I imagine the term recurring dreams refers not to a particular dream that recurs in a Groundhog Day manner but rather to themes that appear over and over again, often in rather different contexts but in most cases retrospectively recognizable.
One of the most interesting ones I have experienced over recent decades appears to be Frustration. Sometimes there seems to be an obvious link with something that has happened in one's life, while other times the explanation is unclear.
I've played for St. Helens Rugby League club (at Knowsley Road) on three or four occasions in recent years, in my dreams (literally). Although I had an occasional touch of the ball, I didn't do anything useful, which was perhaps reminiscent of my time playing rugby union at school. Playing football in my dreams has been a nightmare. The loose ball always bounces just out of reach, hardly anyone ever passes it to me, and on the rare occasions when they do, I make a complete hash of it. Now, that was more or less my real-life experience of playing football, where I liked to think I was a reasonable player, as we all do, but in truth I was rubbish.
I was marginally better at snooker but this got the same treatment from the dream makers, though the approach was a little more creative. Instead of the table accommodating balls it was full of assorted objects, such as pyramids and cubes, teddy bears, cardboard boxes, etc. Even had any pocket been clear, there was no way I could have persuaded one of these things to enter it. I don't know whether this was the dream makers expressing their opinion of my potting ability or a reflection of the frustration with having to wait for an indefinite period before the table was free or a deep seated pessimism about life itself.
Catching a bus in dreams is really difficult, if not entirely impossible. They are almost always full, never stop when you stick your hand out, leave the stop just before you get there, or if you do ever manage to get on a bus it's either broken down or the driver is a maniac who drives down cliff-like roads at hideous speeds. Actually, that doesn't happen to me much anymore, mainly because I can no longer find the bus stop. In fact I'm always getting lost in the dream streets nowadays, which I'm hoping isn't an early sign of dementia.
I used to drive a Renault 21 Turbo which, though not in the Porsche class, was quite a powerful machine, even in its unmodified state. It had terrific torque in third gear but one day when attempting to overtake, the turbo cut out when I floored the accelerator. This was slightly alarming and when over time it continued to happen, I learned to go easy on the accelerator but the car's performance was thereby significantly restricted, which was very frustrating. The dream makers must have been positively salivating. My dream car began to morph into dream mopeds, Datsun Cherries, and eventually I was riding one of those leg-powered kids' scooters. But the coup de grace came when I was driving up the motorway on the inside lane, feeling frustrated with my car's very poor performance on a slight incline, and I then saw, coming up and passing me on the hard shoulder, an elderly lady on foot who had her white hair in a bun, was wearing a voluminous pink chequered gingham dress, and carried a huge pale green cabbage on her head.
