• Question: Why do we have recurring dreams?

    Asked by snowdenjwh to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 24 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Helen O'Connor

      Helen O'Connor answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      We don’t know for sure why we dream at all, and certainly not why we have recurring dreams.

      I am more of a cognitive-behavioural psychologist, so I don’t work much with my clients’ dreams or subconscious minds.

      But people called “psychoanalyists” are often interested in talking about dreams and interpreting them, to help people understand more about themselves.

      A famous psychoanalyst called Carl Jung thought that it was not what was the SAME in our recurring dreams that we should be interested in, but what CHANGED each time we had that recurring dream. So, for example, if your recurring dream is always based in the same house, what changes in the house each time you have that dream (do you find a new room? Are different people there? etc). He would then encourage his patients to think about what these things meant.

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