Recurring Dreams

A clear indication that you need to pay attention to your dreams is the occurrence of a repetitive dream. Here I am referring to the same dream recurring, sometimes frequently. You may have recurring dreams that show you in a certain environment performing familiar, similar activities, which is a different situation. These dreams often occur to reflect your daily activities, and I will address them after first considering the same dream recurring.

Often people experience the recurring dream as a nightmare, in which something is chasing them, they are failing the same test again, or they are falling. The dream is important because it indicates that some issue in their lives has not been faced and resolved. As an example, failing a test in speech or communications may indicate a failure in communications with a family member, close friend, or coworker. Or being chased may indicate some fear has not been faced. The repetition of the dream means the issue has not been resolved. The dream is likely to continue to recur until the message is understood and action is taken.

I believe dreams of this type are actually quite easy to interpret if you are paying attention to your thoughts and actions during the course of the day. In my books, I suggest making a brief record of key thoughts, actions, and events for each day, along with your dreams. Then when you have your next repetition of the dream, you can examine your activities the day prior to the dream, and the day following the dream. The dream may be a reflection of the concluding day’s occurrences, or it may be precognitive and reveal a key occurrence the following day.

First, examine the key thoughts, actions, and encounters for the day. Do you see any relationship to your dream? Think creatively; look for associations, not literal similarities.

If you can’t find any relationship to the day just experienced, examine the dream again in relationship to the next day. This is where you will see precognitive dreams revealed. You may be surprised to discover that the dream perfectly reflects, in a metaphorical way, the coming day.

People often try to interpret their dreams in a literal way. Dreams are not normally literal, and you must approach the interpretation of your dreams as a search for associations. A person, object, or activity in a dream may be a metaphor for something else, which is what you need to discover. As an example, if I dream that my front teeth are breaking off or falling out, this does not mean I need to rush to the dentist. More than likely, it has nothing to do with my teeth in a literal sense. Since teeth involve the mouth, as do words, the teeth are an obvious association for words. Often the dream I described means that a person has said some regrettable things, and the broken or loose teeth represent the ugly or loose speech.

The key to the meaning of a recurring dream is found in your conscious life. This is why it is important to understand your daily thoughts and feelings. Dreams only seem mysterious because we are not completely in touch with ourselves daily on a conscious level.

The other type of repetition that occurs is the theme in the dream, such as working in a certain job performing familiar activities. In this case, the same dream does not recur, but you find yourself in a familiar dream environment. As an example, in my case, I often find myself back in the job I had for many years during my corporate employment. I am never doing exactly the same thing as in previous dreams, but the products I was familiar with and the people from my old group often appear in the dreams. To understand the dreams, I have to understand what the products and people represent to me. If a software developer is in the dream, this means something different from a marketing person.

Dreams use your experiences to build their stories. But the stories are not literal; they are representative as metaphors for the activities and themes that make up your life. Exceptions do exist when dreams are literal, which I write about in my books, but these dreams are less common. Don’t think your dreams are nonsense because you have never done or would never do the activity in the dream. Think about what the activity in the dream represents to you and how it may relate to your daily life. What are you doing that is like that activity in some way? The associations provide the key to its meaning.