In Your Dreams | July

A DREAM COLUMN

Time for another installment of In Your Dreams, a monthly column where you write in with your most pressing dream questions, and we use our sharply honed research skills to tell you what’s wrong with you. Just kidding! You’re perfect. But we will tell you what might be going on in your unconscious based on very thorough Googling. This month’s dreamer is struggling with some filth, literally. Let’s get into it, because much like the Marie Kondo meme, we love mess.

I keep having versions of this dream where I find dirty things in my house. I’ll go to grab a water glass, and the only cups I can find are used. Or I’m getting dressed and all the clothes in my closet are unwearable and need to be washed. It usually ends with me pulling out a comically endless parade of dirty things that eventually surround me. Usually I’m a pretty neat person, so what is this dream trying to tell me?

Your dream calls to mind a saying most often heard from the mouths of gossiping neighbors: No one knows what happens behind closed doors. It’s a reminder that while things may seem perfect on the surface, dirty cups lurk within! It sounds like you’ve kept your actual space tidy (in this economy? good for you), but this dream could be a signal that you’ve been letting the emotional dishes pile up. Or, to extend the housekeeping metaphor, is there anything you’re sweeping under the rug? Often dreams like this are meant to draw your attention to some emotional clutter you’ve been overlooking or avoiding.

And let us reassure you how normal that is. The world demands our energy at all times. We’re so regularly overloaded and overstimulated with infinite information just a scroll away, there’s only so much bandwidth to go around. It’s not feasible to deal with everything everywhere all at once, and it’s only natural to set challenging things aside to deal with later, consciously or not. And you better believe that you will be dealing with them later, even if you forget about them. The longer things are set aside, the more likely they are to leak out into life unexpectedly. Or in this case, show up in dreams as a clown car’s worth of dirty clothes emerging from your closet.

You say you’re “pretty neat.” Is there an emotional component to your tidiness? Your brain is revisiting this metaphor because it has some weight for you. How you feel about filth or disorganization could give you a clue to the severity of the discomfort you’re really dealing with. Some people clean because the clutter is too troubling. Or maybe you simply have enviable discipline. The more intolerable or shameful you find mess, the more distressing this dream probably feels.

If this isn’t clicking for you right away, spend a little time with this idea before you write it off. We’re not always as locked in on our internal worlds as we think. You might’ve left something unaddressed for so long it’s become background noise and you’re used to turning it out. Maybe you feel fine, but you’re unconsciously burdened hiding an imperfect side of yourself. Or you never quite resolved that issue with your sister, or you’ve got constant low-grade dissatisfaction with your job. Whatever the case may be, if you compartmentalize something, it might fight to stay hidden at first. You could try journaling or meditation to see what comes up. Or, if you prefer something more active, a long walk or even, yes, actual real life cleaning might help you turn off your thinking brain and touch down with your unconscious mind. Think of it as a little spring (well, summer) cleaning for the mind. Once you vacuum the sofa and dust the baseboards in the home, you might just be ready to air the dirty laundry within.

If you’ve ever woken up from a dream like, what the hell was that, and would like to be featured in the next In Your Dreams, contact us at dreams@lunya.co with a detailed description of the inner workings of your unconscious mind. We're dreaming of hearing from you.