What Do Recurring Dreams Mean?

What do recurring dreams mean?

A recurring dream is the same or a very similar dream seen again over weeks, months or even years, and it usually signals a feeling not yet resolved or a situation that keeps repeating in your life. The dream comes back until its message is noticed or the subject is dealt with. So the real question of a recurring dream is not “What does this dream mean?” but “Why does it keep coming back?”.

Some recurring themes are very common, and each describes a familiar worry:

Recurring theme	What it often describes
Falling	losing control, shaken security
Teeth falling out	worry about appearance, words or a transition
Being late for an exam, lost at school	being tested, not keeping up
Missing a train or plane	falling behind, letting a chance slip
Being stuck in a lift, or a lift dropping	who controls the ups and downs (elevator)
Climbing stairs that never end	a goal you work towards but cannot see the end of (stairs)
A house with unknown rooms	an unexplored side, a growing inner life (house)
Seeing an ex	an unclosed feeling or a trace of that time (ex)

The table is a start, not a rule. Dreaming of falling or of teeth falling out can mean different things for the same person at different times. The key to a recurring dream lies less in the dream itself than in when it returns and what changes each time.

Certain figures recur often too: a stranger chasing you, a child you cannot reach, a wise old person. They are universal patterns that recur in many people’s dreams; the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung called them archetypes. If such a figure keeps returning in your dream, read it as a symbol of a side of you.

Recurring dreams are not omens of outside events. Seeing the same frightening dream again and again does not mean it will happen; it shows that something in your inner world is waiting for attention. When the dream fades or changes, that is usually a sign that you have changed as well.

How to read a recurring dream in seven steps

1. Record every repeat with the date

Each time you have the dream, write it down, however briefly, with the date and the main feeling. A recurring dream’s meaning lies not in one entry but in all of them together. If you remember when you first had it, note that too; the start date often gives away which event the dream grew from.

2. Look at the details that change

Recurring dreams are rarely identical. Notice what changes each time: the place, the people, the ending? In a dream such as dreaming of school, you may never find the classroom at first, then one night reach its door. That small change shows the subject moving inside you.

3. Match the repeats to periods in your life

On which days does the dream return? Before an evaluation, after a family visit, at the end of a heavy week? The periods the repeats fall in often show the dream’s subject plainly. That link between dream and life is a recurring dream’s strongest clue.

4. Name the main feeling

Do you feel the same thing each time? Fear, shame, longing, helplessness? If the feeling repeats, the dream’s real subject is that feeling more than the symbol. If the feeling shifts, from fear to curiosity for instance, the dream’s message is finding an answer in you.

5. Find the dream’s unfinished business

Ask yourself: what does this dream remind me of, and what have I not yet resolved in my life? An exam dream from years ago may describe an area where you still feel you are not keeping up; a recurring dream of an ex may describe an unclosed feeling, or something that time gave you.

6. Imagine a new ending while awake

At a calm moment, bring the dream to mind and write it a new ending: turn and face what was chasing you, open the door, catch the train. For a few days, picture the new ending for a few minutes before you sleep. This simple exercise changes your relationship with the dream, and for some people it softens the dream’s tone too.

7. Take a small step in waking life

Take a small step in your waking life on the subject the dream points to: a conversation you have put off, asking for help with something that weighs on you, a goodbye. Recurring dreams often fade once the subject is dealt with. If the dream returns in the weeks after, look at its changing details again; you will often find its tone has shifted, perhaps reaching an ending for the first time.

Example: a house with rooms that keep appearing

The dream: “I am in my home, but there is a corridor I never noticed. Behind it are rooms full of dust and old furniture. I feel uneasy and leave before opening the last door.” The dream has returned several times a year for about three years.

The records. The dream journal shows the dream clustering in three periods: after a move, during a stretch of evening classes, and the week a friend suggested starting a project together. All three are times when something new was possible.

Changing details. In the early entries you only see the corridor. Later you walk into the first rooms. In the latest entry, the dust is less thick and one room has a window.

The feeling. Unease each time; in the latest dream, unease mixed with curiosity.

Unfinished business. Dreaming of a house is a dream about yourself; finding rooms you never knew existed points to an untapped part of you. The dream seems to describe an ability or interest left unused, and the unease of opening it up.

The reading. The dream is not a warning about your home; it pictures a part of you waiting to be used. The window in the latest room suggests that part is getting light.

The step. While awake, write the dream a new ending: you open the last door and find a room you would like to use. This month, give two evenings to the interest you have been putting off.

What to avoid with recurring dreams

• Treating the repeat as a prophecy. Having the same dream many times does not mean it will happen. The dream shows that a subject is still live.
• Looking only at the symbol. The key to a recurring dream is usually not the symbol but when it returns and what changes each time.
• Missing the change. Note even a small changed detail. A dream that changes is the sign of an inner world that is changing.
• Trying to suppress the dream. Trying not to think about a dream often brings it back more often. Writing it down and reflecting on it works better.
• Reinterpreting it from scratch every time. Instead of looking for a new meaning at each repeat, go back to your old entries. The meaning hides not in single repeats but in the differences between them.
• Looking for the subject only in the past. Even a dream from childhood usually connects to something you are living now.
• Ignoring your own part in the dream. Whether you run, hide, freeze or turn to face what follows you matters as much as what you see. When your role in the dream changes, your relation to the matter is changing too.

Keep practising

If you have a recurring dream, give it its own page in your notebook. Each time you dream it, add the date, the feeling, the changed detail and what was happening in your life. After a few repeats, the page starts to tell you on its own what the dream is saying.

In the Dreams section of the Larisa app, mention in your note that this dream keeps coming back, and choose its main feeling; the reader works from the note you wrote. Before opening the reading, write in your own words how the dream has changed each time.

How to keep the notebook is covered in how to keep a dream journal, and how to read a single dream in how to interpret your dreams. If dark figures recur in your dreams, see shadow work with tarot. To draw a tarot card after a recurring dream, dreams and tarot explains how; the Moon, the card of feelings rising from the subconscious, speaks well to such dreams. And if you keep missing a train or a plane, dreaming of a train and dreaming of a plane read those images.