Lately, I’ve been finding myself talking a lot about dreams.

And whether it’s been in-person, giving talks in my local area, or fielding questions from viewers pertaining to one of my videos on my YouTube channel, one topic always seems to come up, and it starts like this:

“I keep having this dream…”

And then the person shares a dream he or she has been having repeatedly, over a period of time.

This is known as a recurring dream.

In this post, I’m going to share my thoughts—those that I share with dreamers when this topic comes up—about why we have recurring dreams, as well as what we can do with them.

Why Do We Have a Recurring Dream?

In my experience, we have recurring dreams for two reasons:

1. We haven’t been able to decode the message in the dream.

In my opinion, dreams are designed to help heal and improve every aspect of our waking lives, but that’s based on understanding the message of the dream and then applying that information to the waking life situation it’s addressing.

When we fail to decipher the message of a particular dream, it can repeat, each time in the hopes we will figure out its meaning and take action on that knowledge.

2. The dream is a response to a recurring waking life situation.

Dreams are typically a response to a waking life situation or event we’ve experienced within the past 24-48 hours of having the dream; recurring dreams operate the same way, and can be experienced every time that waking life situation occurs.

In that regard, it’s like cause and effect: The situation is the cause, and the dream is the effect.

Tips to Work with a Recurring Dream

If you’re experiencing a recurring dream, here are a couple of things that can help break the cycle:

1. Actively work with the dream to unlock its message to you.

This may seem obvious, but it’s been my experience that, more often than not, the dreamer hasn’t given the dream any attention, other than to notice it’s a recurring one.

Taking some time and working with the dream is the first step toward breaking its repetitive pattern.

This was the case for a recent client, Frankie, who came to see me after hearing me speak about dreams in-person. When she came to see me, she wanted to work with a dream that she said she’d been having for years.

The dream always had her grandparents’ home as the location, which always puzzled her, because the home had been sold many years ago. “Why would I keep dreaming about it?” she asked.

I asked her to tell me about the home, and she said that she always enjoyed going there to see her grandparents. I asked her to tell me more; I asked, “When you think of your grandparents’ home, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

She said, “Oh, that’s easy. When I was there, I felt nurtured. I felt comfortable. I had a sense of freedom, that I was allowed to be who I wanted to be, because there were no boundaries.”

I then told Frankie that the house wasn’t about the house itself, but about comfort and freedom, and for her to consider if the house dream was in response to feelings of discomfort and restriction in certain waking life situations.

And then I gave her “homework,” which brings us to the next suggestion:

2. Track what’s going on in your waking life when the dream occurs.

This can be an alternative to sitting down and working with the dream, but may take a bit of time to make the connection.

When the dream is experienced, take some time and reflect on what’s been going on recently in your waking life. Take notes of situations that seem pertinent.

Do this every time you have the dream. And after some time, take a look at your notes, and see if you notice a pattern, if you see something happening again and again, around the same time you have the dream.

If you notice that a particular situation is a possible connection, then you can ask yourself what you might be willing to do differently to address that situation, because the dream may be showing up as a way to ask you to change your tactics in handling it.

It’s been my experience, working with my clients over the years, that either one of these strategies can be effective in interrupting the pattern of a recurring dream.

Have you experienced a bout of recurring dreams? If so, how did you work through it? What did you try? Was it effective?

And, if you’re having a recurring dream at the moment, which of the strategies I mentioned would you be willing to try?

Let me know in the comments section below. I’d love to hear about it!

Wishing you sweet dreams,