Recurring dreams

I have two recurring dreams although they are not frequent. I know exactly the two anxieties that give rise to them.

I dread bedtimes because my dreams are so awful and exhausting. I’m always trying to get somewhere or drive somewhere but it’s never a good feeling. And I’m usually much younger. Also I keep dreaming of my house which is full of rooms that I didn’t know existed. It was so real that one morning I got up and tried to look for them! Weird.

Does anyone remember the case of Jenny Cockell? The BBC did a documentary about her. She had recurring dreams, even as a young child, that she was an Irish mother with several children whom she had to leave as she was terminally ill.

The BBC took her to Ireland and met the (now aged) children who all confirmed the truth of the many details Cockell was able to give about their Mum, including that she was deeply upset to leave them when she was dying of (I think) TB.

I remember seeing the doco and started looking into dreams being linked to past lives. It seems to be quite a common phenomenon all over the world.

Elvive - I used to have a similar dream. My counsellor thought it was that the hidden room represented a part of me that I was keeping hidden; that I may not even be consciously aware of! Love the idea of the sunflowers.

A couple of years ago, I started having the same dream night after night. In the dream, I was back living at home with my parents (they both died more than thirty years ago). I would arrive home at night park my car in the old cow shed and walk/run down the lane past the Dutch barn to the farm cottage where we lived. My mum and dad would be in bed, so I had to unlock the back door and walk through the house in the dark which I hated, go up the stairs still with no light and only when I was in my bedroom with the door closed could I turn it on.

The dream exactly mirrored what I had to do back then, but I couldn’t work out why I was dreaming about it all these years later. I told my husband about it and said I would like to go back to see the house one last time. It’s a long way from where we live now, but we thought we would make a day of it by having lunch in the local pub then walk around the village and eventually to the farm. Everything looked the same as it always had the old cowshed and Dutch barn are still there, but my childhood home is no more. The hedge, gate and path are just as they were, but the house is completely gone, not a brick or anything to show it was ever there. It was such a huge shock, and I’m still not really over it, but the dream has not recurred. I don’t know what it was all about but can only think my parents wanted me to know.

Another recurring dream I used to have which I attribute to stress was that relatives were outside in the garden at night trying to come in. The door was locked, I’d forgotten they were coming and I’d not prepared the spare bed. I always woke up in a panic.

I have always been a 'dreamer' and find dreams fascinating. Many of them make sense when I think of what has been going on in my life or what I have read, or watched on TV. Lately, lots about DGC getting into trouble or having accidents because they won't listen to me (they don't in real life!!) I become quite distraught. However I do regularly have the dreams about houses/homes where there are rooms, or a garden, I have forgotten about. I would recognise them instantly if I actually saw them.

There are also those where I am walking a foot or so above the ground and I tell myself it must be a dream. I can also swim without effort in dreams though I am not a strong swimmer.

Does anyone else have the one where they are driving a car down steps or on an impossible road/lane where they pick it up and carry it? There is also another one where I am driving a huge lorry or double decker bus from the top floor and trying to park it!!

I won't comment on the 'packing' dreams when I can't find what I need or am stopped at every turn as time is running out before I have to be ready. I think that is fairly obvious!

I wake every morning at about 5 at what I can only call panic stations. This happens every day, I wake in a state of fear and dread, even when I don't need to do anything in particular, and with my stomach churning. Only occasionally do I recall dreaming. I have been told that this is due to a lack of self-confidence but my younger daughter tells me to think of all I have achieved since being widowed nearly five years ago. I did think about going for hypnosis to see if that works. Does anyone have any thoughts as to how to deal with panic attacks?

I used to have a series of dreams where some everyday activity, like walking up a street became impossible - the street got steeper and steeper until it was a sheer wall.

They stopped when I worked out that even as an adult I felt my parents were influencing me to do things I at heart didn't want to.

Perhaps you need to think carefully about the thing that scared you as a child and try to see it from an adult point of view where I hope it won't be so scary.