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What are recurring nightmare dreams about?

This symbol is identified by words like recurring nightmare, repeated nightmare, repeating nightmare, etc.

Recurring nightmares in dreams is a very uncommon dream symbol, occuring in about 0.4% of dreams. That's about 1 out of every 300 dreams.

What are the major highlights of recurring nightmare dreams?

Recurring nightmares is a negatively interconnected dream symbol. Having recurring nightmares in a dream reduces the presence of other dream symbols.

Recurring nightmare dreams have a surprising lack of characters

Dreams of recurring nightmares usually contain less characters than 90% of all other dream symbols. This does not mean they do not contain characters at all. Rather, they simply contain less characters than most other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include chakras, acne, Russia, Indonesia, hair falling out, rockets, eclipses, calendars, missiles, and recurring dreams.

Recurring nightmare dreams are scary

Dreams containing recurring nightmares are more related to fear than 90% of all other dream symbols. Of course each dream is unique and this does not mean that all dreams of recurring nightmares are about fear. It simply means that if you dream of recurring nightmares, this dream has a great chance of being scarier than most other dream symbols. Other symbols that are like this include noises, relief, opening, aggressive interactions, places, movement, events, calluses, screaming, and embarking.

Recurring nightmare dreams focus on taste

Dreams of recurring nightmares have more words related to taste than 90% of all other dream symbols. In other words, recurring nightmare dreams involve the perceptions of taste. Taste is a chemical sense. We taste things through interacting and touching the object we are tasting. Other symbols that are like this include chimneys, hyenas, Venezuela, nose bleeds, jury members, Costa Rica, pheasants, Poland, Cameroon, and bird cages.

Recurring nightmare dreams focus on touch

Dreams of recurring nightmares have more words related to touch than 90% of all other dream symbols. In other words, recurring nightmare dreams involve directly interacting and feeling another person or object. Other symbols that are like this include Sweden, Argentina, bankers, Portugal, alimony, touch, hummingbirds, cutting hair, zoos, and jupiter.

What symbols less present in dreams of recurring nightmares?

Recurring nightmare dreams are notable because they have substantially less shopping, amazed, food, drunkenness, relationship events, drinking, boyfriends, seeing a dead relative, planning, old friends, stores, genitals, groups, bags, technology, sexuals acts, phones, and sex than 95% of other dream symbols.

How does the dream symbol of recurring nightmares affect the different aspects of a dream?

Explore different elements related to dreams of recurring nightmares

Who is in recurring nightmares dreams?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are much less related to characters in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are less related to animals, less related to insects, and much less related to different roles.

Animals

less than usual

Insects

less than usual

Different roles

much less than usual

Fantastic beings

the same as usual

Distant people

much less than usual

Close people

much less than usual

Family

less than usual

Romantic partners

much less than usual
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What are the emotions in recurring nightmares dreams?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are less related to emotions in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are much more related to fear and more related to hatred than dreams in general. They are much less related to happiness, much less related to sadness, and less related to grief and sorrow.

Happiness

much less than usual

Sadness

much less than usual

Grief and sorrow

less than usual

Embarrassment

much less than usual

Confusion

much less than usual

Fear

much more than usual

Pain

less than usual

Hatred

more than usual

Fun

less than usual

Love

less than usual
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Who is in recurring nightmares dreams?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are less related to places in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are much less related to home, much less related to work, and much less related to human places.

Home

much less than usual

Work

much less than usual

Human places

much less than usual

Transportation

much less than usual

Natural places

less than usual

Magical places

less than usual
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What happens in recurring nightmares dreams?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are much more related to events in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are less related to aggressive interactions, much less related to friendly interactions, and much less related to sex.

Aggressive interactions

less than usual

Friendly interactions

much less than usual

Sex

much less than usual

Disasters

less than usual
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How do recurring nightmares in dreams related to other dream phenomenon?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are much more related to dream events in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are much more related to nightmares, much more related to recurring dreams, and more related to sleep paralysis than dreams in general. They are much less related to waking life.

Lucid dreams

the same as usual

Nightmares

much more than usual

Recurring dreams

much more than usual

Recurring nightmares

much more than usual

Sleep paralysis

more than usual

Sleeping

more than usual

Waking life

much less than usual
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How do recurring nightmares in dreams related the senses?

Overall, dreams with recurring nightmares are less related to senses in dreams. Specifically, dreams of recurring nightmares are more related to hearing than dreams in general. They are less related to smelling, much less related to taste, and less related to vision.

Hearing

more than usual

Smelling

less than usual

Taste

much less than usual

Vision

less than usual

Touch

much less than usual
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How can you make sense of recurring nightmares in dreams?

Recurring nightmare dreams are very uncommon. Among other things recurring nightmare dreams are negatively interconnected, lack characters, scary, focus on taste, and focus on touch.

Do you think this is true for your dream of recurring nightmares? How might your dream of recurring nightmares be different?

All dreams have meaning

You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.

Look for the differences

The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience recurring nightmares in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.

Return to the feelings

Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about recurring nightmares in dreams. See how you feel about recurring nightmares now, in your waking life.

Examples of dreams of recurring nightmares

Read some real dream reports of recurring nightmare dreams.. These real life dream reports come from the moderated dream sharing communities of Reddit including r/Dreams, r/Nightmares, r/DreamInterpretation, or r/thisdreamihad. Please note that some of these may contain graphic, sexual, or violent images and text. Use the source link for each dream to view and join the discussion of each one.

What Does A Recurring Nightmare Mean?

For the last 8 years of my life I have had the exact same nightmare once every year. Doesn't matter what time of the year but only once in that year and it's really creepy. The nightmare goes like this and every time there's a slight change. I'll mention the most notable ones but they always start and end the same way: the in between is also extremely similar with maybe one or two changes.

1. It always starts off with me opening my eyes in a black room and then it shifts into third person in a black and white city and I'm on a roof
2. I start jumping from roof to roof and I'm always screaming to see *someone*. I don't know who.
3. I get in some sort of vehicle with a faceless person (the person I was looking for) and we just kinda teleport to some stall selling coloured oranges because everything else is black and white and the person with me begins to develop the face of someone from my family. Then they pick up an orange and get poisoned by it and die
4. I wake up in a coloured city this time and then I get teleported into the same black room I was in before but this time there's floating numbers. I reach the number 100 and then I just die. Flat out die just like that.

Then I always wake up and I always instinctively walk out of my bedroom. Always the same. The only difference is the person who gets 'poisoned'. What the hell does this mean? I'm not scared of the dream anymore since I've become aware of it but it just creeps me out.

For the last 8 years of my life I have had the exact same nightmare once every year. Doesn't matter what time of the year but only once in that year and it's...

Source | Show dream

A reoccurring nightmare about death by worms.

For some reason I'm very afraid of worms in real life and I have a panic attack every time I see one.

Small details (like their color and shape, the lights and the surroundings) vary from dream to dream, but the plot is always the same:

It starts with the feeling of worms crawling on my skin. I try to shake them off, but they just keep coming. They're under my clothes and in my pockets and they're endless and I realise they're coming from inside. I reach under my eyes and I scratch my throat in a desperate attemt to get rid of them, but it's pointless.

Some of them start gathering on the floor. I rush to the different corner of the room, hoping to at least stop seeing them in front of me, but then every other surface is covered too. There's no place to run or hide and the panic becomes unbearable.

Eventually they take up all the space in the room until I suffocate and that's how it ends.

What could it mean? What are some possible interpretations?

(English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are mistakes and the writing is too dramatic)

For some reason I'm very afraid of worms in real life and I have a panic attack every time I see one.

Small details (like their color and shape, the lights...

Source | Show dream

I have this reoccurring nightmare that's slowly getting more intense and nobody I know can interpret it.

White M(16y/o).
I have this reoccurring nightmare that all the lights in the house fizzle away only leaving a small red cinder. Then everyone in the house disappears while I desperately search for a light that works. A few weeks ago it started getting more intense, while I run through the house a black figure attacks me. This has been happening for over a month now. Please reply if you know anything about this.

White M(16y/o).
I have this reoccurring nightmare that all the lights in the house fizzle away only leaving a small red cinder. Then everyone in the house...

Source | Show dream

A reoccurring nightmare I had. What does it mean?

Ok, so when I was younger, I had this reoccurring nightmare where I saw a stickman, a water bottle, and a chair. The bottle sat on the chair, and the stickman would walk over to it and grab the bottle. Then out of nowhere, everything turns red. I see a giant red demon with green eyes and black horns looking down at me, laughing. I also saw my family burning. Then it would turn back into the stickman water bottle thing. What does this mean?

Ok, so when I was younger, I had this reoccurring nightmare where I saw a stickman, a water bottle, and a chair. The bottle sat on the chair, and the stickman...

Source | Show dream

Recurring nightmare

I’m riding in an SUV on the passenger side. Sometimes I’m driving but most of the time I’m shotgun. I’m usually riding with people I don’t know in my waking life, but in the dream I get the sense that these are people I know well and like. We’re headed somewhere talking and laughing and enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden everything goes black.

I come to, in the dream, and realize our vehicle is filling up water. I look around and see that my companions are still unconscious but alive. I unlatch myself and try to wake each person up so that when the car finally fills up and we are able to open the doors and swim out they are able to save themselves. Only no matter what I do, they continue to stay unconscious.

I begin to panic even more knowing I have a short amount of time before I will need to exit the vehicle to save myself but I feel deeply conflicted knowing that I would be leaving and condemning them to drown without being certain I had done everything I could to prevent them from dying. I continue to try to wake them to no avail until the car fills up. I have a split second where I know this is the moment where either I save myself or stay trapped in the car to drown with the others. Even though I know I will die in vain I can’t seem to tear myself away from trying to get the others to save themselves

As if this isn’t bad enough. As I begin to struggle without breathing I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of dread as I realize that even though we are all about to die, I’m really the only person who is going to suffer.

And then I wake up.

Any thoughts on what this could mean?

I’m riding in an SUV on the passenger side. Sometimes I’m driving but most of the time I’m shotgun. I’m usually riding with people I don’t know in my waking...

Source | Show dream
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