Hmm--I never have, but I love pretending to decipher dreams.

I wonder if that dream was about not being able to meet other people's constantly changing expectations. Or to always get their approval, because the criteria are mounting higher all the time, and they all feel like stupid criteria anyway.

(I'm not sure you can overcome clutter once and for all--because things that are valuable and used one day are clutter the next. The best we can do, I think, is to get in a mental place that we can emotionally let go of clutter, and to be organized enough that the mechanisms for recognizing it and getting rid of it function smoothly. To be clutter-free enough that it's VISIBLE when something changes values, and to be able, both pyschologically and physically, to get rid of it)

I am a big believer in dreams as guides. I think Tally Sue
is correct, every sentence. How did her words " feel " to you?

I'm not sure how it "feels". It feels like it could be right, or close to right, but I can't tell for sure. It makes sense though, but feels like there's more. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just easily overwhelmed when I have a lot to do and just don't know how to deal with it all!

I'm one of those people who can't start something unless I know I can accomplish it in one session. So if I have a big job, I need a big block of time to complete it. Having a half-finished job drives me completely insane. So I tend to procrastinate decluttering, usually making it worse in the process, until I have time to deal with it. Perhaps this is your issue too. I know several people who are like this- normally neat, clean people, who have a hidden mountain of clutter because we can't deal with it at all until we can deal with it the right way.

I had never thought about it before but I do the same thing as Meghane. It also drives me nuts to not complete decluttering and I plan ahead so I will have the time to complete projects.

I'm more into doing a little here and a little there, because I get overwhelmed if I have to do something that seems to take forever. That's why the dream was so overwhelming, I HAD to clean it all at once and it just seemed impossible!

I believe dreams are your own inner hidden thoughts. You mentioned your toy closet. Aren't idea of toys symbols of good feelings or good times? Those are memories or things we hate to lose. I think our clutter is connected to these type of things. Getting rid of it forces decisions we are reluctant to bring forth. I find it easier to get rid of things if I can decide there is a better place for whatever the clutter is. Decide a better place for it, burial (trash it), donate (someone else will love it), use it (set it out enjoy it every day), memorialize it (save a memory or part of it, photo or wall plaque, etc. before burial or other disposition), or something better to take it's place (room for an upgrade!). And, you absolutely cannot exercise such trauma of separation on yourself all at once because it does hurt. I've been reading Fly Lady's system of decluttering and it seems to make good sense except for the emotional issues some of us have with our collections. I think that's why she suggests a set amount of time to devote to decluttering at a time. I also prefer donating my clutter rather than trying to "sell it" because I would rather not think about the monetary value of it, that's another emotion.

An idea I thought of (which is totally off the wall, I admit) is that your vivid dream/nightmare might be a re-living of your birth experience. Maybe being in your mother's womb was the closet and it was very cramped with all the other stuff and you might have been a late delivery (or maybe your mother's womb was smaller than normal) so you actually had more of a consciousness of all the "stuff" around you before being delivered.

Reason I say this is that I once was told that if you have a vivid repetitive dream, that a common interpretation is that is a reliving of the birth experience. I know extrapolating your dream to this might be a little far fetched (or a lot far fetched) but something to think about. And if it is a reliving of your birth experience, it doesn't mean that this could not have been the beginning of your phobia/fears about decluttering, etc.

Reason I'm tuned into this theory is that I had a vivid repetitive dream that I was driving a car down a road that was getting narrower and then drove off a cliff, the car somehow magically disappeares, I hit bottom (and didn't wake up), brushed off the seat of my pants and started walking.

When it was mentioned this might be a reliving of the birth experience, I had an instant gut reaction that this was probably true.

Consider this a little story to keep everybody awake and add a little diversity to the forum, LOL!

--Alice