Dreaming about a place that was two places
The setting version of the composite person, and just as common. A place that is unmistakably two places at once, with no conflict felt at the time, and the objection arriving only on waking.
Also searched as: it was my school but also my nan's house, two places at once, a place that was somewhere else
The reports are consistent and dreamers apologise for them in the same way they apologise for composite people: it was my school and it was also my grandmother's house, and that was fine.
A second form is a place with the right name and the wrong layout, which the childhood-home entry covers in detail.
A third is a place changing identity mid-dream, with the new identity applied backwards over the earlier part.
No objection is raised at the time, which is the important detail and is exactly what the composite-person entry reports about people.
Common associations
- Identity asserted, for a place rather than a person.
- No conflict felt.
- Retroactive identity, in the changing reports.
- The same finding as the composite person.
Positive readings
The recognition is useful and it is reassuring: this is ordinary, extremely common, and follows directly from how dream settings are built.
It is also a workable check once you know to ask where you are and whether the answer is one place.
Difficult readings
Waking disorientation, mild, and occasionally a lingering confusion about a real place.
Nothing serious is reported.
Psychological perspectives
Dream settings are generated locally, without a map, and identity is supplied as an attribute rather than derived from what is there. Those two facts together produce this exactly.
So a place can be two places for the same reason a person can be two people: nothing is tracking either, and the label is not derived from the contents.
That parallel is the point of this entry. Stating it for places as well as people shows the mechanism is general rather than something about faces.
Cultural and historical
Interpretive traditions treat composite settings as meaningful joinings, which is the same reading they give composite people and requires the same unwarranted assumption of purpose.
The archive records it and does not adopt it, for the reasons the composite-person entry sets out.
What the sleep science says
Reasonably supported: dream environments are generated locally without a consistent underlying model.
Reasonably supported: identity is asserted as an attribute rather than derived.
Not established: any significance in which two places are combined.
Your own context
- Which two places?
- Did they have anything in common?
- Did you notice at the time?
- Did it change partway?
If this recurs
Log both places every time. Dreamers who do this sometimes find a consistent pairing, which is a fact about their own memory rather than a meaning.
Emotions often reported
- confusion
- nostalgia
- curiosity
- unease
- detachment
- wonder
Specific a place that was two places dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Which two places was it?
- Did I notice at the time?
- Did they have anything in common?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical ResearchAcademic book
Jennifer M. Windt (2015) · MIT Press
Cited for: A modern philosophical treatment of what dreams are, including the immersive-spatiotemporal-hallucination account and the status of dream reports as evidence.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.Dreaming and the Brain: Toward a Cognitive Neuroscience of Conscious StatesPeer-reviewed research
J. Allan Hobson, Edward Pace-Schott and Robert Stickgold (2000) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Cited for: A synthesis of the brain-state differences between waking, REM and non-REM, and what they predict about the character of dreaming in each.
- 4.Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication During REM SleepPeer-reviewed research
Stephen LaBerge, Lynne Nagel, William Dement and Vincent Zarcone (1980) · Perceptual and Motor Skills
Cited for: The eye-signalling experiments that established lucid dreaming as a verifiable state rather than a self-report.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of a place that was two places have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- ActionGetting lostDistinct from searching, which is looking for a thing. This is not knowing where you are, and the reports centre on a specific and quite eerie experience: a place you know well that has stopped being navigable.
- PlaceCityCities in dreams are usually composites: a place assembled from several real ones, which the dreamer nonetheless names confidently as somewhere specific. That combination of accurate detail and impossible layout is the most reported feature.
- PersonSomebody who was two peopleAlmost every dreamer has had one and almost every dreamer assumes it is peculiar to them. A person who is unmistakably two people at once, or who is one person wearing another's face, is common and follows directly from how dream characters are made.
- PlaceChildhood homeThe most reported dream setting there is. It usually appears altered (extra rooms, wrong layout, doors that were not there) and the alterations are more informative than the house.
- PlaceA borderBorder dreams are document dreams, and they run into the finding that makes them almost inevitable: a passport is a piece of text with a photograph in it, and dreams can render neither.
- PlaceA building of stairsA recurrent and distinctive report: a building whose only content is stairs and levels that do not connect properly. It is the clearest single demonstration that dreams do not hold a floor plan.
