What Are Meta-Dreams?
I was in a tsunami disaster, but I remembered I had already dreamed, relived, and predicted this. The same environment, the same massive wave approaching, the same panic. But this time, I knew what to do. I ran to find a room on higher ground and searched for floating mattresses, something I had learned in a previous dream.
It wasn’t just a dream. It was a dream remembering another dream, and I was responding differently - this time, without fear. I felt like I was recreating my own movie, Inception, inside the dream. Ha! That fascinating sensation led me to find and explore the idea of meta-dreaming.
What Are Meta-Dreams?
Meta-dreaming (or “dreaming about dreams”) is a rare and intriguing phenomenon where you become aware, within a dream, that you’ve dreamed it before, or that you’re inside a dream referencing another dream. It’s as if your dreams are building memory, narrative, and consciousness across multiple layers - a dream within a dream within a dream.
Think of it as lucid dreaming’s deeper, more story-driven cousin.
It’s like your inner world is producing a series of episodes.
You, as the dreamer, aren’t just passively watching; you’re aware of the ongoing storyline and participating in it.
The Neurological View
Dreams arise in areas of the brain associated with emotion, memory, and imagination—especially the limbic system and default mode network.
Some people have stronger neural pathways between memory and dreaming, especially:
Highly creative people
Vivid dreamers
Trauma survivors
Meta-dreaming might emerge when your brain is unusually skilled at linking inner stories across time.
The Psychological & Archetypal View
Meta-dreams can signal a high degree of psychic integration.
The dreaming mind tracks emotional or symbolic patterns over time, like a myth unfolding.
They often suggest a strong inner witness is online: the part of you that’s observing, reflecting, and evolving.
In Jungian terms, this is the Self using dreams to guide you toward wholeness.
The Mystical or Shamanic View
In Indigenous and mystical traditions, lucid or recurring dreams are often considered training grounds.
Meta-dreams are seen as soul memories, inner initiations, or journeys through parallel realities.
The dreamer may be receiving ancestral guidance or remembering their role as a dreamwalker or soul-traveller.
So What’s the Point of These Dreams?
Modern dream research, neuroscience, and psychology suggest that dreams are simulation spaces.
Long ago, they helped our ancestors rehearse physical survival (running, hiding, navigating danger).
Today, they help us practice emotional or social survival: longing, heartbreak, failure, embarrassment, change, etc.
In my case, the tsunami dream likely reflects emotional overwhelm or fear of sudden life changes.
But this time, I didn’t get lost in it.
I found stairs - a symbol of rising above or seeing from a higher perspective.
I looked for soft floating tools - symbols of surrender, safety, or compassion.
Even if just symbolic, this change in dream behaviour shows emotional evolution.
How to Work With Dreams Practically
Psychologist Carl Jung viewed dreams as messages from the unconscious—tools for integration and growth. Recurring or lucid dreams can be like a map, revealing where you’re stuck or ready to transform.
Dreams can help you:
Process unresolved emotions (grief, anger, fear, longing)
Experiment with new behaviours (boundaries, courage, detachment)
Face the unfaceable in symbolic form
You don’t need to be a dream expert. Just start simply:
Record Your Dreams:
Jot down images, symbols, emotions, and storyline as soon as you wake up.Look for Patterns:
Are you visiting the same places, events, occurrences? Facing the same fears and scenarios?Notice Your Role
Are you running, hiding, helping, frozen, free? What’s shifting?Ask the Dream,
“What is this preparing me for?”
“What’s different this time?”Dream Incubation
Before sleep, set a gentle intention or ask a question, for example:
“What does my next level of emotional freedom look like?”
Sweet dreams, my dear friend. Song: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxk-fgcg7c
And yes, if your dreams are getting weirder than your waking life (or just feel like they’re trying to tell you something), I’m here for that too. As a transpersonal therapist, I work with dreams to help you uncover insight, meaning, and a little peace.
Book a session—your unconscious has a lot to say.
Artwork "Relativity" by M.C. Escher