One night, I dreamt I entered a room at the very top level of the house. I had visited it many times before only, this time, I discovered a loose panel along one of the walls. I pried it open and found a stairway leading all the way back to the basement. At the bottom was another small room with a couple stairs leading up to a room packed with "stuff." Books, clothes, records, paper, and all sorts of gadgets and... "stuff."

Over the years I found other hidden rooms throughout the house and returned every time I'd dream of the house. I memorized the routes and they never changed. There were also drainage tunnels which, if you knew where to turn, would lead to a... greenspace... a protected place where a handful of young people [ages ranging from about 4 to 18] lived. I was well known there. If you continued to follow the tunnels, they led out of civilization completely... but you had to know exactly which manhole... which tunnel entrance to use... and I did.

A couple years later, I dreamt of the tunnels. I made it to the greenspace, which was like a miniature forest underground with bright sunlight and a small river. However, I had taken many wrong turns and had been turned around in my search... the tunnels had been changed around. I stopped dreaming of them shortly after.

I dreamt of the house at about the same time but couldn't find the room with the stairs which led to the hidden basement collection. Everything had been mixed up and jumbled around... and I stopped dreaming of that house.

Tonight I dreamt of the house again. I was wandering throughout the rooms and it slowly dawned on me that it was THAT house.

I entered a dim upstairs room and it was crowded with people sitting in foldout chairs with their backs to me... they were all wearing black. Down the middle was a narrow aisle which led to a man who was speaking in the front of the room. I knew I couldn't be seen, so I bent down and edged my way to the other side of the room. As I passed a bit where the wall stuck out, I remembered that this was THE upstairs room. The man up front told everyone to get up and stand against the wall... that they were looking for someone. If they did this, I would be exposed. I pried the panel loose and crawled in, replacing the wood behind me as I heard everyone stand and move around in the other room.

I found myself in an attic room, instead of the stairway. The lights were on and I was worried they'd see the light through the cracks in the panel. I placed a board against the entrance just in case. I then wondered who had turned the lights on... since I usually had to do it myself. At the far end of the room was an open door which led to a balcony. Two boys... maybe 14 or so were standing looking down and laughing.

I walked out toward the boys when I heard someone pulling the panel loose behind me. I hurried outside and startled the boys. They demanded to know who I was. I ignored them and climbed out onto the roof... much to their shock. At the top of the roof was a small railing... a widow's walk. I pulled myself up onto it and opened the window of the small balcony. Everything was smaller than I remembered it and I barely fit through the narrow opening. Inside it was dark and dank. The wood was old and the white paint was chipped and cracking.

The dream began to fragment here, but the person chased me throughout the house. The rooms were still jumbled and twisted but I found many of the old secret passages and many new ones. Hidden hallways which led to apparent dead ends or storage closets. Go out the window and back into the one next to it and you'd find a new room or stairway. Pull up the carpet and you'd find a crawlspace leading into another room or hallway. Everything was in a state of slow decay... obviously old and unused. I found the basement room again... musty and covered in dust. On the other side, buried under a collection of random "stuff" was another secret passage. Many passages I had to squeeze through to continue... much like a cave explorer.

Somewhere in all this running, I found myself back at the greenspace in the tunnels. There was a section where you had to climb down some rocks, run through a narrow open space, jump up and grab a board that stuck out above you on the other side, swing your legs up onto a metal bar, and then pull yourself up onto a platform that overhung more rocks. In tonight's dream, I made it to the platform but, just as I was pulling myself up, a giant's arms grabbed my waist from below and pulled. The dream showed images of my limbs breaking or me falling down and being killed. I shook them away. I wasn't going to let go. I had to continue through the tunnels. The dream skipped back to the house scenes... one room leading to another and another and another.

...and I finally woke up.