Dream Diaries

Extreme Home Makeover: Subconscious Edition

The dream took place in a house I recognized immediately—even though it looked a little less run-down than I remembered. In waking life, this place used to be a tiny, worn-out gas station with just two pumps, awkwardly wedged between the first apartment my ex-husband and I shared on our own, and the Culver’s he worked for during college and now owns. In the dream, the gas station had transformed into a modest white house with a carport attached, as if my brain had done a little remodeling on a memory I didn’t know I still carried. Inside it was sort of craftsman style- dark, but homey. Out front, a carport jutted out like an arm doing a stiff handshake, held up by a single brick pillar down the center in the shape of an “I” that screamed, “I am the backbone of this operation!”

I opened the front door and spotted two kids—maybe nine and eleven—kneeling at the base of the pillar, pulling bricks out like it was Jenga for future engineers. They looked up like, “Hi! We’re here to dismantle your reality one brick at a time!” And I, for reasons only dream logic understands, smiled and went back inside.

Cue the boyfriend, frowning like a dad at a suspicious noise.

“What’s going on?”

“Just a couple kids messing with the bricks,” I said with the confidence of someone definitely not concerned that their house might fall over.

He raised a metaphorical eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we stop them? What if it collapses? What if they get hurt?”

“Nah,” I said, like a chill oracle who just got a message from the Beyond. “It’s fine.”

He did the shrug-walk-away combo that means, “I’ll allow it, but I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

Time seemed to pass quickly. Several dream hours later I opened the front door to check on the boys again and…plot twist: the entire pillar vanished. Houdini-style. Poof. Gone. No dust, no rubble, just empty air and an architectural impossibility. The carport stood tall, levitating like it had recently converted to a new-age belief system.

I wandered out, blinking at the miracle-turned-mystery. Not only was the pillar gone, but now some siding on the house was damaged and wires were exposed—like the veins of the home had been uncovered. I didn’t panic. I just stared, stunned and squinting at the raw, humming edges of something I’d never thought I’d see.

I heard construction noises to my right and intuitively walked in that direction. My jaw still hung slightly ajar in disbelief. I’m fairly certain I was in shock. I crossed the street and found a construction crew hard at work on the neighbor’s house (also white, also smugly intact). Except now it looked like an ant farm. Tunnels, chambers, and winding inner structures. And wouldn’t you know it? The bricks looked very familiar.

I asked one of the workers, a tall man in navy blue, if those were, in fact, my bricks. He shrugged like a bureaucrat in a budget meeting and mumbled something about just doing his job. Another builder, a red-faced ginger in an orange shirt, looked annoyed that I was interrupting his mission to install my former security system into someone else’s underground clubhouse. He was more diplomatic, but the answer was the same: not my problem, lady.

And still, I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t even confused anymore. Just… aware. Like I should note this and move on to the next issue- what to do about the exposed wires and damaged siding. I would certainly appreciate my bricks being returned- that would certainly make me feel more secure. But it did appear the car port was mostly fine, so…moving on. I shrugged and went home.


Interpretation (a.k.a. overthinking is my spiritual hobby):

This dream had layers. Like lasagna. Or an emotionally complex onion.

The house? That’s me. A metaphor for my current self—all the routines, beliefs, roles, and illusions I consider structural.

The pillar? Probably my job or really any of the many roles I’ve been holding onto like a caffeine-deprived squirrel clutching its last acorn. Roles like teacher, mother, caretaker, partner -they feel central to who I am. Stabilizing. But surprise: the dream kids removed the pillar-my rolls-, and nothing collapsed.

Those kids? Little disruptors. Inner child energy. Breaking generational trauma energy. Unconcerned with adult concepts like “load-bearing” and “consequences.” Maybe they represent curiosity, playfulness, or a subconscious nudge toward deconstruction. They just wanted to see what would happen.

The boyfriend’s alarmed reaction? That’s my inner protector. The voice that says, “What if this change ruins everything?” It means well. But in this dream, I overrule it with a cosmic shrug.

The exposed wires (the house’s “veins”)? My raw emotional systems. Uncovered. Untamed. Kind of beautiful. The truth behind the siding. This felt less like damage and more like a reveal. A backstage pass to my own inner mechanics.

And the builders? Maybe society. Maybe other parts of myself. Either way, they took my old bricks and used them in an entirely different structure. I wasn’t invited to the repurposing party. But also—I didn’t need to be.

Because here’s the kicker:

My house didn’t fall.

Turns out, I wasn’t being held up by that pillar after all. It was just there for aesthetics. For the illusion of safety. For the idea that something was holding me up when really, I was holding myself all along.

Maybe the moral of the story is: sometimes the universe sends two imaginary children to casually deconstruct your coping mechanisms, and instead of screaming, you make tea and watch the house levitate.

And maybe that’s growth 🤷🏻‍♀️.

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