Sub Rosa

I was talking to a friend about the nature of dreams and the unconscious.  We touched on Jung and the 'House Symbolisation.'  I rely on dreams as a source of creative influence as they are often random,varied and absolutely bizarre.  Whenever I am in an unsettled dream state, I repeatedly return to a house that I rented for nine years of my young adult. It has a unsettling story to tell; a past history of failed businesses, divorces, malefic squatters, domestic abuse and suicide. I too, was on the receiving end of unfortunate experiences and I wonder if there was some kind of stagnant energy or haunting of some sort that overshadowed it.  It certainly wasn't on the 'Shady Side of the Street' - it was a plain 2 up/2 down, at the top of a hill that overlooked a seaside resort.

Anyway, said friend recommended that I retrace my steps back to the unconscious.  Why did I return there and not my childhood homes/other rented properties or indeed the home I have lived in for the past twenty three years? I thought about what he had said and managed to locate a pattern within these dreams, where tokens, songs and poetry played a part. I hadn't realised that I had other repetative dream cycles - just that my psyche was most upset on the place that it had settled.  I jokingly refer to it as '9 Grimmauld Place' as a nod to the sinister building pre HP5 OOTP (although the OOTP place was number 12).

What he said made me think - "You return there because this is a place that a lot of damage was done." I was jolted; for some reason I hadn't seen it as that - but he was right.  You know when that is the case, because is strikes at the core and resonates like a temple bell.  Sometimes it takes another person to point out the obvious.  In seeing this, I think I am part way understanding myself a bit more.

I owe that guy breakfast (or at  the very least a steaming pot of tea).