Thanks for taking the time to read through my entire post. My apologies that it may have been a little on the wordy side, but figured better to share too much than not enough. I do have a couple of follow-up questions on the post.

I will definitely plan to ask my sister if she has ANY memories of she and I riding in the Reliant with mom. I will probably be very vague on this and then see what she says.

You mention that my mom's grief sticks out to you the most in the dream. You mention the something about the way my mom has started going about the car does sound like it's part of the grief. I was hoping you could elaborate on this. Which of her actions in this dream do you think are tied to this?

You then mention later on that I need to try to tune into what my sister is saying and try to tune out her bad breath. How would I go about doing this? I assume I would need to try to get control of my mind as I am falling asleep to try to do this? Any advice on how to do this as I have no idea if she is saying something important and if listening to her will make me tune out her breath.

You then mention something about I should try to drop the expectation of control in regards to this dream. I was hoping you could elaborate on what you mean by this. What do you mean by "giving in" rather than fighting the circumstances? As I have never tried this before, any advice would be appreciated.

I am also interested if you (or anyone else) has any interpretation to the significance/meaning of the different recurring themes of the dream. This would include:

Why does the dream always happen in grandads Reliant
Why am I always in the car by myself at the beginning
Why am I always in the middle, my sister by the window, and mom driving
Why does my sister always have bad breath
Why do my sister and I always wait a really long time for mom
Why are my sister and I always wearing out seatbelts when we are in the car but mom never puts hers on
Why does the car never start-up
Why does mom keep going back in the house to check on things and look under the hood
Why does the dream take place at the time it does

I would welcome any interpretation to any of these as it may help me figure it out.

Lastly, you mention I need to work on not becoming too obsessed with this dream. In my waking life, I work in logistics. I am accustomed to identifying things that could be problems and solving them before they become problems as well as figuring out how to solve problems when they do pop-up. It is so frustrating on a personal level that I am not able to do this to help my mom as well as not be able to control this dream and make it stop. I do tend to obsess about problems and solving them in my waking life. I have been actively trying to track this dream by journaling it whenever it occurs. I am wondering if this could inadvertently be leading to me becoming obsessed with it and is causing it to keep happening. I am wondering if it may help me control and stop having the dream if I stop journaling it ever day. I am interested to know what your (and others) thoughts on if the journaling is maybe now doing more harm than good in regards to the dream?