Door in my dream keeps trying to take me to the life I’ve needed

By David McElroy · June 14, 2020

How can I miss a life I’ve never known? How can I long for someone I’ve never touched? And how can I love little people who don’t even exist?

I’ve awakened from a dream again — around 4 a.m. — and I can’t go back to sleep. I didn’t know where I was when I woke up. My bedroom felt unfamiliar, because I expected to be somewhere else. And then I realized where I was — and that the place I expected was only in the dream.

All my life, I’ve had dreams about a huge and confusing house. I came to understand years ago that my mind uses this as a metaphor for my mind and my life. The house is me. When I was young, I had a lot of dreams about trying to squeeze through a narrow passage under the house. The passage would be narrower and narrower — until I was terrified that I would be stuck there and die.

As an adult, I’ve often dreamed about the house. Sometimes different floors or wings. Or a basement. The layout changes at times. Lately, though, there’s one door I’m always drawn toward — and I know what’s behind the door.

Every time I go to this great hall, I know it’s for a choice. My dreaming mind seems to have made up rules. Every door represents something different, but I can choose only one of them. Choosing one door will make the other choices disappear.

This door is always hard to open. The wood of the door is too tight. The metal of the knob or hinges seems as though it’s stuck. Maybe it’s rusted. Maybe it’s just because it hasn’t been used. I don’t know what it is, but it’s hard to open.

This door is different from the others. It’s bigger and heavier. The others are more cheaply built. I know they would all open more easily. But without knowing why, I know that this is the right door.

I was confused when I woke up a few minutes ago because my mind was still behind that door. I was still in a place that doesn’t seem to really exist. Not yet. Maybe it never will.

She’s behind that door — and that’s why crossing through that door changes a lot of things. In the dream, when I choose that door, the other doors in that hall disappear, as though they were the other choices that I didn’t make.

I can see the inside of the house behind that door, but it’s unlike any I’ve seen in real life. There are children there. They don’t even exist, but in the dream, they are incredibly real. While I’m in the dream, I see their faces and I hear their voices. There is so much joy in there. So much love.

The faces fade as I come back to this world. I somehow start losing the details. But while I’m there, it’s like I’ve stepped into another world — one which doesn’t really exist. How can I long for that world when I’ve never been there? Why is this image so powerful, while the choices that could lie behind the others doors seem so mundane and lifeless?

If I don’t go through that door, that world will never exist. It’s like an alternate universe in a science fiction movie that won’t exist unless the character does one special thing to make it happen.

I know the door is a metaphor, but I believe the world behind it is real. Or could be. I just don’t know how to go though there and stay.

I’ve been reading a German novel from the early 20th century — “Narcissus and Goldmund,” by Hermann Hesse — for the last few days. Explaining the book would take took long here, but it’s an exploration of how we synthesize the practical and idealistic parts of ourselves. I haven’t finished it, but I suspect one of the key lessons is how we have to have both parts — the practical and rational as well as the idealistic and creative — in order to live a good life. It seems to be about the philosophical notion of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

For the first 30 years of my life, I was Narcissus, the character representing the way of the rational scholar and devotion to duty and practicality. Since then, I’ve been Goldmund, the idealistic and irresponsible artist type who wandered the world, unwilling to stay in any place, but capable of expressing great love and feeling powerful emotions.

I have felt a strong identification with this book so far, because I have felt as though I entered the period of synthesizing these parts of myself starting about 18 months ago.

And somehow, the life that lies behind that door represents the synthesis of these two parts of myself. And I suspect it’s the only way I will ever really achieve the things I was created to do.

It would be easier to go through one of the other doors. Maybe I should do that. I’m painfully tired of traveling through this world alone. Choosing one of those other doors would take care of that. But it feels as though it would be the equivalent of giving up — of never becoming the true intended me.

It’s 5 a.m. now. The sun will be coming up in another half hour, so I should try to get back to sleep. But as I look around at where I am, I know it’s just a temporary stopping place. I’ve owned this little house for five years, but it’s still not my home.

In my heart — and in my dreams — I’m waiting to walk through one of those doors.

It seems as though the typical choice about life and love is between someone who’s safe but boring and someone who you’re passionate about but who scares you for some reason. It’s not always true, but it seems common.

Depending on the circumstances, you can ruin your future with either choice, so there’s no perfect rule such as, “Take the safe path,” or, “Choose the one you’re passionate about.” Finding the right balance is tough — and that’s part of the reason I keep thinking about “Narcissus and Goldmund.”

It reminds me of an old Pat Terry song lyric: “Demand too much and you may end up empty-handed, demand too little and regret is your reward.”

I don’t want to end up alone and empty-handed, but I don’t want to choose the wrong door and regret my choice until the day I die.

It’s hard to make a right choice, but it’s waiting for me in my dreams. And in real life.

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