Your Dream Home

America Robin Eggs: Photo by Jon Sailer on Unsplash

All homes are “dream homes.” We furnish them, not only with chairs and tables, but with memories, hopes, and dreams. Bachelard, the French philosopher, said “the house allows one to dream in peace.” I know this is not a given; I hope you have the good fortune to live in a home that shelters you from threats. If so, then you may understand his assertion that:

“the house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories, and dreams of humankind. The binding principle in this integration is the daydream.” Poetics of Space, 6.

A great daydreamer myself, I am naturally a fan of Bachelard. He brought his keen scientific mind and his poetic sensibility to the phenomenological study of imagination, dreams, and reverie, tracking the power of the imagination to “surpass reality in order to change reality,” while still retaining its commitment to reality. Imagination mediates the conversation between reality and possibility. Bachelard found that certain spaces and types of spaces—including, notably, the home—are particularly rich sources for the reveries that inspire us to pursue dreams and possibilities.

The house, as a sanctuary where dreams, feelings, and memories intertwine, is a natural place to entertain nostalgia. Nostalgia carries us into memories of the past, times when we felt happy or carefree or loved. But it can lead towards future happiness as well, if we pay attention. Reveries bring us images of what we love, what we seek, what we crave. What is attracting you now? What is calling you?

Probably you can’t return to the past, but, if you can, feather your nest with evocative, symbolic, comforting, inspiring things: things that conjure up those same feelings of love and attraction. They don’t have to be expensive or hard to acquire. Tune into the feelings, the colors, the textures… Track the impulse. Use your imagination, and see what you can come up with.

Feather it up!