Repeated dreams meaning
What Do Recurring Dreams Mean?
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5 Common Recurring Dreams & What They Mean
You’re back at school, staring down at an algebra exam with the sinking realization that you forgot to study for it. The resulting anxiety of a failed grade, disappointed parents, and lack of college acceptances feel all too real until you wake up and realize you’re just having the same dream for the second time in a week. Recurring dreams are common, but when you find yourself dreaming about the same thing, you might wonder: Is your dream trying to tell you something?
Dreams are still a source of mystery, and scientists are somewhat split about their significance.
Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed dreams represented repressed wishes and provided insight into the inner workings of our minds.
But at the other end of the spectrum is the Activation Synthesis Hypothesis by John Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, which states that dreams are electrical brain impulses that draw random thoughts and images from our memories. Beyond that, dreams don’t hold any meaning, according to the theory.
However, nearly 75 percent of adults experience recurring dreams. Though there’s no concrete evidence to understand why it happens, research has found that people from all over the world believe dreams provide meaningful insight into themselves and their lives.
Let’s dive deeper to understand why you have recurring dreams and decode some of the most common ones.
Why Do You Have Recurring Dreams?
If you feel like your dreams are trying to tell you something about your life, you might not be far off. Dream researchers believe that recurring dreams occur because you’re dealing with unresolved issues that are causing you stress.
The longer you avoid addressing the problem, the more likely you are to have the same dream over and over again.
Recurrent dreams may also occur if you’ve experienced a traumatic event in your life. In this case, you might stop having the dream once you’ve processed the trauma.
Because of the repetitive nature of these dreams, it’s natural to experience anxiety about the significance of these dreams. But the bottom line is that, no matter what’s triggering it, recurring dreams may persist until you address the underlying issue and come to terms with it.
To tap into the root of the dream and understand why you’re having it, consider jotting down the details of your dreams. Then, you can identify the trigger and start resolving the problem.
The Most Common Dreams & Their Meanings
Recurring dreams often take common themes. Here are five of the most common dreams and their hidden meanings.
1. You’re losing your teeth
Dreaming about your teeth falling is one of the most unsettling nighttime experiences, and it comes with multiple meanings.
One interpretation of this dream is insecurity, particularly as it relates to major life changes, such as moving to a different country, starting a new job, or dealing with a breakup. Stress and anxiety about the future can manifest themselves in the form of a dream about teeth loss.
Though the dream itself might be scary, not all interpretations are negative. The dream could also represent a milestone in your journey. Psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that teeth are symbolic of growth and transformation. As a young kid, you lose all your baby teeth, but over time, adult teeth take their place. Similar to that progression, this dream could also mean that you’re about to transition into a positive phase of your life.
2. You’re falling
It might be safe to say that nearly everyone has woken up with a jolt after they dreamed about falling off a cliff and dropping into a sea of nothingness. Though disturbing, recurring dreams about falling are arguably one of the most common.
This dream is often associated with feeling vulnerable, helpless, or overwhelmed. In general, the dream is a symbol of fear and could mean that you’re feeling uncertain about some area in your life. Perhaps you’re concerned that you’re not doing well enough at work or you’re worried about something you have very little control over, such as the state of your finances or the future of your relationship.
Whatever the case, if you experience this dream night after night, try to identify the source of your fear and consider taking a new direction.
3. You’re taking a test in school
The anxiety of being unprepared for a test is something we’re all familiar with, and there are several variations of this dream. Either you forgot to study for the test, you arrive late, or you can’t complete the exam within the allocated time. No matter what the scenario is, this recurring dream usually means that you’re anxious about failing.
Typically, dreams about being back at school and taking a test are associated with work-related stresses.
But the connection could be vaguer. You might also just be feeling unconfident about tackling something that’s challenging you, whether that’s in a personal or professional sense.
4. You’re being chased
Whether you’re being chased by an animal, a three-legged monster, or an attacker, the meaning of this recurring dream is more or less the same.
If you’re being chased in your dreams, it means that you’re running away from something in your life instead of confronting it and dealing with it head-on. However, the interpretation of this dream isn’t limited to an external conflict.
Dreams about being chased could also mean that you’re suppressing a negative emotion, such as anger or jealousy. In that instance, the chaser in your dream could actually just be a manifestation of your repressed emotion.
5. You’re being surrounded by insects or bugs
At the height of the pandemic, many people reported experiencing increasingly vivid dreams and nightmares about bugs.
The connection between the pandemic and recurring dreams about bugs, worms, and other creepy-crawlies is easy to understand.
In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, Harvard researcher Deirdre Barrett said, “When we say ‘I’ve got a bug,’ that means ‘I’m sick’ and often ‘I’ve got a virus.’ So I think it’s partly just that association. But then a little bit deeper than just the word, I think, is the idea that lots of little things that cumulatively can hurt or kill you is really a very good metaphor for the virus particles.”
Another interpretation is that minor irritations and worries that you’ve tried to repress are finally sneaking up on you. Conversely, it could also indicate that you’re fixating so much on one particular thing that it’s overwhelming you. Regardless of which interpretation applies to you, dreaming about bugs is a good indicator to change your outlook and try a different way of thinking.
How Can You Stop Recurring Dreams?
Chances are that if you’re having recurring dreams, they’re likely unnerving in nature or causing you to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
However, there isn’t a quick fix for stopping these dreams altogether.
One way to reduce the frequency is by documenting these dreams in a journal and finding ways to interpret the meaning, whether that means consulting a professional dream analyst or looking it up online. Interpreting your dreams can effectively help you get to the root of the issue that might be bothering you so that you can take corrective action. Once you address the problem, the recurring dreams are likely to come to an end.
But if you’re having nightmares that are so intense that they’re interfering with your ability to get a good night’s sleep, practicing good sleep hygiene is the best way to keep the recurring dreams at bay. Here are some tips you can try to cultivate healthier sleep habits:
- Establish a consistent sleep schedule. There’s a reason why many sleep experts recommend going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. Establishing a routine can help you reset your sleep schedule, allowing your body to naturally feel sleepy at certain times of the day and wake up when it’s fully rested.
The consistency can also regulate your sleep-wake cycle, which means that you’re less likely to face disruptions while you’re asleep. - Prep your space for comfort. A good night’s rest depends on the quality of your sleep setup. Invest in the best mattress possible so that you can fall asleep faster and wake up with minimal disruptions. A memory foam mattress and a hybrid mattress are both excellent choices if you’re looking for superior support and comfort for a peaceful night’s rest.
- Unwind before bed. To ensure you don’t have any unpleasant dreams, it’s essential to relax before bed and avoid potential triggers, such as watching scary movies or reading the news. Even working late at night can interfere with your sleep simply because you’re not giving yourself time to decompress. Taking a warm bath, meditating, doing yoga, or journaling are all great ways to unwind before bed and enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep.
Recurring dreams typically have an underlying cause.
Though they may be unpleasant, try not to take them too seriously. If they do bother you, consider doing some introspection to understand what your dreams are really trying to say. More often than not, resolving personal issues can help you put an end to the dreams that keep you up night after night.
Do you experience Recurring Dreams? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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Disclaimer. We love sleep and we want you to get the best sleep possible. But we do not provide medical advice. This blog is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical info, diagnosis, or treatment.Never ignore professional medical advice in seeking treatment because of something you have read on our blog.
Why do I have recurring nightmares?
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What does science say about recurring dreams?
Having the same dream over and over again is a well-known phenomenon: almost two-thirds of the population report recurring dreams. Being chased, finding yourself naked in a public place or in the middle of a natural disaster, losing your teeth, or forgetting about classes for an entire semester are typical recurring dream scenarios. But where did this phenomenon come from? Explain neuroscientist Claudia Picard-Deland and psychiatrist Tore Nielsen from the University of Montreal on the pages of The Conversation.
The science of dreams shows that recurring dreams can reflect unresolved conflicts in a person's life. They often occur during times of stress, but can also haunt you for an extended period of time, sometimes several years or even your entire life. Not only do these dreams have the same themes, they can also repeat the same story night after night.
Although the exact content of recurring dreams is unique to each person, there are common themes among people of different cultures. Some of the most common scenarios include stalking, falling, not preparing for an exam, being late, or repeatedly trying to do something.
Most recurring dreams have negative content, including emotions such as fear, sadness, anger and guilt. More than half of recurring dreams are associated with a situation where the sleeper is in danger. But some regular daydreams can be positive and even euphoric: for example, dreams in which we fly or open new rooms in our house, as well as erotic dreams.
In some cases, recurring dreams that begin in childhood may persist into adulthood. These dreams may disappear for several years, reappear in the presence of a new source of stress, and then disappear again when the situation is over.
Unresolved conflicts
Why does our brain reproduce the same dreams over and over again? Research shows that dreams in general help us regulate our emotions and adapt to stressful events. Incorporating emotional material into dreams may allow a person to experience a painful or difficult event.
In the case of recurring dreams, the same content may represent a failed attempt to make sense of these difficult experiences. In many theories, the prevailing view is that recurring dreams are associated with unresolved difficulties or conflicts in a person's life.
The presence of recurring dreams is also associated with lower levels of psychological well-being and the presence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. These dreams tend to recur during stressful situations and stop when the person resolves a personal conflict, indicating an improvement in well-being.
Recurring dreams are often figurative of people's emotional experiences. For example, a dream about a tsunami occurs after an injury or abuse. This is a typical example of a metaphor that embodies the emotions of helplessness, panic, or fear experienced while awake. And when in a dream you find yourself naked or inappropriately dressed, you cannot find a toilet - these are scenarios that personify embarrassment and shame.
These themes can be seen as ready-made scripts that provide us with a space where we can process our conflicting emotions. The same script can be reused in different situations where we experience similar emotions. That's why some people who are faced with a stressful situation or a new challenge may dream that they were unprepared for a math exam - even years after they graduated from high school. Although the circumstances are different, a similar feeling of stress or a desire to succeed can trigger the same dream scenario again.
Continuity of repetition
American researcher and psychologist William Domhoff proposes the concept of continuous repetition of dreams.
In an extreme case, traumatic nightmares directly reproduce the trauma experienced - this is one of the main symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
In this case, recurring dreams arise in which the same dream content is reproduced partially or completely. Unlike traumatic dreams, recurring dreams rarely reproduce an event or conflict directly, but reflect it metaphorically through the underlying emotion.
Next, according to this theory of the continuity of dreams, there are recurring themes in dreams. These dreams tend to reenact a similar situation—for example, being late, being chased, or being lost—but the exact content of the dream varies. For example, a person dreams of being late for a train, and not for an exam.
Certain dream elements can be found recurring in one person's dreams, such as characters, actions, or objects. All these dreams on different levels reflect an attempt to resolve certain emotional problems.
With the continuous repetition of dreams, experiences gradually change their intensity from a high level to a lower one, which is often a sign that the psychological state of a person is improving.
For example, trauma survivors often experience progressive and positive changes in the content of their traumatic nightmares as they overcome their difficulties.
Physiological phenomena
Why do we usually have the same themes in dreams? One possible explanation is that some of these scenarios provided an evolutionary advantage and therefore stuck with the human race. For example, stalking nightmares that mimic a life threat provide an additional opportunity for a person to practice perceiving predators and fleeing from them in their sleep.
Some general themes can also be partly explained by the physiological phenomena that occur during sleep. A 2018 study by a team of scientists in Israel found that dreams of losing teeth were not particularly associated with anxiety symptoms, but rather were associated with clenching of teeth during sleep or dental discomfort upon awakening.
When we sleep, our brain is not completely cut off from the outside world.
He continues to perceive external stimuli, such as sounds or smells, or internal body signals. This means that other themes, such as not being able to find a toilet or being naked in a public place, may actually be caused by having to empty your bladder at night or wearing loose pajamas in bed.
Some physical phenomena that are characteristic of REM sleep (in this phase of sleep we most often dream) may also be relevant. During REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed, which can lead to dreams of stiff legs or being paralyzed in bed.
Similarly, some authors have suggested that dreams of falling or flying are caused by our vestibular system, which promotes balance and can spontaneously reactivate during REM sleep. Of course, these sensations are not enough to explain the recurrence of dreams in humans and their sudden occurrence during times of stress, but they probably play a significant role in the construction of our most typical dreams.
Break the cycle
People who experience a recurring nightmare are, in a sense, stuck in a certain way of reacting to the dream script and waiting for it.
Treatments have been developed to help eliminate repetitiveness and break the cycle of nightmares.
One method is to visualize the nightmare while awake and then rewrite it, that is, change the story by changing one aspect: for example, fix the end of the dream to something more positive. Lucid dreaming can also be a solution.
In lucid dreams we realize that we are dreaming and can sometimes influence the content of our dream. Being lucid in a recurring dream can allow us to think differently or react to the dream and thereby change its recurring nature.
However, not all recurring dreams are bad in themselves. They can even be helpful as they inform us of our personal conflicts and contradictions. By paying attention to the recurring elements of dreams, perhaps we can better understand and resolve our greatest desires and anguish.
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What do recurring dreams mean | PSYCHOLOGIES
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Know Yourself
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Dream interpretation is not easy, but the process is extremely exciting. Let's see what role recurring dreams and nightmares play. How do dreams affect life? Maybe they have some kind of clue and no one but us can understand it?
They are chasing you, but you cannot see the pursuer, you feel something terrible behind your back, but it is better not to look back.
Legs become wadded, breathing is interrupted. Or you are terribly late, but it seems that you can’t get to the right place. No matter how fast you move and how far to the goal, you cannot understand what is happening, only you know: you can not stop. You run with all your might as long as your legs carry you. You suddenly wake up abruptly. Fortunately, this is only a dream, but it is not possible to shake it off immediately.
Dreams in which someone is chasing us or running somewhere are common, as are those in which we fall, have sex, go back to school.
Most people dream of scenes of persecution, this is the most common plot of childhood dreams
The same scenario is repeated in people belonging to different cultures, living in different places. What is this mystery of the human mind hiding, and is there a rational explanation for it?
Unresolved problems
Dream scientists agree that dreams are psychological in nature.
Scenarios—say, seeing yourself naked in the middle of a class or running down the halls—indicate strong emotions or internal conflicts. Thus, one's own nakedness is associated with shame and helplessness. The subconscious can give out such a picture if in real life a person suppresses these feelings. The version has the right to exist.
For example, you often dream that you are standing at attention in class, flunking an exam, or trying to get out of trouble. If you think about it, you can find many reasons for this. Perhaps the old school trauma and the childhood fear of the punishment that will follow if you do not cope with something reminds you of itself. Maybe you are going through a tough time and your subconscious associates stress with the classroom environment, even if you have long graduated from high school.
Images and experiences from childhood, deeply hidden in the mind, continue to influence life both in dreams and in reality when we become adults. Psychoanalysis has been working on this for decades.
Attempts to interpret these symbols and erase the line between the secret and the obvious are often erroneous.
Pay attention to the context
It must be understood that there can be no single answer here. It is possible to reveal the content of a certain plot in general terms, but the context is determined by the experience and characteristics of the individual. Carl Jung believed that dreams are a means to establish a connection between consciousness and subconsciousness in the process of becoming a person, which he called "individuation". Accordingly, they simply perform their function and there is no need to decipher them.
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A dream that recurs frequently can provide insight into trauma or indicate physiological and psychological problems. Before approaching the solution of symbols from a dream, one must take into account that obstacles block the path to the depths of the subconscious.
All hypotheses are good
The phenomenon of sleep paralysis confirms that the mysterious nature of sleep cannot be explained solely by scientific explanations. The same can be said about the pictures that we dream of.
Both psychological and physiological mechanisms are responsible for everything that we experience in a dream. One-sided perception is not objective. For example, why do many people dream that their teeth are falling out? This can be associated with fear of the dentist, but most often such a vision is visited by those who grind their teeth in a dream, pure physiology.
Trying to debunk the theory of the mystical and spiritual origin of dreams with the help of knowledge of physiology may seem too mundane. But if you brush aside such a banal explanation, you can miss interesting details. Much depends on the position in a dream, since at this time the pressure on different parts of the body and internal organs is unevenly distributed.
For example, people often have nightmares when they sleep on their left side: studies point to a link between this position and nightmares.
Collective nightmare
Quite often an important aspect is not taken into account - the cultural factor. Talking about him, one cannot fail to mention the popular night terror: the man in the hat. The ominous silhouette has appeared to many people who have experienced sleep paralysis. Horror when a stranger in a hat comes to destroy you, and you can not move. The vision is so real and impressive that after such an incident, one person created the blog The Hat Man Project (trans. The Man in a Hat Project): he did research and found people who also described a similar figure that arose with sleep paralysis. The resource still exists, anyone can share their feelings and thoughts about the eerie vision.
How is it possible that all these people dreamed of the same evil character? If we assume that the state of sleep paralysis opens a portal to other worlds, it turns out that the parallel reality is extremely hostile to ours?
There is a hypothesis according to which those who are faced with the unknown try to find in the subconsciousness a culturally accessible solution
A state of stupor in a dream from the area of the unknown.
When a person is threatened by something, instinct makes you panic.
The demons that sit on the chest of a sleeping person, depicted in old drawings, are one of the confirmations of what incredible images our psyche creates. The man in the hat, in turn, resembles Freddy Krueger. The movie A Nightmare on Elm Street is based on the experience of sleep paralysis and Freddie is created as a symbolic embodiment of evil. However, it does not matter what came first, the egg or the chicken. The main thing is that the man in the hat makes the imagination of the sleeping people real.
What have we come to? What are nightmares hiding? Perhaps they have a bit of everything from the above and something that has not yet been given to understand. The realm of dreams is uncharted territory, so it pays to keep your mind open to all possible hypotheses. To understand yourself and your dreams, you will have to penetrate deeper into them and put together all the fragments and small pieces.
