How to Stop a Recurring Dream

Recurring dreams are ones that appear to you often. It may be a dream that you have over a span of weeks or years. Recurring dreams often happen during an emotional time, such as adolescence or when you are involved in a relationship. These dreams may stem from some buried insecurity we have. You may have a recurring dream during your teen years only to find it to end once you become an adult. However, if you enter a similar situation that originally caused the recurring dream, you may find it coming back.

For example, you may have a dream of being laughed at by others when you are a teen because you are feeling insecure. As you age, you may become more confident and that recurring dream may subside. But, in young adulthood, you start a new job where you do not feel comfortable around your co-workers. The recurring dream of laughter may return because you once again feel insecure.

Why do we have Recurring Dreams?

These dreams appear as a way for us to work out trouble or stress in our life. They may also occur when we have a pattern in our life that is not recognised consciously. For either of these reasons, our psyche may replay these dreams over and over until we “get it” – that is solve whatever is so truly and deeply bothering us that we cannot consciously see it. They are like an alarm bell from our subconscious that something is not quite right.

There is a problem with recurring dreams however. Some may be harmless, such as someone who works too hard dreaming that they are sitting at their desk answering the phone over and over. But many recurring dreams are haunting. Whether haunting or just annoying, you may find yourself thinking throughout the day “What did that dream mean?” But, that is a good thing. You need to understand your dream before you can think about stopping it.

Stopping Recurring Dreams

Is it possible to stop them? Yes, but the solution is to find what is troubling you. The recurring dreams are your subconscious’ way of working out conflict and until that conflict is resolved, the dreams will more than likely persist.

In order to stop the recurring dream, you must break a pattern you are setting or work on an anxiety or insecurity you have. To stop the recurring dream, you must first understand it. After you have a recurring dream, stop and reflect on what has been going on for the last 24-48 hours in your life. Do you feel overworked? Have you felt apprehensive about something or someone? If the dream recurs over time, ask yourself what was going on in your life last time you had this dream.

Dream Diary

You can also keep a dream diary to help you mark the events that happen in your recurring dream. Write down what you remember as soon you awake. Give yourself a few hours to clear your mind before reading what you wrote. Try to figure out what significance an action in your dream has to your real life actions. Later, as you read about the dream, jot down any notes that come to your mind about the dream or your present life.

If you find you cannot pinpoint the source of your dream and it is so haunting that you feel you need outside assistance, contact a psychiatrist or counsellor to help you through your issues.

Stopping a recurring dream is possible, but you must first analyse the dream, and then think about what is going on in your life that may be causing that dream. Once you find the source of the dream, be it a bad relationship, insecurity, or an overloaded work schedule, you can begin to make changes to the source of your problems and then, the dream should stop. But beware, once you hit upon that problem again, the dream may come back to remind you to make changes in your life.