What could this recurring dream mean...

[AWiseWomanOnceSaidFuckThisShit]

Every few months I have the same kind of dream. It's about my first flat (which I moved out of in 2013, I've sinced rented various other places and finally bought my house last year).

So in this dream I'm back in this flat. I have a secret key but I'm not supposed to be there because I'm no longer a tenant. My actual home is the flat I lived in after that, but for some reason I've started boxing my stuff up and putting it back in flat 1! In this dream it's either one of two things. The flat is empty, hence why I'm boxing things back. Or people are living there but they're out and I keep letting myself in to watch their TV or sleep in their bed. All the way through this dream I'm feeling uneasy because I know it's only matter of time before I get caught by either the tenant or the landlord. In the version where the flat is empty and my stuff is there I keep wondering who is paying the utility bills!

For the record I was in this flat for 8 years and I made a lot of good and bad memories there but it was just a one bedder above a shop run by rough people in a rough area. I don't miss it at all, infact it was a relief to leave and when I drive past it I'm amazed I lived there for as long as I did! Just odd that I have this unsettling dream every so often... 🤔

Are you unsettled where you live now?
Or do you have unfinished business with someone from when you lived at the flat in the dream?

No not at all. As I said there are both good and bad times there. The bad times include an ex who completely destroyed me, but I've since adored someone else and any love I had for him died years ago. I also love the house I'm in now. I am the kind of person who thinks about past events a lot just in general, I have an excellent memory. But I never dream about any other previous home.

Its probably more the case that you have had a recent event trigger a reminder of your past then and nothing to worry about
But the underlying worry of being discovered in the flat when you know you shouldnt be there makes me think you are carrying fear of something being discovered from your past
Don't take me to seriously.. You asked an opinion and this is simply just that.. My opinion

Thank you for your opinion 😀

Was there something particular about the time that you lived in the flat that this could represent and that you miss? Maybe that you had a great social life when you lived there, or were very creative, or had a lot of freedom?

Maybe you're being reminded that you are missing this element in your life. The bit about the dream flat being occupied, or someone else paying the bills, is telling you that you don't physically need to go back to the flat, you don't belong physically in that flat/time anymore. But there's some aspect of your life back then that you are missing?

Are you relieved when you wake up...as in, is it a bad/panicky dream? Maybe it is just a trauma coming back to visit your subconscious & a reminder when you wake that that is behind you & now you are where you are meant to be. I have a few recurring dreams...like movie reels...it could be 6 mths or longer betwen them...but they are slways the same. I know they are a reminder to me, like PTSD/flashbacks, if a time of turmoil, uncertainty & confusion. I wake & I want to sing that I am 20+ years older & that was the past!

It sounds like a desire to return to the past. Not necessarily that past, when you lived in that flat, but to a time when you perhaps didn't have the responsibilities you have now and life was a little simpler. The flat may just be a stand in for 'the past'.

I have the same dream about a house I lived in when I was a child

In dreams your home represents the centre of your soul. To dream about going back to an old home could be rediscovering a part of yourself you have neglected. Or facing up to an event from your past that you have kept hidden. When you open the door with your old key it represents the key to your soul.