And while the scientific research behind whether dream interpretation is valid is lacking, anecdotally speaking, we’ve all had a dream that felt too uncanny to ignore. So, whether you think dreaming is purely memory consolidation or playing out future scenarios, we’ve all found ourselves wondering what our weird, funny, or stressful dreams can mean. With that in mind, therapist and dream expert Leslie Ellis, Ph.D., tells mbg, to dream of your childhood home makes sense, given those deep and long-standing associations in our minds. “Ideally, we attach to our childhood home because of the memories we have of being loved and supported. It can be a time of freedom, and so poignant because we experience so many ‘firsts’ in our young lives,” she explains. And of course, there are also cases where our childhood home doesn’t bring back happy memories but rather memories of difficulty and even trauma, she adds. In any event, the places we live throughout our lives, and especially our primary childhood home, will have far-reaching effects on the subconscious, making them likely to appear in our dreams from time to time. “For example, if you dream of a particular room in the house, was there something that happened there that you can recall?” she says, adding, “Dreams can unearth memories that may be asking for integration in the present.” “It’s a reminder from the subconscious of what it was like when we were children so that we can better relate to our own children when it comes to disciplining them or understanding where they’re coming from. It can certainly help the parent-child bond,” she explains. According to Ellis, it could signal the end of something that was present in that era of the dreamer’s life. “Fire, death, and destruction may seem dire in a dream, but they are not always so negative—they can also be symbols of transformation,” she says. Loewenberg echoes this point, adding that especially if you came from an abusive or broken home, to dream of that house burning often signifies you are “in the process of destroying your attachment to the negativity from back then.”
