If the central focus of your dream involves either a collapsed building or seeing a structure in the process of collapsing, this post is for you. Suffice to say, a dream of building collapsing is not what you think it is.
Keep in mind that this is a very specific dream.
To dream of a building collapsing extends to dreaming of a collapsed building but nothing more.
If there are other contexts to this dream, chances are you’re dreaming of something else.
The key here is on the collapse itself.General meaning of collapsing building dreams
When your nighttime vision centers on the process of a building’s collapse, this indicates the range of emotions that you’re feeling as your sense of protection, security, and worthiness leave you.
Please understand that this is not prophetic.
So if you see a building in the process of collapsing in your dream, this doesn’t mean that your office building is going to go through an earthquake or your home is going to be destroyed.
Instead, your subconscious is trying to communicate your critical truths regarding your emotional, psychological and spiritual state.
Put simply, you’re dealing with issues that are far more important and relevant to your day-to-day existence than the collapse of a building no matter how traumatic that experience might be.
Pay close attention to what you base your security on.
One way to figure this out quickly, is to ask yourself, “Who am I?”, “Where do I base my identity?”
Usually, people find their identity in their work, where they went to school, and the social circle that they are members of.
We often locate our sense of security and by extension, our sense of worth in things, situations, and people.
In other words, we are located in a place that is outside of us.
I hope you can see how this can be problematic because you cannot control the situations and other people.
Good luck with that.
Not only are these bound by space and time, but there are also competing forces out there.
If you’ve ever worked in any organization you know the power of competing egos.
This is your first clue.
If you see a building collapsing, it indicates a sense of loss and a threat to your internal security.
The reality is that you might have been basing your identity in the wrong place or location, it should be internal because you can control an internal core of identity, security, and protection.
It goes without saying that you’ll feel vulnerable when you see this collapsing image and if you’re not careful, you will feel hopeless and you will lose faith in a lot of things that you previously believed were certain.
In other words, if you’re throwing the baby out of the bath water, it’s important for you to retain your faith in certain things, it’s important for you to retain your confidence in certain things.
But just because these are shaken due to your unwise decision to base your sense of security on things that you cannot control doesn’t make them invalid.
You just have to relocate your source of support for those internally.
What does it mean to see yourself inside a collapsed building?
Pay close attention to the wording of the heading, you’re inside a building, but it’s already collapsed, and you’re not inside a building while it is in the process of collapsing, a big difference.
Still, this situation is closely related to the meaning of a dream of a building collapsing.
Your subconscious is drawing our attention to the fact that you feel powerless.
In certain areas of your life, you feel that you’re the person who arrives at the scene when everything has already happened.
You are positioning yourself at least mentally and emotionally as somebody who asks, “What happened” instead of the person making things happen.
Do you see a big difference here?
It’s all about control.
And you feel that you are the one who has to clean up for other people’s mistakes.
You are the one who has to live with the consequences of the bad choices, people before you made.
I am of course talking about your parents, I’m also talking about people in your at work, who have made certain decisions and now you’re the one who has to play cleanup.
At least this is how you see the situation, the reality might actually be different.
But when viewed from your perspective, you feel that you’re the one who bears the brunt of other people’s decisions.
Interestingly enough, people who think that like this tend to only focus on when this type of arrangement harms them.
They almost always never dwell on situations where they benefited from previous people’s good decisions, they always focus on the negative.
In reality, you are always in control of how you respond.
Sure, facts are facts, and certain people may have made decisions that had a negative impact on you, but that’s never going to go away.
The question is, what are you going to do about it?
Are you going to continuously look for people to blame while you refuse to fix your situation?
Or are you looking to understand how you can take action on whatever ruins that were left so as not to make things worse at the very least?
At best, you can improve on things, but at the very least, you can at least try not to make things worse.
The choice is yours.
What does it mean to dream of a collapsing building owned by someone you know?
The meaning of this specific type of collapsing building dream focuses on the identity of the owner.
If you see a building owned by somebody you know, this indicates that you have a complicated relationship with that person.
On the one hand, you can see what’s going on in terms of their bad decisions.
On the other, there is some sort of tension between you and that person that prevents you from actively stepping in and helping the person out.
You feel that the best you can do at this point is just to watch everything unfold.
The question is, would you want somebody to do the same to you?
Maybe you don’t want to step on that person’s toes, maybe you don’t want to feel like you’re biting into their personal business?
Fair enough.
But if the roles were switched, and the shoe was on the other foot, wouldn’t you want them to let you know about what they’re seeing?
Wouldn’t you want them to at least give you their insight so at least you have access to a different perspective?
This doesn’t mean that you’re going to take their word for it, or you’re going to take action on what they have to say but at least wouldn’t it be a welcome addition to your personal knowledge when somebody steps up and tells you what they notice?
Keep this in mind.
Because almost every single day, you notice things about other people’s business, but you remain quiet.
The question is, should you?
And the other question that naturally follows is if this was happening to you, would you want somebody to speak up?
What does it mean to see people running out of a collapsed building?
Take note, the timing is everything.
They’re not running out as the building is collapsing, the building has already collapsed and they are running out.
When you see this dream imagery, your subconscious is telling you that you will face a situation where you are going to try to salvage a bad decision.
It doesn’t mean that you’re going to come out without a scratch but it will tell you that you will at least hang on to what little you have left.
Now, this is cold comfort for a lot of people.
But let’s put it this way, if you make it out alive, at least you are alive and you have something to build on for the next day.
By no means this is a pleasant situation but at the very least you have something to build on.
Generally speaking in this context, we’re talking about a troubled relationship, issues at work, bad finances, issues with credit, or some sort of obligation that is heading south like rent are some amortization.
So there’s going to be some sort of eviction or some moment of truth and it’s going to be unpleasant but you need to focus on what you have left.
Focusing on the resources you have left gives you something to build on.
Alternative meanings of collapsing buildings
Different contextual meanings of collapsing buildings can indicate ongoing changes that scare you.
These changes can make you feel some guilt or shame or fear.
Fears, of course, are the most natural response but don’t underestimate your sense of shame because a lot of times people keep repeating the same mistakes, knowing full well what the outcome will be.
But they feel that they can’t change the script because they will feel embarrassed.
Maybe they convinced themselves that they’re in too deep and too many people will notice or they will look like a fool so they make themselves out to be the bigger fool by repeating that same mistake when they know full well that it’s going to lead to a result that they are frustrated with.
There’s absolutely no need to stay in place if you’re unhappy with the results.
That’s the bottom line.
So what people will laugh at you, so what you made a mistake people make mistakes all the time.
You owe it to yourself to get better results because the only person that can give you a better life is you.
Stop waiting for other people to fix your problems.
They’re your problems after all.
What does it mean to cry over a collapsed building?
One of the most common pieces of advice adults are given, or have learned firsthand is that you should never cry over spilled milk.
Things have already happened.
It is what it is.
You’re looking at the ruins, it’s time to move on.
On a logical level, this makes a lot of sense, you have to move on.
But on an emotional level, this is easier said than done.
When you look at the ruins surrounding you, those represent your achievement, those represent the blood sweat, and tears that you have to have invested over a considerable period of time.
It’s not easy to let go.
And this is why a lot of people have a problem with a common fallacy.
This is called the sunk cost fallacy.
Imagine you’re watching a movie with a friend and after the first five minutes of the movie, you know it sucks it’s just garbage.
But you’re thinking, “I already paid $15 to watch this movie. So I’m just going to stay”.
You deciding to stay is not going to make the movie any better, it’s going to continue to suck.
It’s probably going to get worse.
You’re not going to get your $15 back.
Now you might find this scenario laughable but what if I told you that you employ the same strategy when it comes to a dead-end job, a crappy relationship, an unhealthy body, and an unproductive mindset, you fill in the blanks.
You have to know when to cut your losses.
You have to know when to pivot.
This is where your emotions are going to screw with you because you agonize over the ruins of the collapsed building but you don’t agonize over the opportunities you missed out on because you’re too busy hanging on to the past.
Maybe you’re doing this because of a sense of shame or obligation.
Maybe you’re doing this out of fear.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many people hang on to miserable situations because they’re comfortable with that level of misery.
They’re saying to themselves a better the devil I know than the devil I don’t know.
Well, the thing is you will never ever get to improve your situation if you are clinging to the devils of the past.
You have to move on, you have to take risks.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll find yourself in another metaphorical building collapsing around you but it sure beats crying over ashes.
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Dream interpretation and symbology have fascinated me ever since I read Freud’s classic, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Ever since, I have explored Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Jungian psychological ideas about the meaning of dreams. Thanks for joining me in my exploration of the amazing intersection between our conscious waking world and the rich expanse of our subconscious-the home of our intuition, instincts, and hidden potential.