Stairs

A couple of days ago I was a bit disturbed by the following dream. A lot of it is very simple and seems to be easily analyzed but somehow I keep thinking I'm missing something.

I remember something was chasing me. I was running. I remember being somewhat calm. I knew how to outrun this thing. So I went to where I knew I must and it looked very much like my grandparent's basement and backstairs. That old, huge house. Somehow I had never gotten over the childhood awe. Even after having explored its secrets and knowing that the reason why they were forbidden was as pedestrian as rats... Even then I continue to dream of it, adding rooms that never were and mysterious furniture that could do things.

I added stairs now. I ran into the basement, fleeing my pursuer and talked to people that weren't there. They told me I must find an orange door and I would be safe. I circled and circled down those stairs and on every floor there were doors everywhere, doors on all four walls and the rooms were getting smaller. It was getting darker. I kept running. Then I tried one door and it opened into the mind of an old love, one that wasn't real even, just a fictional portrait of what my ideal lover would have been. It was the wrong door, so I kept going.

I did not try anymore doors. I was afraid. But not of my pursuer, I felt confident, not yet safe but at least sure I was going in the right direction. The people who weren't there just said, keep going, keep going, it's the last floor. I jumped through the last couple of flights of stairs. I just trusted and let myself fall.

There was sunlight on that last floor and an orange door. The doors above I had opened with a coat hanger but this one was too small. It needed something thinner, something finer. At times it didn't seem too like a door but more like a screen, like a permeable thing I could go through in the right state of mind. I was safe all the way down here but not forever. The time would come. But I knew that once I was through that orange door everything would be alright. And I knew this because there were people waiting for me on the other side: my love and his love, the one that died. With them, I was sure, I could finally stop running.


I wonder sometimes if this is like a riddle. What are the doors? What am I missing?