents", and you see another figure whom you have trusted, a high school teacher whom you have previously admired. Rather than being able to consul you, or help you, this teacher is oblivious to your needs and goes on talking and laughing. Is it possible that the people whom you used to look to for guidance no longer have the answers that you need?
Finally, you attempt to get to the interview. In this portion of the dream sequence, you are working as hard as you possibly can to regain control of your fate, or, if you prefer, to make it to your interview. You're running on ice, again, metaphorically this is a dangerous situation, an seemingly impossible situation, but you do everything you can to get there. Additionally, glaciers and ice are symbols of winter, a time in which the ground is frozen, and historically, food is scarce. The inclusion of this imagery suggests to me that perhaps you don't think that your efforts in finding work, and defining yourself socially, will be rewarded right now. Incidentally, the high rates of unemployment suggest that you may be right, but I would advise you to do exactly what I'm doing- tap your contacts, and think about what you really want in a job. Not just the end result, but think about the kind of job you'd like to live your life around, and then figure out how to get it.
I realize that my response to your dream is coming months later, and I do wish I would have kept plugging away at the blog over the summer. With all the craziness of graduation, moving, breaking up, and just plain living I lost my way, but I'm back now and I hope you'll both forgive me, and find some value in this dream reading.
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