Hi, Katie, welcome to PsychCentral (PC).

It's my belief that recurring dreams refer to an issue(s) in our past or a recurring situation through the present that we haven't dealt with or "heard" adequately yet.

I bet if you got where you were going, even if it was difficult and frustrating, the dreams would feel different and not stay with you?

Are you trying to do a job or school degree that someone else wants but not you? Have you had to leave your home in the past, perhaps before you felt ready? I think, that elevators and escalators, in dreams, generally take us between intellectual (up, head), emotional, sexual (they're down, emotional often has a water/underwater theme, the "sexual" or body portion of us; energy and gut, etc. the "down" is often a basement or parking garage); since you seem to be taking so many, in all directions I assume, and you're in shopping malls, very public places, I'd think your dreams were saying how you respond to day-to-day life, kind of like the dream, frustrated and stressed? But because it's recurring, it must have been happening for awhile and be a pattern.

If yours were my situation, I'd make a plan every night for the next day, think over what happened today and how I dealt with it, what's coming up and make a plan for how to deal with it and maybe some backup. I'd plan in at least one "new" challenges for myself that I would look forward to because I'd planned them (instead of they're just happening to me). I'd look at where I get most frustrated during my days, where I feel "stopped" and try to get clear on what I'm "looking for" and specifically where and how I hope to find it. If that is part of the problem, if I felt I didn't know what I was looking for or wasn't looking for anything specific, I'd start experimenting and studying to see what it was I might want and do some daydreaming and planning.