Dreaming about a dream that has occurred before, also known as a recurring dream, is a fairly common phenomenon. About 2 out of 3 people report experiencing this phenomenon. These dreams not only have the same theme but can also repeat all the details from night to night.
What’s in a dream?
In some recurring dreams, the message can be very simple. For example, continuously dreaming about being late for school or work often stems from the current situation of worry and being unprepared for those things. However, with other dreams, it may require individuals to introspect to learn more.
When we sleep, the brain is not completely shut down, it continues to receive signals from both outside and inside your body. Your auditory, tactile, and even visual senses continue to register stimuli.
“Some people dream about anxiety about exams, even though they haven’t been to school for many years. This may reflect a common fear of failure or feeling judged by those in positions of authority. Meanwhile, dreaming about teeth falling out or decaying may be related to losing something else in life, such as a sense of despair, inability to fight back, and health issues,” said Ms. Barrett.
When confronted with a recurring dream, each individual should question themselves what the message could be. Those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or having inherent anxiety often experience recurring dreams. They originate from a severe trauma to the point where it keeps coming back like a nightmare.
“The brain is trying to resolve something and put it into a resting state. But in people with PTSD, their dreams are so vivid that they wake them up from sleep. This becomes an issue because the dream is never processed, and this is why it repeats,” Mr. Dimitriu said.
Furthermore, sometimes recurring dreams can also be a biological expression. For example, individuals who experience sleep apnea will have dreams such as drowning, suffocating, facing giant waves, breathing heavily, being underwater or choking. During sleep, they are truly interrupted in breathing due to their own health condition.
Environmental factors such as car alarm or dripping water can also make a person dream about them if they hear them while sleeping.
Breaking free from the loops
As mentioned, recurring dreams often bring negative emotions to the dreamers. Dreaming about a strange dream over and over again can sometimes leave you confused. So do scientists have a way to help us break free from these loops or not?
A simple and quite effective method is to write down your dream.
A simple and quite effective method is to write down your dream. You can imagine the nightmare again and write it down in a diary while you are awake. But when writing it down, deliberately change the details you don’t want to repeat, making your dream version brighter and more positive. Many people have applied this method and succeeded.
Others may try methods of triggering Lucid dreams, or lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams are dreams in which you know you are dreaming and can control yourself. This ability allows you to make decisions in recurring dreams and have the ability to choose what will happen next, rather than a preset script.
However, one thing to note is that not all recurring dreams are bad. They can even be useful to some extent. Analyzing your recurring dreams, see if it implies any issues in your real life or not?
Paying attention to repetitive elements in recurring dreams can help you understand yourself better and resolve the struggles in life. It can be an unconscious guidance until you overcome the difficulty, the dream will not recur anymore.
