I've had all kinds of dreams, from lucid to strangely abstract to vivid like memories, and some dreams that I can't even figure out the connection to me, as if they are about someone else. Even though I believe in the power of the unconscious and do a form of psychoanalysis myself in therapy, I rarely talk about my dreams or process them even on my own.

I guess the shift happened because what I realized is that dreams might simply be a way of trying to process something that I would at this point prefer to happen while I'm asleep. Usually if I talk about or process a dream, I focus only on the affect that is dominant in the dream. Whatever feeling state is most present in the dream. This gives me some information about what I am currently feeling, not necessarily the past though it might be tied back there.

While I do believe that parts of us are lost to us and instead remain tied to some past experiences especially if traumatic, so in that sense "frozen in time" and age specific, I just don't think that forcing it in an artificial way would be helpful.

I've also found that when I'm having a dream that is going badly and repeating some sort of outline of a traumatic event, I end up now, no matter what sleep meds, waking up to end it. I just shake it off and then go back to sleep.

Maybe this isn't coherent or advice at all. I just think that dreams are complicated and there isn't one single way to approach them. And they will always have distortions even if a traumatic type that has memory in it. It's definitely pushing if the dream repeats but doesn't give you a feeling that you can work with. Beyond that I'm not sure what to say.