Recurring dreams - what are yours and what do you think they mean?

[Greekadventure]

I have the same dreams very often.
Mostly I dream I’m on a plane, usually going on holiday. The plane is very basic inside, like a bus and the pilot is often just sitting in front of us.
The plane never actually takes off - it just drives through the streets. I marvel at how the pilot manages to squeeze it and the wings through narrow streets, the wings tips are almost touching walls and other vehicles.
We never really reach our destination, I can sometimes be just travelling or we will head back to the airport.

I think it’s reflective of my career, ‘never quite getting off the ground’ as I’ve done the same job for 30 years.

Doss anyone else dream the same thing over and over?

I keep dreaming my ex husband has moved into my house and I can't get him to leave
Not my favourite ones!

A lettuce in the toilet 🥬!🤷🏻‍♀️🤣🤣

Yes I've had dreams I've murdered someone, very unsettling!

I have the house dream too with extra rooms that I’ve found. It’s always the same house too!

I also regularly dream about my first flat as an adult that I lived in from 18–23 and had when my DD was small. It’s always that I’ve either broken in, or realised I forgot to give in my notice and owe them like £22k and I have to find it.

I also have the Christmas dream where it’s Xmas day and I don’t have any presents/food/tree etc. it happens every year and is the kick up the bum I need to start sorting Christmas out. It’s pretty much within the next couple of weeks every year!

I also have one from when I was a child and it’s a block of flats in London (that I actually managed as a housing officer as an adult weirdly enough!) that was in The Bill. And I’m running around the balconies and someone is throwing bombs at me, I’m trying to hide and save people and it’s bloody terrifying! I also had another dream as a child that was pretty much every night that there was a bomb under my bed. I’ve definitely outed myself if my sister is on here as she used to have to check every night when I woke her up!

what’s even weirder is that I don’t have a minds eye so I can’t see any it these dreams but I know what’s happening and some of them either come back again and again or I remember vividly but just know what’s happened. No idea what any of them mean though!

I used to have horrible helicopter crash dreams - very vivid and felt real, could feel the heat of the fire on my face etc. We lived near an army training base so there were frequently helicopters and chinooks flying over our garden! Since moving away I've stopped having those dreams.

When my sister died, I had dreams where I would see her shopping in town but it was always really crowded and I couldn't get through the crowds and I would be shouting her name but she didn't hear me. I had that dream quite frequently for probably a year or so 😢

I have loads of dreams about being in a vehicle with too many people in, trying to get somewhere in time. It usually ends up with us all on a boat of some type. No idea what that one means.

I used to have dreams where I knew that I had been able to fly but now could only get slowly about two feet off the ground and there was always someone I was desperate to get away from. Frantically trying to get up high. I’d probably have been better standing up and running.

I have a reoccurring dream about trying to find a hotel for the night but there’s always something wrong with it, not enough beds/all the lights stop working/imminent terror attack. I’m constantly moving my family all night. It’s probably due to moving my DM with Alzheimer’s into 2 care homes over the last year and the massive amount of guilt I’m feeling.

I am in a lift going either up or down - usually a life change.

TV is on and i can't switch off, pull plug out but it stays on - someone trying to tell me something i dont want to hear

Go to cash machine hole in wall/try to phone someone and can't recall right number - i am trying to talk to someone but can't get through.

And - the most annoying one: in real life, i am scared of heights. And, in my dreams i am still scared of heights!!! So annoying!

Anyway, usually i am with a group of folks and they can proceed up high but i cant. I am left behind - people moving on in life, making changes but i stay in my comfort zone, scared to risk it.

One more and my favourite - i discover a secret room in my own house! It is huge! I go in and think what things i could do with the space - untapped brain potential.

So many toilet dreams !
I’ve never ever dreamed about a toilet
but I have a recurring dream about an ex and being in the house with them and Their wife coming home
I’m happily in a long term relationship of 17 years
my ex is married
we all have kids
there is no animosity
But I keep dreaming im caught with him
And wake up so relieved im home alone in my own house.

A recurring dream/nightmare that I have had since childhood (I'm in my 50s) is about plane crashes. Its always involved family members too.

It was always been a bit too real as I was raised less than a mile from the runway where Concorde was tested (although I have never witnessed a crash of any plane).

I've just realised that I haven't had any of my recurring dreams for a couple of years now. Mine were all certainly stress related because my mum had dementia and we had 2 years of horrible stress with that.

I had:

1. I was in a very big house which was really run down and was occupied by squatters. I was rushing around looking for DH, and the house was really busy with people milling about, the floor was full of bits of ceiling that had come down, doors were broken off their hinges and just propped up etc. No-one paid me any attention and it wasn't scary, I just felt really out of my depth.

2. I was in 'my' house (not really my house) it was late and getting dark, DH was in bed asleep. Suddenly a load of pickup type vans arrived and loads of people spilled out and were surrounding the house, trying to find a way in. I was shouting for DH but he didn't hear me. Eventually the people swarmed in through the driveway gate and were running around, taking everything they could get their hands on.

3. Thankfully I've only had this last one about half a dozen times as I found it really upsetting. I was in a room in my house, and suddenly remembered that we had pets in cages that I'd forgotten about for months. I pulled cages of guinea pigs, rabbits and I think one of cats too out from under the bed, in cupboards etc. The cages were absolutely crammed with animals, all alive but in poor condition. (I found that one particularly difficult because we are real animal lovers and we do have a lot of pets that we absolutely adore, so the idea of neglecting any is horrible.)

I think all of my examples show just how out of control I felt at the time, completely overwhelmed. And how alone I felt too, because DH couldn't really help me with my mum because most of the stress involved dealing with people who could only speak to me.

Been divorced for nearly 30 years. I sometimes have a recurring dream that I am marrying my ex husband again. It's always against my will and I am trying to get out of it. Really relieved to wake up from it as it is quite vivid.
Also dream that I am back in a previous place of
Work or back at School..

I have no idea what mine mean so would appreciate any insight!

1: I own 2 black cats, in my dreams there are hundreds of black cats in various stressful situations and I'm desperately trying to find mine. I have this dream a few times a week in different circumstances but have done for years .

1. I am estranged from my older sister and regularly have dreams that she is a drug addict and needs help. Totally unfounded as she has a beautiful family and a successful career and a lovely husband but I have this dream pretty much weekly.

So interesting reading all of these !

I have the toilet dream quite often.

The needing to have all the windows and doors shuts in my house but then they begin to open and I’m running around like a headless chicken petrified because I know I have to stop something coming in 😱

The plane one I have where I’m on a big plane but on roads and going under bridges but never taking off.

I lucid dream a lot and now more able to wake myself up or change the end of my dream if it’s heading towards something horrendous.

When stressed the terrifying dream about a massive tidal wave coming towards me and family members where it’s only me that can see it in the distance and I’m shouting about the danger but no voice comes out or they don’t hear me, pure terror on my part. Over the decades the wave only hit me once and I just sat in it in wonder and then woke up.

How interesting that we have such similar dreams!

In addition to my telephone dreams I also have the toilet dream and the undiscovered rooms dream.

When a friend's husband left her she said she frequently had dreams where it had all been a mistake, they were happily married after all, she would feel so relieved. Then she would wake up to the reality that he had left her and she had to get through the day.

My ex left me a few years later and I had the exact same dreams.

My usual dreams are bits of things that have happened in real life but muddled up in to a weird story.

My recurring dream is that I have forgotten to do something, It will be the same thing for ages then changes from time to time and oddly I can’t remember exactly what it is when I wake up. But when always feels so real. It is usually along the lines of the panic of realising the forgotten thing, originally it was that I forgot about an animal left alone somewhere. It’s been going on for about 5 years now.

So many of mine are similar to everybody else's. I know lots of people don't remember their dreams at all so perhaps we all dream the same things. As a child, I used to dream that my Mum had super glued my head to the road. I dream vividly all night every night and my recurring ones now include:

Opening night it a play and I haven't rehearsed and don't know what it's even about but I'm a main character.

Taking exams and I haven't revised.

Moving house and I don't want to.

Finding new rooms in my house and they're huge.

Can't dial numbers.

Packing to leave a holiday and have too many things, a tiny suitcase and no time.

Brakes don't work on the car.

Teeth crumbling.

Walking up narrow stairs and they get steeper and narrower until I'm practically caving.

Can't walk properly and have to pull myself along and pick up my legs.

I can fly but it's hard work and only a foot off the ground.

I also dream about the same houses a lot. They're not places I know IRL, but they're places I dream of regularly. Sometimes I'm buying them or living in them and they're usually beautiful.

Toilet one happens regularly but is nothing to do with needing the loo IRL. In the dream, they're always dirty or public or blocked.

I don't actually think any of it means anything.

The plane dream is a very common one for me but reading through the thread over the years I’ve also had the phone / unable to dial a number one and also the undiscovered rooms in a new house one.
Its fascinating to think our brains dream / work in the same way and lots of us have the same recurring themes.

Do you ever have a dream about trashing the economy?

I think mine are all anxiety dreams, there's the usual journey that keeps going wrong when I really need to be somewhere on time. There's several old houses with undiscovered rooms. There's one where I'm being chased through the family home by a furious Dad who wants to kill me. The ones that cause me to wake up in a cold sweat are where I'm walking through streets of empty houses and suddenly realise they are full of dead people, and when I become aware of them they all run out and chase me. If they catch me I'll get turned into a zombie like them.

I have the telephone dream. I'm always trying to ring someone about something really important but the phone just won't work. I keep dialling the wrong number or there's no signal.

I have a fairly recurring dream that I've killed someone, this one is scary.

I have dreams that I'm going somewhere usually on holiday, and nothing is ready, I've ran out of time and have to go with no stuff.

I think most of mine are from anxiety and worrying.

It seems that a lot of us have very similar dream themes. It's interesting.

Another one I have is trying to lock the door to stop an intruder who is coming, but the lock just won't work. Or sometimes there's no intruder but the door won't lock and I don't know what to do. Sometimes the door doesn't even fit and there are big gaps. Sometimes I need rheumatologist toilet and none of the toilets have doors or the doors don't fit.

Does anyone else have lock/door dreams?

Need the toilet.

No idea where rheumatologist came from

I don't and thats weird, because when DS was little he worked out how to drag a chair to the front door, unlock it and escape. I had to run up the road and catch him in my PJ's. I don't seem to have bad dreams about stuff that's actually happened, and I don't understand why.

My most recurring dream is the toilet one. It's always different and the number of ways I have been prevented from the loo is amazing! Next is the newly discovered room in a (always different) home, usually delighted but sometimes daunted by the work needed to renovate it. I used to, but haven't for a long time, dream about falling in a lift, where the cables have snapped. It was terrifying but only once did it reach the bottom. Do you ever dream something bad but tell yourself in the dream it's only a dream so don't worry? I sometimes have that.