Demon Neighbour

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By Vexen Crabtree 2001

Occurred: 2001 May 20 (Monday)

I live in a large, wooden house, with large rooms, bookshelves, a large fireplace. I have a daughter, quite young (nearly in her teens), but she is currently at a relative's house. She's blonde, normal, I'm proud of her.

I am in the attic; a relatively large area with a few sparse pieces of furniture (bed, large wooden desk, pillows, skylight). It's my favourite room; comfortable and quiet. I am basically a yuppie, with expensive business suits and endless money.

My neighbour is going to come round, and I can hear him arrive and enter my house. We know each other well, I trust him to come straight up and say hi. Which he does. I am reminded as he enters that he always scares me a bit, wearing a heavy, well-made long and tight fitting coat. He doesn't wear shades though I'm sure they'd suit him. He is tall and looks strong. His face is always unemotional and inexpressive. But he's a consistent visitor and is always company, if not anything else.

After a while he goes away, after not really saying much. This time he scared me more than normal... he was really planning something. Like he'd finally flipped... but he left. And I was alone and scared in a big echoey house.

All remains silent for a while, and I pace once in my apartment. The atmosphere outside is dark and brooding. There is electricity in the air. Everything remains still and quiet. The wood around the whole house is brooding, scared, silent.

A drill starts up. Not amazingly loud. It's coming from next door. Quite loud actually. Drilling something. Drilling lots of holes from his house into mine. The wind is blowing outside. I simultaneously wish my daughter was here so she could take my attention off of the drilling... and am also pleased that she's far away; on this terrible and scary night. The drilling continues, and suddenly my neighbour barges down the front door and storms up the stairs.

The house begins to fall down, and I go into his house. Everything is black, and walls are missing. Rooms are joined together by rickety wooden corridors. The Demon, my neighbour, has gone, or is trapped here now, and I feel satisfied. Our two houses are flat, and there is no horizon, just blackness in every direction.

The dream continues however, and I actually pursue him. He is disappearing further and further into sparser and sparser areas of blackness, retreating to the furthest reaches of the wooden platforms. The platforms are still breaking apart, leaving him a large distance away over several broken areas of nothingness. Faint stars are visible across the larger areas of blackness.

Out of the blue, a whole horde of harmless insects and monsters (very small ones) rush towards me, many of them taken from the science fiction strategy computer game, Starcraft. Although there are lots of them they pass, the tide not rising above my knees. So I wake up nicely and slowly from the dream. But am still scared by the memory of the neighbour drilling holes between our houses with a small drill. The insanity and willpower required to do something so uncaring and determined is what is scary.

Quite an epic dream. Ended nicely... had great potential up until the Demon became distant. From then on it was an anticlimax. Nice awe-inspiring end, with me as victor and banisher of unstable force.

For older people, attic dreams often symbolize domesticity and family life. An empty or dirty attic can indicate that you need to acknowledge unhappiness in some area of your home life.

"Teach Yourself Dream Interpretation" by Leila Bright (1999)1

I don't give this interpretation any credit for this dream, it seems like a too arbitrary description - anyone and everyone can seek to acknowledge unhappiness in some area of their life - especially their personal relations, at home!