Recurring Dreams — Why Does the Same Dream Keep Coming Back?

My friend Dave, who sells industrial adhesives, has had the same dream for thirty years. He’s back in high school, it’s finals week, and he can’t find his classroom. He’s running down these empty linoleum halls, his shoes squeaking, and he wakes up in a sweat. The guy owns two boats. He hasn’t taken an exam since Reagan was president. But there he is, every few months, lost and late.

It got me thinking. Why does the brain do that? It’s not like we’re short on material. My Tuesday was plenty weird enough to dream about, including a truly bizarre sandwich from that new place on 4th Avenue—pastrami with pickled watermelon rind, which sounds awful but was actually pretty good, though it gave me heartburn. But no, the brain goes back to the same old script.

I asked Master Ming about it over tea last week. He swirled his pu’erh and said it’s usually about an elemental imbalance in your bazi chart. He said a recurring dream is like a stuck record. The energy can’t flow, so it spins in the same groove. If you keep dreaming of water, like floods or oceans, maybe your Water element is too weak or too strong, and your subconscious is trying to compensate. He started talking about the cyclical nature of the heavenly stems and I’ll be honest, my eyes glazed over a bit. It was a hot day and the fan was just moving the sticky air around.

I pushed back on him. “Dave’s dream isn’t about elements. It’s about anxiety. Plain and simple.” Ming just smiled and said, “And what is anxiety, Charlie, but a kind of wind shaking the tree?” I had no comeback for that. He can be annoyingly poetic.

I read something once, maybe from that psychologist Jung. His idea was that dreams are trying to balance our conscious mind. If you’re ignoring something big in your waking life, the dream will hammer on it. It repeats because you haven’t gotten the message. The dream isn’t the problem; it’s the alarm. So Dave’s not stressed about a test. He’s stressed about being unprepared in some part of his life he’s not admitting. The industrial adhesive business has its ups and downs, I guess.

I had a recurring dream for a while after my dad passed. Just a simple, stupid dream. I’d be looking for my keys. That’s it. Rummaging through drawers, checking pockets, under couch cushions. I’d wake up frustrated. I told Ming and he asked what I thought I’d lost. I got it intellectually, but the dream kept coming. I tried to “solve” it. I’d even put my real keys right next to my bed before sleeping, like my dreaming brain would notice and call off the search. It didn’t work. I’d still be dreaming of digging through my old junk drawer in the kitchen, the one with the dead batteries and tangled cables.

That’s the thing with this stuff. The answer isn’t always an action. Sometimes it’s just… noticing. The dream faded after a year or so. Maybe I finally heard what it was saying, or maybe my life just got noisy enough to drown it out. I don’t really know.

Can you stop them? I’m not sure you’re supposed to. If Jung and Ming are both pointing at the same idea—that it’s a signal—then making it stop is like disconnecting a smoke alarm because the beeping annoys you. The problem’s still there, smoldering. Dave could probably psychoanalyze his exam dream into dust, but maybe it’s just his personal barometer for pressure. When the dream comes back, he knows, subconsciously, that he’s feeling in over his head.

Then again, maybe it’s just a neural pathway, worn deep like a dirt road. The brain takes the path of least resistance. I heard about a study on rats where they’d run the same maze in their sleep, strengthening the memory. Maybe Dave’s just a rat in a high school maze. I’m probably butchering the science.

It’s easier with Master Ming’s elemental view. You find the imbalance, you adjust. Maybe wear more of a certain color, or sit facing a certain direction. It’s practical. But is it true? I don’t know. He’s helped people. I’ve seen it.

My keys dream stopped. Dave’s exam dream is still running on schedule. Maybe some dreams are solvable puzzles and others are just old friends, or old ghosts, checking in. You answer the door, you offer them tea, and eventually they leave. Or they don’t. What are you gonna do, really?