Breaking and Entering

Since I was little, I've put a lot of stock in my dreams. Sometimes they tell me things. There was the re-occurring dream I had every fall for years that I was kidnapped by a witch and being held hostage in the house next to the place I attended pre-school. In this dream, I was in a room filled with other children and we were all terrified, but there came a moment when I realized that nothing was really keeping us in the room. The witch was in the house, but she wasn't in the room. Nothing was binding us, the door was unlocked. The only thing holding us hostage was our own fear. For years I would have this dream and get to point where I was ready to escape. I would try and try to compell the other children to come with me, but they were always too scared. I kept trying and trying to convince them, but then I'd hear the witch's footsteps in the corridor and know that it was too late, and that we were going to die. Then I'd wake up. After about five years of having this dream, three or four time each fall, one night, it just changed. I changed. I still tried to convince the other children to save themselves, but this time, when they wouldn't, I accepted it. I walked out the door and down the hall, and out the front door. I was crying, sobbing, because I knew they were going to die, but as I made it out of the yard and through the gate, there was a car waiting for me and a warlock who was going to take me into the witness protection program. I was going to live.

I've also had a few premonition dreams. When I was sixteen I kept a journal and recorded a series of three dreams I had and was shocked when a few months later I found myself in situations mirroring what I had already seen. Dreams can be creepy that way. Though mostly as opposed to the future, my dreams often give me insight into the present and things going on around me.

Recently I have had two dreams about being robbed. During the first dream, I was in my house with a bunch of people I don't know in real life. I was having an informal party with some Samoan guys who were playing nintindo and drinking beer, then my friend S came by. In the dream S lived in the apartment downstairs from me. She looked dazed. Her apartment had been broken into. It was the second or third apartment in our building that this had happened to and I knew immediately that I needed to get a new lock on my door. Moreover I had a feeling that the thief was still lurking around, just waiting for me to go to work. I wanted to call a locksmith, but it was too early in the morning. Luckily the Samoans agreed to stay at my house while I went to work, that way it wouldn't be unprotected. Then I woke up.

In the second dream I am, again, in my apartment, though it doesn't look anything like where I really live. It's a large flat with several rooms and in this dream I don't live alone either. I overhear people saying they are going to break into my place and so I start fortifying the house. I'm pissed and determined to keep everyone out. I get on the computer for some reason, but when I turn it on the printer resumes. It looks like my mom had been printing out money. It comes shooting out of the printer packaged in these red and white envelopes. I take them and hide them behind a picture. Then suddenly there is water coming into the apartment, even though we are on the 4th floor. My roomates and I need to evacuate, but I am locking all the doors. We finally climb out the window. On the ledge are a bunch of homeless children sitting like pidgeons.They look like extras from the cast of Annie. I am the last one out of the window and I start climbing down the brick facade of the building. Below me are the other tenants from the building. It looks as though there has been a fire because there is a fire truck and police, but there isn't any smoke anywhere, just water. As I am just reaching the ground, I look up and see one of those kids on the ledge trying to climb into my window. Pissed, I started shouting and climbing back up the building again to grab him. Then I wake up.

What does it mean? I'm not sure. I've been trying to figure it out. My friend C says that when you dream about someone breaking into your home,it's not about physical safety, but rather a sign that someone close to you is commiting an act of betrayal. If home is a symbol for self, why are there so many people in my home in these dreams, and why do I not recognize any of them?