on dream spaces

Yesterday afternoon, I took a nap and dreamed that I was actually able to afford the rental space in the Fine Arts that used to be Rain Dog Books (this will pretty much never happen since most months I can barely afford my tiny 9th floor space.) In the dream, I stopped by there late at night to discover that the door had been left open and trust-fund hipsters were putting in some sort of social media firm on the upper two floors and were basically using my space as their remodel staging area (which was in disarray and not at all the boutique /gallery that I wanted it to be because of work and life and always feeling out of control.) I was pretending to be cool about it, but I was so not cool with it at all. Apparently my feelings about hipsters and their upstarts go real deep. 

A week or so back, I dreamed I had bought a house, a wide spreading bungalow, and it was barely furnished, but super bright inside.  The plan was to host a writing retreat space. There were large rugs and high ceilings, a huge terrace in the back, perfect for readings and parties, and my brain was abuzz with potential. Granted, I've never really planned to buy a house, not having that sort of capital at the ready and liking the fact that if things break, the landlord readily takes care of them. But even renting a house for something like that seems a nice dream.

My dreams about my own apartment are often weird.  I have a recurring nightmare that I leave and move somewhere else and then spend the dream trying to find my way back.  Or that there is something wrong with my door and I can't keep bad people out. Or that various people break in and rearrange things while I'm sleeping--maintenance, my mother.  Sometimes they are good, like discovering a hidden room, or having a patio I didn't know about. Once, a horrible nightmare about half the building collapsing and everything sliding into a big hole.

The dream that recurs often, and is not always about my home, per se, but sometimes other spaces, is the one where a train track runs through the middle of the room and we have to be vigilant for horns and lights.  Have to move our bodies and our things to one side or the other on the regular. I was trying to remember this morning whether I had that dream before trains were a more regular part of my life in the city, but I can't remember.   Last night, it was a combination of these dreams, there was a train that ran through a piece of property I somehow owned, but that all the trees had been cut down to stumps on it. 

Another that occurs readily and often is the staircase dream, where I am trying to take a broken elevator.  I either get in and get stuck, or go for the stairs,  but the stairs are weird.  Escher-like or nonsensical.  Or too steep to actually go up or down.  Recently, there was one where the stairs were carved into a mountain, sharp stone, uneven and infinitely dangerous.  Others that involve more athletic abilities to climb.  Others, doors that open onto steep drops that I almost, inevitably, fall into, but save myself at the last minute.