Why do I have dreams about my childhood home?
Most of the other answers seem to be centered around mysticism, dream “interpretation”, or else sort of anthropomorphizing your dream itself, saying it’s trying to tell you something, or trying to be something.Perhaps what you want is a more rational explanation of the neurological reasons that dreaming of your childhood home might be fundamentally inevitable.From a “scientific” perspective, dreams are a semi-random firing of your neurons when you sleep. Your brain is designed to organize experiences into patterns laid out over previous experiences, so naturally it deals with this random firing by trying to make sense of it, creating a “dream”.Your brain is laid out not as a timeline of your life, but as a web of information scattered almost at random. Each new experience you have actually just spreads over previous impressions in your brain, matching similar information from your past. This is a kind of data compression, allowing your brain to store more information than it otherwise could, by saving it as part of previous experiences.Because of this, the earliest “archetype” experiences you had underlay everything else. Each place you live could be described as being saved over the top of previous places you lived, as far as your physical brain is concerned. In organizing of where you live now, your brain starts with the parts that are like the first living place you remember, and just saves any differences as the identity of the new place.Therefore when your neurons fire off at semi-random in your sleep, and your brain tries to make sense of that, seeking patterns in its layout, the earlier, more foundational experiences may often show up first. Thus you dream of places and things you experienced when younger.This is a possible explanation for dreams of running hard yet barely moving, as well: When you were a toddler, that’s what running was like for you. So underneath your decades of experience of walking and running is the foundation of you as a toddler, your stubby legs chugging along as fast as they could go yet unable to keep up with a casually walking adult. Thus it may occur in the dream. Likewise “flying” can be a callback to being carried around and shown things by an adult, as infants aren’t really aware of HOW they’re floating through the air from place to place. As an adult, this may manifest as dreams of soaring around, but not being as in control of where you go as you wish you were.
Reoccurring dream about my grandmother's house, especially two rooms, next to the one i occupied?
My .02 dollar's worth: I had a job 20 years ago that I hated a lot and I needed it to survive. I finally quit one day when I felt like I was on the verge of being fired. About once every year or so, I have a dream I'm back at one of those desks and I wake up miserable. I would guess from the little clues given that your living with your grandmother and dad was the result of a split-up or loss in the family (your mother would be the obvious guess). This would obviously be a tough time on a child. As a child, you may have struggled with the separation like anyone would -- loneliness? Thoughts of wishing life could be as it was -- add to these thoughts, living in a house that is not your own; the room next to yours could be incredibly haunting; especially if it's empty. There are too many other options besides ghosts -- stick with the obvious; your memories, your past, etc.
What is the significance of recurring locations in dreams?
It has been argued by Jung and other psychologists/psychiatrists researching dreams, that the place in which a dream takes places is the symbol of the person's state of being and life. Think about your recurring dream. Maybe you know where in the world this place is, but I don't know if it has a significance. But think about what you see. Is it a place in disarray? Is it an intersection you know? A town, a neighborhood, a house, a room? Think of the specificity of the location, because it tells you what aspect of your life your subconscious is processing. Large places are symbolic of big-picture aspects of life, small places symbolize small-picture aspects. Each location is a map of sorts, that tells you how you subconsciously see your life and yourself. Since locations are equivalent to setting in a story or a play, the setting of your dream is a narrative element. So, what is your subconscious narrating to you?
I have recurring dreams about my father raping/molesting me, what does this meen?
This dream probably doesn't actually have anything to do with your father, except for the fact that your abuser was his nephew and that he was abusive toward your mother-which still all points to abuse itself. This dream indicates that you have not dealt with (made sense of or confronted) the abuse from your childhood. Issues that happen to us in our childhood have a way of coming back in our thoughts and dreams at an age and time in our life when we are better able to deal with them. This dream is probably your mind's way of telling you that it is time to deal with the abuse. Experts say that fondling as sexual abuse is worse than actual penetration, as far as the emotional problems it causes later on in life, so I recommend that you see an expert, like a counselor or psychiatrist to help you with this issue. Good luck to you.