What does this dream mean?

[Staximus]

For the last 20 years or so, once every few years I keep having this dream where I forgot to get something out of the garage before I moved out of my old house. In the dream it's the house I moved out of when I was 21, the house where my mom died. It's been dining me crazy for 20 years, to the point where I'm almost ready to drive there, knock on the door, and ask the people that live there to let me in the garage to look around.

[jennifer_bloom]

Maybe it means an old lesson is revisiting you but you will have to change your strategy to deal with it, because your circumstances and prospects have changed.

[Oliverlogan263]

This dream likely has deep symbolic meaning related to your past and unresolved emotions. Some possibilities for what it could mean:

1. You feel like you left something unfinished or unresolved in that phase of your life, especially surrounding your mom's death. The "something" in the garage could represent an unmet emotional need, unhealed trauma, regret, or unanswered questions from that difficult time.

2. The house and garage represent your childhood, memories of your mom, and formative experiences. By "forgetting something" in the dream, it suggests there are still parts of your past, personal history, or identity that feel incomplete, unknown, or unintegrated into your current self.

3. The dream is a call for closure. By returning to the garage - a symbol for revisiting your past - you could find the answers, peace, or release you need to fully move on from that chapter of your life. But the actual house and garage are not important - it's what they represent psychoemotionally that matters.

4. The recurring nature of the dream over 20 years shows that some part of you is still preoccupied with or attached to this issue. The solution may involve exploring your emotions around your mom's death and your life at that time through things like therapy, journaling, or support groups.

The fact that this dream has been bothering you for so long indicates that it does contain an important message for you. While the actual garage is unlikely to hold any answers, seeking help to uncover and resolve the deeper symbolic meaning could bring you relief and closure. I'd recommend sharing the dream and your feelings about it with a trusted friend, family member or therapist to gain more insight and clarity.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Staximus]

Thanks man, that is some good insight. I forgot to mention that I was in that garage when she died when I was 20. I started having the dream a few years later.

[Staximus]

I was in the garage and heard my brother yelling for me to come into the house and help

[Oliverlogan263]

Given that new context, I think the dream likely represents your unprocessed emotions around witnessing your mother's passing in that traumatic way. Some suggestions:

• The "something" left behind in the garage could symbolize your emotions, memories or sense of unfinished business from that moment.

• By "forgetting" it, the dream shows you've pushed those feelings down rather than processed them fully.

• The urge to go back to the actual house and search the garage represents your unconscious desire to somehow revisit that painful event, confront those memories and feelings, and find closure.

• The recurring nature of the dream over the last 20 years suggests you still have unresolved grief around your mother's death. Even though two decades have passed, the emotions can still feel fresh at times.

• Talking through this with a grief counselor or therapist may help you process those difficult emotions and memories in a healthy way. Journaling, meditation and other self-reflecting practices could also provide release.

• The next time you have this dream, see if you can go into the garage in your dream state. Maybe revisiting that moment in your dream could help you "retrieve" what you need for closure— a sense of peace, acceptance or release of those pent-up feelings.

Hope this revised interpretation based on the new context is helpful. Often these recurring dream symbols are pointing us toward emotions we're avoiding or memories that still need processing. Facing and working through them directly can eventually bring release and a lack of "need" for the dream to recur.