evolving recurring dreams

i warn you, this is very long, and at times sporadic:

for the last...eight years or so i have almost exclusively had the same dream over and over. over time, the dynamics in my dream have evolved, so to speak, and there have been new dynamics that work their way in. i actually want to avoid telling you a ton about myself as the advisory thread suggests. there are elements of the dream that are kind of sort of adding up or making sense as they evolve, so im interested to see if anyone touches on it. im honestly skeptical about posting here as im not big on dream interpretation. i do believe as the internet seems to tell me, that recurring dreams are meant to be worked through.

a few things i think need mentioning though: first of all, im currently on effexor, and 90% of the time or more, these dreams occur when i miss a dose. not a big surprise there. but i also just rarely remember my dreams otherwise. i DO have roughly the same dream otherwise. its just not usually as vivid. my dreams have always had surrealistic qualities that im convinced are colored by the video games i played as a child. im a twenty six year old male for whatever that may tell you. i dont really have "nightmares", in that i dont experience them negatively. i wake up kind of excited and fascinated by how vivid they are. dont get me wrong, they are palpable and frantic, i just dont scare easily i guess.

to lay out a blueprint, my dream kind of follows a course i travel. lets say for now that the dream begins in "high school", moves to the "entertainment center", moves to "france", moves to "africa", moves to "guy(s) trying to kill me". those specific dynamics have themselves evolved or completely changed over time, and there are roughly a dozen other dynamics, some bigger than others, some more recent than others. of those, i do not know when or where they occur during my dream. high school-guy trying to kill me have been more or less main stays, in that order.

as i stated, the dream begins in "high school", and does indeed pretty much mirror my high school as is. when it first began it was just an unrealistically huge building that id be outside of, and not inside. then over time it began to be a mixture of my two middle schools and my high school. in fact as i mention it, i recall that the hallways do sometimes still mirror the ones from my second middle school.

over time, several dynamics have come in and out of this part of the dream. i recall one dream, when the school more closely resembled my first middle school. but the place was ruinous. the stairs, while strikingly the same, were concrete. i dont think the second floor had actual class rooms. i think it was just ruins. kind of roman really. i dont think it even had any kind of roof. i recall a couple dreams where there was a bottom floor that was actually a cavern. just a dark, brown cavern, with torches here and there. i also noticed repeatedly that the hallways and the classrooms were so strikingly WHITE. no decoration. a LOT of the time im at school, i have pot and cigarettes on me and am trying to find a way/place to smoke either one.

there was another dynamic that lasted quite a while and happened without fail, but has now kind of...spread across my dream, and manifested in other ways. the mood totally changes. very suddenly, EVERYONE just HATES me. usually i feel very insecure. this part of the dream was almost palpable. sometimes id be kind of cavalier about it. sort of a "damn, so everybody hates me? geez."

sometimes im going through a breakup with a girl. it has been either girls ive known in real life (and actually dated) or no one ive ever met. or sometimes it looks nothing like any girl ive met, but its understood in the dream that shes actually someone i know in real life. allow me to stress, that this variable (introduction of a girl) only occurs something like 1/5 times. as i said, im usually going through a breakup, or the girl has kicked me out of her life, and im searching for her between classes at various spots of the school. theres also a dynamic that kind of comes and goes, where im new in the school and i do not know anyone, and it is desperately lonely. i feel like a ghost. these usually occur together. "high school" is not a pleasant dream experience.

more recently: "high school" has become a less surrealistic place and mostly just mirrors my high school. its the very end of my senior year and im struggling to graduate. i usually have a particular paper due in a class. lately, me and that particular teacher have some kind of battle going on. we openly hate and insult each other and i accuse her of being utterly unprofessional and singling me out. seems to me that some times the students in the class are starting to hate me, and/or side with her. interestingly, when i first noticed the "me vs teacher" dynamic, my teacher was ann coulter. except by the end of the dream point i really admired and liked her. then it was sarah palin, and the same thing. now the teacher is slowly taking on my 6th grade math teacher, who, while she did not have it in for me, id be remiss if i didnt tell you she seems to pride herself on being a huge bitch. since shes 'developed' there is no "oh i really like this lady" shift. also, being the very end of the year, the school becomes a ghost town. there is a large section of the school that mirrors my church, but its darker and bigger. i often explore it. i think thats a dynamic that comes and goes, and theres probably more to it, but i never remember it much.

the entertainment center: the next thing i know (as i remember it) the school has become this unrealistically huge, stories tall...place. dark on the outside. it is mostly a movie theatre. 90% of the time im on a floor that resembles walking through a hall in a movie theatre. the doors almost feel more like portals to me, but its understood they are movie rooms. and theres really not a ton to this element of the dream, mostly that it just always happens without fail. a number of times, ive been on the bottom floor and there will be games like youd find in a chuck e cheese or large arcade. but again, this place is a monster, and its just not a realistic place for this stuff. i cannot recall what im typically doing there. im just 'there'. but more than one person is usually with me.

france: now im picturing outside the place, and its changed completely. its morphed into a much more realistic building. looks like a museum really. and i pretty much only have one mental image of it. the ground outside of the place is light stony/rocky. in the top left corner of my view theres a flagpole and flag. the museum is in my top right corner, and its just an outside corner of the place. its bigger than my view. theres really nothing significant about this either, except, again, it happens without fail. and then it becomes...

the bombing of france: somebody is suddenly going to war with this place, and bombs are on their way, or already going off. i want to stress though, this is NOT a heightened or frantic part of my dream, quite the contrary. youd think it would be, it is not. im pretty positive that some of the time, im aware that the bombing is about to occur. i start deliberately traveling/navigating at this point.

africa: probably worth mentioning at this point that im just giving these dynamics nicknames. i do not actually visit france or africa. they just kind of vaguely remind me of them. ive never been out of america in real life so i know next to nothing about france or africa. these places, however, are foreign to me, in the dream. anywho. i travel here. i guess im usually with someone. a friend. i dont know who and couldnt say if its ever or always the same person. i feel like its understood im traveling with a friend i know in real life though. nothing terribly significant about africa either really. "africa" is actually a giant forest. there are wagon sized paths throughout the forest, and people live immediately off of them, roofed by trees, though there are actual sort of home buildings.

guys trying to kill me: im not skipping anything. i suspect there are transitions to these dream elements, but if there are, i dont recall them. its, again, as i recall them, kinda just seems like im just there suddenly and the dream continues. theres a key fact here. twelve years ago, while i was in high school my friends and i were jumped. for several years, the "guys trying to kill me" were always those guys + the brother of a guy, who was not actually there at the time. the scenario is always pretty much the same. im in my house with my parents. these guys are staking out my house and im aware of it. i look out windows for them. goes on through the dead of night. typically, im armed with a gun. i dont think they ever get in. and they seemingly always come for the front door, or at least i post guard there. ive seen them approach it.

this element has morphed a lot recently. no longer are the guys trying to kill me, the same guys that jumped me in real life. now theyre just guys. guys i dont know. and, frankly, im pretty sure they are always black guys, which i feel weird mentioning, because im not a racist and i dont have any kind of negative experience with literally anyone black.

more recently, this dynamic now happens during my travels. typically a wooded area. theres a lone house. the area looks a lot like an area i explored as a kid. its not clear how, but next thing i know im in the house, with a best friend i know in real life. the scene is like a school shooting. there are at least two guys running around the house shooting completely random people. people are obviously freaking out, and trying to get out of the house. seems to me ive climbed out a window a few times. somehow, it becomes understood that i am suddenly somehow responsible for the death of one of the shooter black guys (its a gang of sorts and its just understood there are more of them than the two guys doing the shooting). the leader holds me responsible and wants revenge against me. he stakes out my house in similar fashion. keeps leaving and coming back while im staking out my own house with a gun waiting for him. i think most of the time its just him, too. it is fairly possible if not likely that i actually kill someone in the dream, but i never recall it. and im not certain of that. i may be mistaken for the killer.

theres never a clear resolution to this part of the dream. seems like i tend to wake up in the middle of it.

now for lots of little and big dynamics, all random variables. some of them are more recent than others. some are developing or have morphed. when i say random variables, again, i mean that either im not sure where or when they occur in the dream, or they either do or dont. but all of them have occurred enough times for me to have started noticing them when i wake. some of them are more important and/or vivid than others. unlike the blueprint up there, no particular order to these. some of them may or may not serve as transitions. i do not vividly remember connections between these and the other dynamics.

cussing out my parents: im upset for one reason or another. im trying to talk to my parents about it, or im trying to get them to help me with whatever it is. they seem to reply kind of coldly. i freak the hell out and go manic or something. i start saying the most messed up things i can think of to say to them. it seems like a lot of the time, i realize im out of my mind, i keep wanting to chill out and apologize, but i keep escalating. i dont get this one because ive got a great relationship with my parents and i can talk to them about anything. theyd never brush me off. but for example, recently i was trying to talk to my mom about a girl i was hung up on, and she said something like she was tired of hearing it or didnt care to hear it. i also wanted them to take me somewhere and they wouldnt (...i have a drivers license and car in real life).

walking through molasses: this is one of the few things that has occurred in my dreams that i can easily see being a textbook dream, and having googled it, i readily buy in to what the internet tells me. the dynamic is simple. suddenly its beyond difficult to walk. usually im with a friend. they see this happening to me. im explaining/complaining about it. it seems like i try to heave my body forward to move. the internet tells me i feel stuck and/or held back. seems reasonable to me. this is the newest dynamic to my dreams. has happened a few times, i finally realized it after the most recent dream i remember.

ive been going to a lot of waterparks and amusement parks. nothing of consequence seems to happen here. seems like its getting close to time for the place to close though, and like me and whoever im with are trying to figure out what to do. i do have an affinity for amusement parks, and my friend and i are planning to visit a few on our vacation this summer. for some reason though, i dont feel like thats whats spurring it. i dont know what is. this is a very new dynamic that has happened multiple times now. now that i think about it, maybe its a lot of playing rollercoaster tycoon :)

the video game scenario:

this one has happened two or three times and its very difficult to explain. its like im playing a video game in my dream. but its not visualized that way. now that i think about it, i HAVE had a dream or two recently where im playing video games. MAYBE this occurs during or after that. couldnt be sure. anyway. im experiencing this dynamic as "real life" in my dream. the scenario, it seems to me, is where i have to choose between watching two unbelievably gory deaths that i see unfold. thats literally all i can communicate about this dynamic. i sense its developing.

politics: i love, love politics so its not a mystery to me that it would pop up in my dreams. when this dynamic does occur, it seems to me its the last thing before i wake up. obama is running for reelection. something catastrophic is going on like us being at war with aliens, and its obviously effecting the election. random stuff occurs here. one time i watched the bush men being interviewed from far away in what looked like an ice skating rink. i heard papa bush crack a joke. i cant really hear them, im just kind of watching them be interviewed. i think its understood im at a convention. the place is empty except for me though. now that i mention it, me being at a stadium is a new dynamic thats been creeping into my dreams. anyway, i usually observe the election returns. my dream becomes kind of a version of a computer game ive played called political machine.

"mexico", "the underground mall", among other places:

as ive mentioned, i strongly believe the video games i played as a kid color my dreams, and add surrealistic qualities. so i dream about a lot of strange, surreal places, in strange, surreal places.

"mexico" no longer consistently recurs. it seems like elements have unreliably kind of spread across my dream. i call this place "mexico" because there are always these dangerous mexican gangs in the area. gets more dangerous at night. a lot of the area is a bad, dangerous part of town. i dont think ive actually met any trouble, just been at risk of being near it. i go into weird places, like this storage facility. i hung outside of this apartment complex. i also, frequently, wind up in a car, and driving super quickly to avoid run ins with a gang. "mexico" is just kind of a transition point. it used to be in nearly every dream. theres also a cd/record store thats a little shady that ive perused a few times.

"the underground mall" i think its near "mexico". its simple. it looks like its underneath a bridge or sewer or something. a bunch of little stores all set up on both sides. almost like an underneath an overpass boardwalk. seems like its mostly convenience stores and places that sell you great gourmet junk food. i think theres a movie store ive been in a few times and perused their video games and movies.

"the creepy crater home"

hard to explain this one. i remember it first popping up some years back. there was this creepy house. it wasnt overtly creepy, but i very much perceived it to be. its shrouded in tons of plants and flowers and bushes, but its vacant. its just off a path i used to follow frequently in my dream travels. its an old one too, but its recently been popping back up. its unrealistic given its location, but its understood none the less, to the left of this house, if you kept going, youd wind up in some really creepy woods that probably have monsters in them. seems like ive at least partially explored them. ive mentioned already some travels through the woods, and i think its the same thing happening, different dream. but i got a peek of this creepy house. inside is nothing but a gigantic crater. there is however, a staircase, with a floor that does nothing but go around the outside of the crater. more recently, and WITHOUT being the same house, the "creepy crater house" has popped up in different places. for whatever reason, im exploring it now. looking for something.

ive been dreaming, briefly and in passing about these fantastical sorts of...communities, i guess. most of the time its kind of a valley, i guess. i come across it in my travels. once, it was all houses built on a body of water, where the water was their back yard. only worth mentioning because im always quite taken by this place when i arrive there, and this dynamic is popping up a lot.

which reminds me, i should mention that "my travels" have become a more conscious thing within my dreams. whereas before i was just kind of...doing it, now, im actually deliberately going on some kind of planned trip. its a kind of freeing experience. this one MAY have to do with the vacation im planning.

one of the more badass dynamics of my dreams is a particular community ive only dreamt about a few times now. in real life, at the bottom of my street is a large ditch that spans most of my neighborhood that i explored a lot as a kid. well, now theres a mysterious mountain pass at the far end of it (in my dreams). i checked it out, and just off the mountain pass is a new community. i first noticed them because i realized they had this sound stage and were hosting concerts. i couldnt wait to go check that out, and peruse their concession stands. but the place is actually a settlement. a little community. one i have a huge affinity for and am utterly psyched to realize exists. ive met most of the townspeople. there are a few my age, probably less than a handful. not sure if there were any girls, seems like there were a couple. typically im exploring what is more or less a giant thrift store. my most recent dream went much deeper but i dont recall it in words i can make sense of. there was some kind of curse on the town. it was like the children of the damned or something. and the thrift store looked more like an academy sports and outdoors. was much much bigger. the lady in the thrift store kinda pissed me off. some of the people arent overly trusting of outsiders. some people have cable. i remember trying to watch tv. theres a music community here, but i havent met anyone involved. i just know theres a guy here that owns a mine or something, and he lets all the musicians store their equipment in his place at night. its like im dying to live/become involved/move here. i sense this is developing.

giant airports and malls:

seems like i start off in an unrealistically gigantic mall, looking for something or other. next thing i know im at an airport. but all the airport really is is escalators to the planes. im not entirely sure of the significance of this part. ive ridden some of the planes. ive used them in my travels. however theres also a weird dynamic about this. i often for whatever reason start seeing people jumping from great heights at this part of the dream. jumping out of the planes. or the planes crashing. exploding. i think i have jumped from one or two. it may be that this element occurs around the politics element, or my travels, and i know for a fact that ive seen someone jump from several floors up inside the entertainment center, and ive done so myself. it may have replaced or its part of the underground mall part of my dream.

thats about it. i greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this or any part of it. im honestly not sure what im even asking. im hoping someone can cast more light on any given piece. does it mean anything that im having essentially the same dream, yet it keeps evolving? or is that me slowly solving the puzzle so to speak? i kind of dont feel like its ever going to be solved, its just going to keep growing. and frankly these dreams are making me feel kinda insane. id like to get to the bottom of them if possible. dont necessarily want to have the same dream for the rest of my life. i definitely gave as much detail as i possibly could, but im sure i can answer questions if need be. again, i appreciate any and all input. thank you very much in advance.