Not only did I keep having this dream last night, but I've had it before several times. With variations, this is the central theme.

I am moving into an old, run-down, very cluttered apartment that has been used for storage, and all of the dusty old things are still in it. In some versions of the dream, the apartment is the entire attic of a large house. In others, it is some attached rooms the homeowner doesn't use. In return for fixing it up, I am offered some deal such as very cheap rent or no deposit. I am given free reign to fix the place up as I wish. I can use anything I find in the apartment if I want, with the understanding that if I move out, I leave it there. But the homeowner asks me not to throw anything away, since he/she (I never actually see the homeowner) may some day want those things again. Fortunately, the apartment is always big enough that I can use some of the rooms to live in, and others to store the stuff.

The rooms are always in varying state of repair, with the rooms in front holding up better than the ones in back. Therefore I live in the better rooms, use the more run-down ones for storage, and close them off.

There are usually several family members with me when I begin the repairs. They can be siblings, or partners of siblings, and in one version my husband and oldest daughter were there. One part of the dream that isn't so pleasant is that it seems every suggestion I make gets second-guessed. "No, you don't want the TV there. You want it here." "That kind of light fixture won't work." My siblings and their partners tend to act as if they are the ones who are living there, and I am the guest. After the dream had been repeated a few times last night, I started referring to myself as "the dumbass," since I was being treated like I didn't know anything.

Toward the end of the dream, people show up asking about the things I have in storage. They are relatives of the homeowner, these are their things, and they want them back. So I give them back. Except in the last "rerun" of the dream, when it was ghosts showing up, and I was exorcising them.

Can anyone make any sense of this?

[Sunna]

In general in dream symbology your house usualy would be your SELF. If it looks good and is sound, that's how you perceive the self, if it's crumbling, and in disrepair, that's a differnt vsion. I used to get dreams of my house faling apart, developing dark moldy corridors, foundations cracking. It reflected to me my feeling that my life was falling apart.

The stuff in "the house" would then be the stuff of your life, the old stuff, the cobwebs, the things falling apart, the dark unexplored attics are all the things that sit in your mind, the memories, thoughts, events, beliefs, histories, accomplishments, talents, abilities etc. You can't really THROW things away, because you cannot make things that HAPPENED un-happen, or what had EXISTANCE make non-existent. But it is up to you whether you make them shiny and useful or let them lie there broken and dusty. You can stuff them in the closets, but they still will be there.

As to your family members bossing around in YOUR apartment, who are you allowing to boss around your self and your life?

The homeowner could be your idea of God. You were given this life to live with all the stuff. The homeowner did not dictate what you do with that stuff. Gave you lemons, did you make lemonade or just complained that they are not peaches - really totally up to you.

Homeowner's relatives wanting stuff back? Well, the common story goes we were given gifts to share with the world. Something like that?

The ghosts and exorcising them. I really don't know, but it feels very important. They are unwelcome, threatening visitors, so are you feeling yourself being intruded upon? Need to exorcise something out of your life? Something being demanded of you that if not something you feel you want to share, nor that the demands even have any validity?

[Sunna]

Ah, had another thought.

About the homeowner (instead of God - the subconscious is not really that philosophical) Ask yourself if you are feeling you are living life on a borrow? Do you feel that your life is not really your life, that you are not the owner of your life? Now we have not just your relatives bossing around your life, but you are not even the owner of your own life, your own stuff! Is that how you feel? Is asking the question if that is how you feel reveal something to you?

If this is what it is, then this whole thing is about insecurity and fear. The homeowners relatives take on a sinister bend from the get go, even before they turned into ghosts.

How do you feel in the dream when you are exorcising the ghosts?