Recurring dreams? Recurring nightmares?
If our dreams allow us a smile when we wake, then they are good. If our dreams process a problem and offer options for its solution, then they are good. If our dreams provide escape, diversion, possibility and we can carry that positive energy forward into our working days, then they are good. 
What about nightmares? Recurring nightmares that invade your hours in the dark, but reflect what you know already?
What about waking up to a scream, or sobbing, and the raspy voice is yours, and you look around a room in shadow – you are safe, for now – but the prickling message of the recurring dream is just as present?
What good are dreams that are no more than playbacks of what you already know? Variation on a troubling melody?
Sometimes a dream will replay itself nearly identically to another, like watching a rerun on television. Other times, the theme is the same and recognizable, even if the plot twists and characters are different.
Dreaming the future?
My images this night were not lucid dreaming; had they been, I would’ve had some power to act, to reason with myself and others, or withdraw from the interaction altogether. Thus, the sensation during and after the dream would be less chilling.
But this was a theme I recognize, a recurring dream of homelessness. Last night’s was more cruel than most; the family of my ex-husband – cousins, aunts, uncles – were each taking every last object that remains in my home, including possessions of my mother and grandmother, and the sentimental creations of a child (mine) given to my mother. They were merchandising them and then selling them, at a sort of massive discount bazaar, including objects of no value except to me. I was screaming “you have no right,” but I was barred from entry and held back by guards. Prevented from stopping them. 
In the dream I knew it was already too late. I was powerless. There was no home, and soon even these objects would disappear. No trace of my origins, or the generations before. No legacy to pass along to my sons.
Of course, I have wonderful dreams as well. But these nightmares return more often, and more insistently. They serve no purpose whatsoever, except to remind me even during precious sleep of what I know too well.
- Do you have recurring dreams? Recurring nightmares?
- What do you learn from them, if anything?
- Is there any take-away from a dream, or nightmare, that has made its point over and over already?
Light of day, waking to storm
It was a stormy night – thunder, lightning, pouring rain which I could hear rushing through the tin gutters and pounding onto the ground below; pine needles and detritus have blocked more than one corner where water should run through and out a spout. Instead, it spills over the channels designed to direct it and deflect it away from the foundations, to do no harm. Cleaning must be done. That takes money, or capacity I do not have. In the meantime, there is destruction.
Are recurring nightmares a sort of blockage? Something is clogged in the mind – or in the reality of a life – and it keeps streaming through the subconscious, over and over despite awareness, like a bludgeon. How often do we need to remind ourselves, even in sleep, of what we cannot fix in waking? How cruelly dreams treat us at times, in their desertion, and in their reappearance.
So day turns to the usual: I busy myself with tasks – writing, editing, parenting, driving, cleaning, laundry, shopping, bill paying, more writing, research. The details of a small life, even if an expansive imagination. And wondering if sleep will come tonight, and with it another dream. Perhaps, with a solution. Or at the very least, with no more reminders of the challenges.
Ooh…I feel for you. I have a recurring nightmare about being trapped in my former marriage, often physically trapped in a house w/ my ex. It doesn’t happen as often anymore, thankfully. I suppose it serves one purpose: To remind me, once I wake, how lucky I am to be living an alternative, better life in the present tense. Lovely post!
The following paragraph stands out for me:
“Are recurring nightmares a sort of blockage? Something is clogged in the mind – or in the reality of a life – and it keeps streaming through the subconscious, over and over despite awareness, like a bludgeon. How often do we need to remind ourselves, even in sleep, of what we cannot fix in waking? How cruelly dreams treat us at times, in their desertion, and in their reappearance.”
This is a profound and fascinating question. If recurring nightmares are a breed of blockage, are happy dreams – literal and metaphorical – the opposite? Do these more positive reveries clear the pipes of the mind, allowing us to see what we want and have, the things that are sturdy and strong and not in need of fixing?
I love this post. I think dreams are so incredibly important. Our dreams are repositories of who we were, are, and will be.
My dearest Wolfe,
I loved yesterday’s post about all your little secrets. I read it in the middle of the night so didn’t leave a message because I was afraid it wouldn’t make sense. Aren’t you supposed to tell us who gave you the award and then pass it along, or are you waiting to decide? (I have something coming up for you in the next few days. . .!!)
Did I ever tell you about my interview with Ionesco? If I did, pretend I didn’t. He kept a journal and a pen next to his bed because he was convinced some of his greatest ideas grew out of is subconscious — he said sometime that wasn’t true at all, but he didn’t want to risk the loss.
Are you doing that? You are such a superb writer it would be a shame if you forget some marvelous nugget or thread which you could pick up and turn into real gold, the kind that pays perhaps for leaky eaves perhaps.
More later through another medium, well not exactly, but you know what I mean.
xoxo,
Tish
P.S.: Pitted black olives, I love it.
Ah chère Tish – tu nous tentes avec tes histoires d’Ionesco – but no, you never told us more than the fact that you interviewed him.
The Sugar Doll was graciously given to me by Wendy, at Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired, last week, as mentioned here: https://dailyplateofcrazy.com/2010/02/19/guys-and-dolls-blogging-awards/ – and yes, I’m in a bit of a passion for fashion these days (says the woman about to go scrub the teenage boy bathroom).
I don’t have recurring nightmares – luckily. And I wonder all the time whether I have recurring dreams, or whether what I think of as my one recurring dream is actually a form of nighttime deja vu.
Last night I had uncharacteristically bad dreams: one about a physical threat to Husband and me; one about a physical threat to my baby. What I do know from those dreams is the degree to which bad dreams can steal sleep and cast a pall over the next day (she writes, third cup of coffee in hand).
Yes, Kristen. I agree. Good dreams cast light throughout the day. And nightmares seem to cast a pall. Perfectly stated.
It sounds indeed like you are carrying blockages that threaten your very foundation. Cleaning must be done. Sorry to hear of the recurring nightmares. That’s no fun at all. Find peace. Be well.
Why is it that the good dreams do not recur but sometimes nightmares do? I wonder if it’s a subconscious desire to get the point across? Do you believe in dream analysis? I think when I try to figure them out the meaning is way off from what someone skilled says the objects represent. I’ve always been fascinated with dreams and probably spend way too much time trying to figure them out!
I hardly ever remember my dreams. It’s weird.
But I have several bad dreams that I have at least a few times a month. The one I hate the most is the one where I’m in college and realize that there’s a class I registered for that I completely forgot to attend ALL semester. So I’m panicked, trying to cram for a final I have no business taking. It sucks. I always wake up angry, thinking, “THAT shitty dream again?”
I have always had very vivid and intense – and sometimes prophetic – dreams. They are not always this way nor do I remember all of my dreams. It seems to go in phases with no particular rhyme or reason.
I do dream about things I am stressing about too, like last night I dreamt my credit cards got stolen. Probably because they are very close to maxing out right now. Go figure.
Right before, and a few weeks after, my children were born I was cursed with recurring nightmares of my children drowning, suffocating, and other hideous ends. It was horrible.
Now my dreams are mixtures of pleasant and unpleasant things. Take last night, I dreamed something that a science fiction author would drool over! I might just turn it into a short story.
Something I have learned from my dreams is that they are not to be taken seriously. My husband, on the other hand, has very profound dreams. He has that gift. I don’t and I’m sort of glad.
Oh, I cringed just reading your dream. That IS a real nightmare!
The only recurring dreams I have are the old It’s Time for the Final and I haven’t Been to Class dream, and the one where I open my mouth and can’t speak. That one scares the crap out of me.
I have night terrors that increase in frequency and magnitude whenever I am really stressed or sleep deprived. The only way in which this is good is that sometimes a night terror alerts me to my rising stress levels. Sometimes I don’t realize how stressed out I am so these lovely little panicked horrifying moments are great reminders. 😉
Some dreams are quite significant. Sometimes it takes a little thought and introspection to figure out what they mean. I remember quite a few of mine, some good, some bad.
Kind of fun to mull them over and consider what they mean.
I have the same recurring dream that TKW has (does everyone have this stupid dream, a leftover from college stress?). Sometimes I’m college-aged in it and sometimes I’m in Algebra 101 but I’m 49. Go figure.
When I was a kid I used to have a horrible dream about carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It sent me into my parents’ room every time I had it. This past Yom Kippur, standing during the mourner’s prayer, I realized that the nightmare has come true, in a symbolic way: I’m carrying Judaism on alone in my family, the weight of the world on my shoulders.