DREAM GALAXY

Research case · Cities & buildings

Waiting at the wrong house

Not stated · Date unknown · contemporary study

I dreamed that I was supposed to meet a friend so that I could take some photographs of him, and we were meant to meet at his house in a nearby town. In the dream, I was already at his house and waited for him together with another friend. The second friend then left, and the first friend messaged me to say that he was running late and asked where we should meet. I replied that I would wait for him at his house, but he called me and said that he no longer lived there. Feeling very anxious, I took the keys and went out through the door. Meanwhile, there was a man in the house taking a shower. I woke up feeling extremely anxious. During this dream, I woke up and fell asleep again several times, and within the dream I realized that it was not reality because one friend's hair was a different color, because I did not actually know where the other friend lived, and because I wondered why I had the keys to that house. Yes, I performed reality checks when I woke from the dream, and I was indeed awake.

Original text — Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials, Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia

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Source
Virtual reality as a metacognitive training tool for lucid dreaming — Supplementary Materials — Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco and Nicola De Pisapia, 2026. Supplementary Materials, Semi-lucid Dream Reports, Report S3.3
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Record type
Research case
Place
Not stated · Italian
Date
Date unknown · contemporary study
Uncertainty
Moderate — De-identified lucid-dream report. The English text is the study authors’ translation from Italian; the calendar dream date is unknown. Chinese title and translation are AI-generated editorial drafts, not human-verified.
Imagery
Friend · House · City · Gate · A stranger
Feelings
Unease · Wonder

Another way to look at this dream

Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.

Friend

How long since you last saw this friend? What were you doing together in the dream — something you used to do?

Dream research Dream research

The “continuity” view in dream research finds that most dream characters are people we know, and that dreams tend to carry on our waking relationships and concerns.

G. William Domhoff, The Scientific Study of Dreams (2003)

Tang poetry Literature

Du Fu, not knowing whether his exiled friend Li Bai is alive, writes that “my old friend entered my dream, knowing how long I have thought of him”.

Du Fu, “Dreaming of Li Bai” (759)

All perspectives on friend →

House

Whose house was it — one you know, or one you only know in the dream? Which room did you spend the most time in?

Jung · The house as psyche

In 1909 Jung dreamed of a house whose cellar led down into older and older layers — Roman, then prehistoric. He later took it as an image of the psyche, with the oldest layers at the bottom.

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Phenomenology Philosophy

Gaston Bachelard argued that the house “shelters daydreaming”: the attic and cellar of a childhood home stay with us as places to imagine from.

Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1958)

Chinese fiction Literature

In chapter 5 of Dream of the Red Chamber, Baoyu dreams his way into the Land of Illusion, a palace of cabinets holding registers of the household’s fates.

Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber, ch. 5

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City

Do you know this city? Were you looking for a way, hurrying, or lost?

Jung · The centre

In 1927 Jung dreamed of a dark, sooty Liverpool; at its centre was a square with a pool, an island and a single magnolia tree in bloom, lit as if by sunlight. He took it as an image of a centre in the psyche — what he called the Self.

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Song-dynasty memoir Literature

After Kaifeng fell, Meng Yuanlao wrote down the lost capital street by street and called the book a “dream of splendour”, comparing his memory to the Yellow Emperor waking from his dream of the land of Huaxu.

Meng Yuanlao, Dongjing Meng Hua Lu (1147), preface

Hebrew Bible Myth & scripture

The builders of Babel set out to make a city and a tower reaching heaven, and end scattered, no longer speaking one language.

Genesis 11:1–9

All perspectives on city →

Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.

Dreams that share its images