Why Do I Keep Dreaming About the Same Person?

A fun part of dreaming can be getting to see different things every time you sleep. If you see the same person in your dreams on a regular basis, though, are you happy to see them every time, or does the monotony bother you?

Symbolism of Repeatedly Dreaming About the Same Person

Unfinished Business

If you keep dreaming about the same person, maybe you have some unfinished business with them. Perhaps you borrowed a book from them a long time ago and never gave it back – or maybe they borrowed your book and never gave it back.

If the unresolved issues you have with this person are much bigger than a mislaid book, like a major trauma, you probably know what those issues are. You might not know how to solve the problem, though. Getting an outside perspective on the situation could at least help you, even if it does not restore your relationship with the other person.

Opportunity

Dreaming repeatedly of a particular person you don’t know well might indicate that you would benefit from getting to know them better, especially if the dreams have a positive emotional atmosphere. You might be picking up on someone on the periphery of your social world who is more compatible with you than you realize.

If this is someone you knew in the past but have lost touch with, you might Google them and see what they are up to. While reconnecting can be risky, sometimes it works well for both sides.

Recent Change in Relationship

You might dream of someone repeatedly if there has recently been a big change in your relationship with them. If the relationship is new, your dreams might be processing what you are rapidly learning about them and expanding on your conscious effort to figure out how this person fits into your life.

You might also repeatedly dream of someone if your relationship with them recently ended, whether through their death or through a breakup. You could just be adjusting to the reality that you will no longer be seeing them every day. It is normal to find a transition like that shocking and to wonder if you could have done anything to make it happen any differently, and it is normal to process that in your dreams.

Part of Yourself

If the person you keep dreaming of is aggressive or emotional in a way you would prefer not to be, they could symbolize qualities you suppress in yourself. You might keep dreaming of this disturbing person until you learn to accept your own capacity for these difficult traits and see how they may have a positive side too.

Dreaming of the same person repeatedly can also symbolize more benign parts of yourself. For example, repeatedly dreaming of a high school classmate you weren’t close with and have since lost touch with might simply mean that you need to reconnect with something from your own high school life. That could be a particular activity you shared with this person, like sports or music, or it could be a more general sense of innocence or enthusiasm that you had when you were younger.

Common Variations on Repeatedly Dreaming About the Same Person

Dreaming repeatedly about a loved one who has died

Researcher Joshua Black, who studies grief dreams, found it is very common for people to have dreams of deceased loved ones, though the frequency varies widely. Some people only have one such dream, while others have them monthly.

Dreams of a loved one who has recently died may rehash the details of their death or the illness that led up to it, as described in death and dying dream symbolism. Other dreams of deceased loved ones have an unusually realistic quality, such that the dreamer feels like their deceased loved one is actually visiting them, as described in Visitation Dreams.

Either way, dreaming of a loved one who has died can help you remember the positive experiences you shared with them and continue to feel connected to them. As the song “My Heart Will Go On” from the 1997 movie Titanic, which depicted many tragic deaths in a mass casualty incident, explains,

Every night in my dreams

I see you, I feel you

That is how I know you go on.

Dreaming repeatedly about an acquaintance

Dreaming repeatedly about an acquaintance out of proportion to their role in your waking life could suggest that you sense they are compatible with you. You might benefit from trying to get to know them better, though ultimately building a relationship with them in waking life requires their interest too.

With this type of dream, it can be hard to tell whether it is more about you or about the actual other person in waking life. If getting to know them better doesn’t feel appealing, the dream might be more about you.

For example, the acquaintance you repeatedly dream about could appear to have some quality that you would like to develop in yourself. Alternately, they might remind you of someone else you know more intimately, like a sibling or parent, so dreaming of the acquaintance may be a way for you to process tension you have with whomever they remind you of.

Dreaming repeatedly about your ex

If you just broke up with your ex recently, dreaming repeatedly about them could simply reflect that you are processing the transition of no longer being in a relationship with them, as discussed in ex dream symbolism. Whether or not you wanted the relationship to end, it can really shake up your routine to be no longer living with them or hearing from them every day.

You might also dream of your ex repeatedly even if you broke up with them many years ago and have zero desire to get back together with them. In this case, dreaming of your ex repeatedly could symbolize that you are starting a promising new relationship and trying to avoid mistakes that you made in past relationships.

Dreaming repeatedly about a stranger

Dreaming of a stranger can be an easy way to look at your own psychological dynamics without the complications of people you know being involved. This can especially be the case for dreams of making love with a stranger.

If you see the same stranger in multiple dreams, this might suggest that the stranger represents some part of yourself that you need to get to know better. Even if the stranger seems scary or unappealing, their difficult qualities like aggression could turn out to be useful skills that help you in certain situations.

If the recurring dream stranger is the opposite gender from you, this could refer to psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s idea of the anima and animus. No matter what your gender or sexual orientation is, you might benefit from intentionally developing some of the qualities you associate with the opposite gender in order to become a more well-rounded person.

What if you dream repeatedly of a stranger and then meet them in your waking life? Intuitive Anna Sayce calls these precognitive dreams and notes that they can serve either as a warning of a possible bad outcome or as a sign that you’re on the right path.

Conclusion

If you feel like you are seeing the same person in your dreams all the time, try keeping a dream journal. This will help you quantify how often you really are seeing this person in your dreams, which could be more or less often than you think.

A dream journal will also help you keep track of the context in which the person you dream of repeatedly appears. This information will also help you answer why you keep dreaming of the same person.