For a couple of days now my psyche has been pushing me to tell my recurring old house dream. So I finally gave in. Well, and the Daily Prompt helped it along.

The strangest thing is that I was reminded of it because of a staircase. THIS staircase in particular. I thought these dreams where only about forgotten things, or abandoned things.

It always begins with an old abandon house that I find hidden behind the door of the closet in my bedroom. Sort of like “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” except it’s not this pretty land of fantasy, but rather this old, abandoned dingy house. Where the door is changes, it all depends on where I’m living at the time. It’s always hidden though, somewhere I never thought to look; right amongst the couches, bed and side tables where I’m living. It’s like it is a door to some lugubrious fairyland.

Once I walk through the door I am always standing in the middle of the same, large entrance way. In front of me and to the right is a staircase that runs up and around the wall in front of me, but from where I’m standing I can’t see exactly to where. It reminds me a little of the staircase from the opening scenes of “Gone with the Wind”. However, in this grand foyer, everything is charcoal gray, like it is all sooty.

Once I finally gather the courage to climb the staircase I find there are more stairs and I am starting to get lost. It’s like with each step my options open up. It is overwhelming. I finally decide to ignore it all and focus on just one door.

I finally reach a landing and I see that even here everything is covered in soot. More doors. There are things everywhere, in every room; everything is as if someone just one day got up and left a long time ago, and it became so dusty that everything turned gray. Every room has the sense of abject neglect. Things are broken in some rooms.

I at some point get completely distracted by this pervasive gray gloom, and I find that some time has gone by and I am standing in the middle of this different room. I start to remember that I have been living here. Everything has a bit more colour to it like I’ve dusted it all off and made it my home. But I don’t remember doing it. What I do know is that I have been all alone and haven’t left. For how long? I don’t recall. It for some reason in the dream isn’t important…I am aware I guess for the first time in ages.

It is only once I start to look around that I discover that in the very room I am in there is an open door that leads out to a hallway. To the right of me, I see there is a darkened staircase. This time the staircase is wooden. So is the hallway that leads to it…a little like the hallways from some old saloon/Inn from a western.

Again, though things change as my foot hits the first step. IT morphs from that wooden staircase to another that has a more industrial feel to it. More urban. I walk up the stairs, I get to the door, but it is a heavy gauge steel door, and I have to struggle to push it open. Once I walk through the door I find I am on a rooftop somewhere I’ve never been before. It reminds me of a rooftop from New York City. I look around and all I can see for people is a group on a balcony one building over. They are trying to tell me something, but I can’t either hear what they say, or I just can’t remember. I want to be over where they are in some of the dreams, while other times I have the dream I am frightened by them.

That’s the end. I’ve had it maybe 3 times, maybe more and they’ve jumbled up together. They started maybe almost a decade or more ago. I used to dream about missing the school bus, or getting lost in a school. Those went away once I went back to college in my late twenties. This one still confounds me.

However, I now believe the key is in the door, not the house. Or maybe it’s the staircase that is the key.

OR maybe it’s just my Mom trying to tell me to “have a little faith my wilde childe, just a little faith”. ;-)

This post is part of the Daily Prompt