BASEMENT, CELLAR

Example: ‘I know I have killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar.

The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. Various people visit my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of these recurring dreams the police actually investigate the dis­appearance of “the person’’ and go into the cellar. When I wake from these dreams I always have the most terrible guilty feeling’ (Mrs P L). Usually the things we have hidden from awareness in our unconscious.

The example shows how Mrs L has killed or repressed a pan of herself. We might kill’ ambition, love, sexual drive, and push them into our uncon­scious. But the basement or cellar is also the entrance to gen­eral memones, our biological unconscious’ functions, archetypal patterns of behaviour, subliminal or psychic im­pressions, the collective unconscious. Frequently the place we keep memories of traumatic events in our life. So a dark shape or intruder might emerge from downstairs*. Our dark deeds or guilty memories are also in the basement.

A snake in the cellar, cave: our psychobiological drive; the energy behind our growth and motivation which includes sex drive. This con­nects us with awareness of our evolution. Bad smell: emotions which could cause depression or illness.

Even though basements are becoming less common in newly built houses, they are still common in dreams. To dream that you are in a basement symbolizes being deep down in your unconscious mind, in the psychological storage space where you sort through things you are finding hard to understand. A basement is the place where you’ve shelved aspects of yourself that aren’t matching your ambitions in waking life. A basement can also indicate the power that is available to you provided you are willing to make use of it, or the way in which your current attitudes are derived from past assumptions and family legends.

To dream that the basement is in disarray and messy signifies some confusion which you need to sort out. It may also represent your perceived faults and shortcomings. Wine is traditionally kept in the cellar and the contents of your unconscious can similarly harbor special treats that you can bring out on special occasions. Try to decide if your dreaming mind took you into the cellar to confront an issue in your life or to make good use of talents you have been suppressing.

Unless one’s dream flows directly out of associations with an actual basement, the connotations of an underground room are obvious enough, which is that a basement represents the unconsciousness. (Freudians view basements as symbols of sexual energy.) Being afraid of going into a basement in a dream, for example, often symbolizes fear of the unknown or fear of repressed aspects of oneself. And being locked in the basement can indicate feeling immobilized by the power of the unconscious.