[KatieUR]

Hi everyone,

I have the same reoccurring dreams every night - At least there will always be strong similarities with some extra or different things about it - But tied in to my daily dreams and always elevators, escalators, shopping malls and often I am trying to get somewhere but am stopped/delayed and stressed about it.

The dream will always have something else going on it it also, but my main issue is that I can wake up in the morning and feel weird to be awake! Like the dream is more real than real life! Sometimes I find it really hard to shake off the dream and it goes around in my head all day long and can affect me quite a bit.

Is there anything I can do to stop this happening or any advice anyone can offer?

Thanks in advance,

Katie, 25.

[Perna]

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.

[KatieUR]

Hi Perna,

Many thanks for the welcome.

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?

Probably yes. I've never managed in my dream to actually 'solve' or 'pass' any of the problems that I had in them... Like needing to catch the last bus and being delayed and then missing the bus. The dream ends dead there, that I just missed what I needed to do and has no further details.

Have you had to leave your home in the past, perhaps before you felt ready?

Well, it depends which way your question is viewed. But at the age of 21, I moved to a new country by myself and just had my sister here and no other friends or family. On one hand, I wouldn't change this experience for anything else and I'm definitely not moving anywhere else. But on the other, as with anyone who emigrates, it's stressful in learning a new language, culture, building your life from scratch almost and at a pretty young age. I was very close with my sister since coming, but she got married several months ago so we are less close now. Which has been tough.

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.

Yea, probably true also! And they are never regular escalators and elevators... For example, I'm in a shopping mall and I look from a distance at people coming down an escalator - All of a sudden, the stairs collapse and people fall down on to the marble floor. I don't see any gore or anything, but obviously, they have been killed from this! And sometimes, I'm in an elevator and I go not only up and down (and can't find the floor I need) but the elevator is moving sideways around a shopping mall for example, rather than up and down, outside also around the parking lot for example. Not sure if there is more in this to look at?

Thanks for the rest of your advice, I think it's a really great plan. I want to try and write my dreams down as soon as I wake up also as sometimes I only remember a tiny bit of my dream, but it still really affects me during the day. I think it would help to try and remember more of them, maybe they are not all as bad as the ones I remember and maybe I can get more out of them!?

[Perna]

I think remembering dreams, and even enjoying them and the remembering, can help a lot with recurring and difficult dreams. For me, it seems like the dreams are almost alive and respond to being listened to, show me more that's helpful and don't have to try so hard to get my attention (by being unduly bizarre or frightening). It's like going with the flow of a river current instead of trying to go against it.

[KatieUR]

I agree Perna ;-) Thanks.

To be honest, maybe you saw my other post in the other section of the forum. I basically had a panic attack this morning for the first time and made an emergency appointment with a psychologist that I found (I have never been in therapy before for anything) - I went already to see her today and hope that things will be OK - She has helped me a lot already in bringing out the issues I have from my past and present.

Without me saying anything, she said that she'd like to talk to me a lot about my dreams and she summed up the meanings of the ones I told her about pretty much 100% without knowing me much at all.

Looks like I'll be doing this twice a week now with her, plus other therapy...