Recurring dreams: why dreams repeat, what does it mean

10/03/2018 About Sleep

Dreams are one of the greatest mysteries of modern medicine. Doctors suggest that they are based on real-life events and are somehow related to what a person really cares about. However, it is not known exactly what exactly causes dreams, how events are arranged in them and how much influence the course of the plot can have. However, statistics show that recurring dreams occupy a special place in the life of every person.

Why do dreams repeat themselves?

The same episodes in dreams come to people at different ages. They can have a positive or negative connotation, repeat every night or with an interval of several days or even months, their details sometimes change, but the general plot remains unchanged.

Psychologists and somnologists believe that when night visions are repeated, the subconscious is trying to tell a person about something - to pay attention to important events or people, life processes. Most likely, while awake, a person is not ready to accept certain information, so he unconsciously suppresses certain thoughts or emotions. Through repetition, the subconscious indicates the special significance of these moments and the need to change a person’s attitude towards them.

Why can the same dream occur many times?

Every person, when he sleeps, can dream about some events from the past or future. These can be people, animals, inanimate objects, and even various horrors.

When you wake up, you may not remember what the dream was about, but sometimes dreams can be quite realistic, which often frightens people. And what does the situation mean when you dream the same dream more than once, you should definitely understand it in more detail.

What are recurring dreams?

All identical episodes in dreams can be divided into personal and typical. In the first case, the general semantic load is the same for all people, but the plots are significantly different, focusing on the individual characteristics of the organism. In the second case, the plot of the dream, as well as its meaning, are approximately the same for all cases.

Personal dreams

Disease warning

The onset of the disease in the body occurs long before the first symptoms appear. Subconsciously a person feels this, which is reflected in dreams. Failures in various body systems manifest themselves in night visions with a logical justification:

Poisoning – to disease of the gastrointestinal tract;
Forced swimming in cold water means a cold;
Separation and sadness are a malfunction of the cardiovascular system.

Antistress

If a person is facing a difficult period in life, which is well known, dreams can prepare the nervous system to more easily overcome difficulties. Statistics collected by psychologists show that before divorce, many women dream of scandals with their husbands and bad attitudes towards themselves. When they woke up in the morning, they found the separation much easier to bear than the night before.

Such anti-stress dreams allow you to maintain emotional and psychological balance and increase stress resistance.

Tips in dreams

Repeated dreams can indicate life mistakes directly or indirectly. Some people, observing their actions as if from the outside, understand that they are acting illogically and change their line of behavior under the influence of sleep.

In other cases, mistakes made in life are brought to the point of absurdity in night visions. Medical practice describes one very striking case. The man in his dreams was repeatedly late for his plane, but instead of going to the airport, he sat down to shine his shoes. The sleeper could not in any way influence the development of events and get on the plane until he realized that the subconscious mind indicates the irrational use of time in real life. When this error was corrected, the recurring episode no longer reminded of itself.

Inducement

Many people need a kind of “push” to achieve some life goals. For some it is a conversation with loved ones, for others it is the success of their enemies. For some, the urge to action comes at the subconscious level.

So, for example, if a person constantly dreams of his own house in the smallest detail, sooner or later he tries to achieve this dream, investing more and more effort to achieve the task. And when the purchase has already been completed, the recurring dreams recede. As a rule, by this moment, a person has managed to make great progress in self-development and significantly improve the quality of life.

Typical dreams

Flying

If the dreamer flies in dreams, this indicates a lack of personal freedom in reality. A person cannot realize his desires and is limited in his choices and actions. In this case, only a radical change in lifestyle or looking at the situation from the other side will help.

A fall

Another common example of a recurring dream is the feeling of falling. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish the feeling that a person experiences while falling asleep from static sleep for a long time. In the first case, a fall is a kind of test of the body for the normal activity of all systems. It appears most often because falling asleep occurs too quickly and at the subconscious level the body checks whether everything is in order.

A static fall indicates that a person is afraid of failure in a certain area of life, afraid that he will make mistakes. Often such people are not confident in themselves, in their actions, and do not know how to “shed” the burden of problems, so they are often stressed.

Relatives, friends or a psychologist will help you cope with the condition. It is not necessary to place the entire burden of responsibility on your shoulders - you can share it with someone and find the simplest and most rational way out of any current situation.

Appearing strangely in public

Dreams of this type include going out to the public in a ridiculous outfit or without clothes at all. Naturally, such an appearance causes laughter from others, and this is what a person fears in real life. This is a sure sign of low self-esteem in the sleeping person.

You should not be afraid that a certain way of life or some efforts will be ridiculed by others, because every person has the right to his own point of view, which means that everyone has his “brothers” in spirit. In addition, psychologists recommend not comparing yourself with others, but only with yourself in the past, because only personal growth and development is of real importance.

Exams

Exams are a nightmare for schoolchildren and students, and remain so even after studying. At any age, assessment of abilities indicates lack of self-confidence.

Successfully passing an exam in a dream indicates that in life all plans will be implemented in accordance with expectations. But failure in dreams means changes, for which you will have to take responsibility. However, you should not be upset prematurely, because changes in life can be for the better.

Late

If the sleeper is late somewhere in his night dreams, there is a high probability that he is missing important opportunities in life that should be taken advantage of. Such dreams often come to people who have not found their place in life. Subconsciously, they understand that they are wasting their time, but they cannot always admit it in reality, and as a result it is reflected in their dreams.

Whatever the interpretation of a recurring dream, we must not forget that they are all approximate. General cases may come close to explaining most people's dreams, but in individual episodes they mean exactly the opposite. Each person must try to find the meaning in visions and understand what thought the subconscious is trying to convey to the conscious state.

What do dreams about tooth loss mean?

Such dreams have a specific explanation from the psychological side. And this makes it much easier to find a solution to the problem at its very root.

The appearance of such a dream in life indicates that in reality there is suppressed anger. When a person experiences this emotion, they often clench their teeth. The dream in which they fall out suggests that it is worth doing something in order to release the emotion or completely resolve the problematic situation. All that remains is to decide which way to go - just let off steam and get rid of the emotion for a while, or make more efforts and find the root of the problem in order to eliminate the very situation that causes anger.

Sleep or neurosis

Not all psychologists and somnologists consider recurring dreams to be a “dialogue” of the subconscious with a person.
Some doctors are inclined to believe that the same episodes are the result of a conflict between the conscious and subconscious, causing neurosis. In this case, dreams are repeated so that the person can understand the problem as early as possible and prevent the disease. There are also those psychoanalysts who, in their treatment, proceed from the fact that identical dreams are a symptom of an already existing neurosis, that is, a consequence of fixation on the problem. However, this does not explain the fact why the phenomenon worries young children who do not have obsessions and do not experience an anxious state.

Most experts agree that we need to talk about neurosis when night visions cause fear, anxiety, disrupt normal rest and worsen the quality of life. In such a situation, professional treatment will help - conversations with a psychologist and taking light sedatives that put you into a deep sleep phase.

Repetition dreams: typical and personal

There are two main groups of recurring dreams: purely personal and typical. If personal dreams signal individual problems in human psychology that require solutions, then typical dreams convey feelings of experienced emotions, be it fear, expectation of change, a feeling of approval, etc.

The following are examples of typical dreams:

Of course, these interpretations are general in nature and should not be taken as the only possible ones. The dreamer’s personality, his psychological state, temperament, emotionality and other factors are all important to take into account when interpreting a dream. But it’s still worth paying attention to the clues that our subconscious gives us during sleep.

Disease warning

Of particular interest to somnologists and psychologists is the phenomenon in which a dream is repeated and indicates the presence of a possible disease. Although there is no scientific proof of the theory of this method of transmitting information, there is a completely viable theory.

When a person sleeps, his brain does not draw information from the outside world, but only from the internal systems of the body. That is, those departments that analyze the world around us while awake completely switch to monitoring the state of the body’s health. The slightest deviation from the norm indicates the incubation period of the disease, which is expressed in vivid visual images.

Statistics have shown that the subconscious mind warns about various diseases the earlier, the higher the complexity of the disease. The most common medical examples are:

Sore throat – 1 day;
Gastritis or stomach ulcer – 1 month;
Infectious disease – 1 week;
Hypertension – 2-3 months;
Paralysis - about a month.

Many patients talk about recurring dreams preceding the onset of the disease, so it is not recommended to ignore this phenomenon.

Proper preparation for sleep will help you remember your dreams

There are many ways to make dreams more vivid and meaningful. Such dreams carry more information and are remembered better, you just need to be able to tune in to them. To do this, they use so-called dream catalysts, which include preparing a room for sleeping, carrying out physical procedures, choosing a time for sleep, etc. Use whatever you like.

Catalysts to help you remember dreams

About an hour before bedtime, if you like it, you can turn on quiet music, preferably meditative music, which has a calming effect. Relax and tune in to this music. Let the melody fill your entire being, let peaceful pictures of nature float before your mind's eye, enjoy them until you fall asleep.

To remember your dreams, while lying in bed, imagine that your entire body is filled from the inside, starting with your heart, with a bright white or golden light. Mentally examine your body. If it seems to you that there are some dark spots somewhere (areas where light has not penetrated), try adding light there, dissolving these dark energy clots in it. When they resolve and go away, the tension will leave you, and your sleep will be calm and your dreams will be vivid.

The brightness and content of sleep is greatly influenced by the last thought before falling asleep. If it is directed towards something sublime, if the soul feels peace and tranquility, nothing will interfere with sleep, and dreams will be pure, kind, containing useful messages. If you fall asleep with unclean thoughts, in a state of anger or irritation, this will attract coarse and evil energies, sleep will be restless, and dreams will be difficult; this state before bedtime is a breeding ground for nightmares.

To remember your dream in the morning, place a transparent glass or crystal glass with cold water at your head at night, add 1 tablespoon of coarse salt and stir. This will relieve you of bad energy accumulated after a tiring day at work, improve sleep, and dissolve sad and anxious thoughts. In the morning, say “Thank you,” pour out the water and rinse the glass with cold running water.

If, despite following the above recommendations, you still have difficulty remembering your dreams, taking niacin and large doses of vitamin B6, a vitamin for mental development, may be helpful. It is precisely because of a lack of vitamin B6 that it is sometimes difficult to remember dreams.

What to do

If dreams are repeated, you need to try to understand their meaning. Sometimes people are able to identify a problem on their own and solve it before it causes serious harm. It's best to use a step-by-step approach:

We must remember when the dream came last time, and what events preceded it.
Analyze the current state of health, emotional and psychological state, financial side and other aspects of life that may cause dissatisfaction or be subject to change.
Try to correct the current situation or direct the course of events for the better.

If you cannot solve the problem on your own, you can contact a somnologist, psychologist or psychoanalyst. An experienced doctor will conduct a comprehensive diagnosis, ask leading questions and help understand the secret meaning of the visions that bother the patient.

Psychologists' opinion

This may seem surprising, but psychologists adhere to the opinion of dream interpreters. After all, recurring dreams often indicate either an existing problem or that it may arise in the future. In this case, you can try to find the right solution together with a psychologist if you cannot do it yourself. Although it is possible to contact dream interpreters directly, you must, of course, change your life situation on your own.

To summarize, I would like to say that whether to believe or not to believe in repeatedly recurring dreams is everyone’s business. But if you still dream the same dream many times, then it’s worth thinking about what the subconscious wants to warn you about.

Why is a dream difficult to remember?

This is due to the physical or psychological state of the dreamer and the characteristics of the dream itself.
If a person is tired, overworked or sick, then night visions are practically not remembered. The probability of a prophetic dream at this time is negligible, so a person either sees frightening pictures, plotless shots in which it is difficult to remember something, or sees nothing at all. There is no point in remembering them in this state, since they do not affect the future.

There are times when the dreamer is closed to information flows, so the pictures are not remembered. It is also not worth remembering dreams in such a situation, since night visions do not carry any important and useful information.

If you cannot refresh your memory, return your thoughts to the physical state. Most often this happens when:

the dreamer is physically overworked, sick or very tired;
suffers from depression or mental disorders;
recently experienced a severe psychologically traumatic situation, became a victim of an attack, violence, or lost a loved one;
works a lot mentally and with large amounts of information.

For example, preparing for exams and not getting enough sleep for several nights;

does not subconsciously accept his life and does not allow dreams to break into it. Usually such people obey circumstances, forbid themselves to do what they want, blocking access to the subconscious.

The reasons why visions are not remembered may also be related to the characteristics of the dreams themselves. Prophetic night stories come at night on the eve of events that change the future, when nothing can be changed or if a fatal incident has already happened.

There may be several such dreams in the dreamer’s entire life, therefore, seeing ordinary dreams without content and meaning, a person does not remember them. But there are people who very often see prophetic dreams that come true even in small things, pictures of the future.

This is due to the fact that they have an open subconscious channel, which allows them to work with any dreams. But they also have pictures that are difficult to remember. This is due to the nature of sleep:

night dreams associated with the processing of information and daytime impressions are not remembered;
if they are caused by suffering and anxiety;
dreams associated with traumatic incidents, monsters and killers, nightmares caused by negative magical effects, past events and painful health;
night visions due to fatigue and a broken state of the body.

Stress or nervous shock

During periods of exacerbation of nervous tension, the body seeks to throw out accumulated negative emotions. It is difficult for a person to let go of a situation that oppresses him, even if there is no way out of it. Anxiety manifests itself in negative dreams that haunt someone who is depressed or stressed.

The situation worsens due to the fact that during such periods the body is exhausted. A person sleeps less, his appetite worsens, and his thoughts revolve only around the problem. This leads to a vicious circle that puts a person in a state of extreme nervous exhaustion.

Recurring dreams haunt people who have recently experienced a serious nervous shock. This could be the loss of a loved one, a job, or another negative experience.