# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion >  >  remembering you've been there before

## mistermystic

last night, i had a short dream about a rocket ship, laser guns etc.. i remember thinking to myself that i recognized this place, and had been there once before, in another dream. at one point, as i hoisted myself up onto a platform, i knew that when i turned around i'd find a set of monkey bars (though not the fixed ones, the ones with suspended rings to swing from). i turned around, and instead they were socks! at the time, i thought nothing of it!  :Sad:  what was interesting was that it wasn't a general feeling or deja vu, it was a memory of just one other very specific dream. so, have you ever dreamed somewhere you've been before, realized it, and noticed differences? if so, were they hilarious?

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## moongrass

I have done this before. I used to have a reacuring dream feeling everytime I had a dream but I never really remembered being there it just felt like I did. very hard to explain but is that what u ment?

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## Puffin

I've felt deja vu in dreams before, as if I knew I had that same dream before, and tried to change what happened in it so the same thing wouldn't happen twice. But I wasn't lucid, and I'd never actually had that same dream before.

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## freakishular

I think the weirdest part of this dejavu feeling is when I realize that the dream setting or item or scenario or what have you is from a dream I had a long,_ long_ time ago

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## kunfu11

This has happened to me as well.
I'm not sure what the cause could be, but I've had many dreams where I've dreamt about a dream I've had before. 
This could be an easy dreamsign for you, if this happens often. Everytime you have deja vu, think about it, or hear/read the word do a Reality Check.

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## Frozenwolf

I've had this before. When I was younger I used to have one dream that repeated itself and I had it many times. There were often differences but that was before I was interested in dreaming so I thought nothing of it. Since I started to LD I have had this happen once where two dreams were almost the same but slightly different.

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## CrimsonStorm

I actually had the same thing last night. For me, it's not so much that I have recurring dreams, but recurring dream settings - specific environments that I seem to dream about often. Some of them are real places (like my school or church) but others seem to be completely manufactured by my mind, which I find interesting. I've never realized this while actually in a dream, but I could see how that would produce interesting results.

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## ElectricWojo

On occasion, when I have dreams, I wake up feeling like they happened months or years ago... even though I know I just had them.

I'm wondering if it is because of a recurring dream... but the first time it was remembered?

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## moongrass

electricwojo, wow, thats cool to think about and Iv never thought like that but that is a very good possibility...

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## Jaxynde

i keep having this reoccuring dream where i'm floating around in space, next to a giant red planet, and there are lots of photos spinning around it, like on a iPhone where you are selecting a program by spinning the list around. i chose this photo of a dolphin, and i was teleported to a bowl shaped pool full of dolphins that was floating in the air, and i had a feeling i had been there before (and in a lot of my lucid dreams, i want to go there really badly). i was just swimming until i woke up, and it was crazy.

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## Waterknight

When I was little I used to have the same dream over and over. Thats how I trained myself to control my dreams and where I first became lucid (although I didnt know what it was called then) But a more recent thing of that is shortly after starting dreamviews and starting a dream journal I had a dream about being in a hotel room or something like that and it made me remember two other dreams i had completely forgotton that took place in the same building when I wrote it down.

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## Kaira

Yes, I believe I have had quite a few recurring dreams, either that or I just happen to know what is going to happen a lot. Recognizing events, places, or people in my dreams has allowed me to become lucid a few times too. :3 Once I was walking by a house in one of my dreams and I remembered that something bad had happened in the house in a previous dream so I ran away from it and flew away.

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## Krinks

I've had a dream occur in the same location, but different dreams.  The other night, I dreamed I was checking out from a grocery store, and was also checking out a cute employee  :wink2:   When I left the store, the front exited into a mall where I met my friend and I turned and checked out the employee again.  I told my friend about how I thought she was cute.  When I woke up and was putting this into my journal, it struck me that this was the same grocery store and mall I dreamed about weeks ago.  I don't recall what that dream was about though, but I distinctly remember the store opening into the mall, and the layout of the mall especially was the same.

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## Alric

It is possible to have a dreams like that, but there is an even weirder thing that can happen. It's possible to have dreams where you have false memories. So you think you believe you were some where before, and at the same time, never been there before. 

Some times I have two dreams that seem to be connected, like one is continuing from a dream I had a long time ago. Then I am not really sure if the first dream was one I really had, or one I just thought I had.

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## moongrass

yeah I know exactly what you mean its like, oh I remember doing something and then you wake up and realize you have never done that.

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## Puffin

> It is possible to have a dreams like that, but there is an even weirder thing that can happen. It's possible to have dreams where you have false memories. So you think you believe you were some where before, and at the same time, never been there before. 
> 
> Some times I have two dreams that seem to be connected, like one is continuing from a dream I had a long time ago. Then I am not really sure if the first dream was one I really had, or one I just thought I had.



That's happened to me a few times, in non-lucids. I'd be in a certain situation or scenario and "know" that it happened before, and what I expected to happen from then on would happen again. But when I woke up I realized I'd never had that dream before.

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## WTGDMan1986

This happened to me before, but the most recent was in 2001 and 2007. The 2001 dream came after hearing this Jamaican song at the end of the 1990 film _Marked for Death_ while I was sleeping. I was in a van/SUV with the driver resembling actor Devon Sawa from films such as _Final Destination_, but there were some strange human screaming-like noises coming from some fake electronic board game that was supposed to be based off a Neve Campbell horror film from 1996 directed by Wes Craven, _Scream_. I don't know who was the passenger, but this Chevy van from the '70s was dirty.

The one in February 2007, however, was after a heck of a bad day earlier in college, but this time the driver as explained above was driving a cleaner truck, a GMC Yukon (chassis code GMT800). I couldn't see other passengers, whereas both of these dreams had a road trip setting. After this, the character resembling Devon Sawa likely never showed up again...I think the character for me shows up every 5 to 10 years.

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## Robot_Butler

My deja vu often feels like a memory from a dream.  The two states of mind must be related.

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## acatalephobic

> My deja vu often feels like a memory from a dream.  The two states of mind must be related.



It seems that way, I agree. Also, very early memories also feel very dreamlike to me. So much so that I sometimes get one confused for the other.

A few months ago I dreamt of a stripmall--that does exist and I'm familiar with--that had one or two stores that aren't there in real life.

Just last week I drove through said real life stripmall and found a store that _just_ opened...and it looked _exactly_ the way I saw it in my dream [small and weirdly-shaped because of it's location, bright, overstuffed, and selling really random secondhands].

All I can say for sure is that my jaw dropped when I saw it...and sofar I've been a little scared to go in.

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## Snivellus

Oh man, this happens to me _all_ the time. It's always a non-lucid. I can't tell if I'm remembering an old dream in a dream, or if it's a false memory that's part of the dream, or what.

For instance, I dreamed that I killed a man who attacked me, and was worried about getting arrested. I remembered in the dream that I had killed two other men as well. I didn't remember the old dream, just the knowledge of the other two men. Is this a false memory?

Another time, I was running away from a government agent down a pitch black street. I turned and saw a garden, and all of a sudden I remember what seemed to be a totally different dream with an entirely different plot. I knew how to take advantage of the garden's secret hiding place. Was this really remembering an old dream in a dream?

I'll ask my psychology professor about this on Thursday.

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## Waterknight

I think sometimes it is remembering a dream before but sometimes I think it is false memories in the dream. Ive had dreams before where I had knowledge I shouldnt have had.

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## Grigorios

It happened to me many times to dream of a location that is familiar to me, and after waking up I realize it was familiar because I have already seen it many times in other dreams.
I have for instance a couple of big buildings that I have seen many times in my dreams, and also a weird shop that seems to sell ethnic stuff (like from India).

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## mistermystic

I suppose it's entirely possible that it's a false memory... in the dream I mentioned, I was CERTAIN I had been there exactly once before. Now that it's been a little while and I'm awake, I'm much less certain.
My girlfriend had the exact same dream twice. The second time, just as the home invaders were going to pull out their guns and shoot her family, she remembered it had happened before. So this time she ran into the barn to hide.

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## moongrass

> Oh man, this happens to me _all_ the time. It's always a non-lucid. I can't tell if I'm remembering an old dream in a dream, or if it's a false memory that's part of the dream, or what.
> 
> For instance, I dreamed that I killed a man who attacked me, and was worried about getting arrested. I remembered in the dream that I had killed two other men as well. I didn't remember the old dream, just the knowledge of the other two men. Is this a false memory?
> 
> Another time, I was running away from a government agent down a pitch black street. I turned and saw a garden, and all of a sudden I remember what seemed to be a totally different dream with an entirely different plot. I knew how to take advantage of the garden's secret hiding place. Was this really remembering an old dream in a dream?
> 
> I'll ask my psychology professor about this on Thursday.



yup happens to me a lot as well, it so confusing sometimes.....

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## mistermystic

> I'll ask my psychology professor about this on Thursday.



Neat, I'd be very interested to hear what your prof has to say.

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