#recurringdream

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Before anyone says it: I've read the research. Continuity hypothesis, threat simulation theory, Freud, Jung — I've been through all of it. None of it fits. This isn't symbolic. There are no recurring chase sequences, no anxiety processing, no obvious waking-life triggers. There are mundane conversations. Meals. Silence. Two people existing in the same space across what feels like weeks compressed into a single night. I wake up exhausted because it doesn't feel like dreaming. It feels like time passing somewhere else.

I also want to address lucid dreaming before someone brings it up. In lucid dreaming you have conscious control. I don't. I'm sometimes aware that I'm about to leave — he is too, or I tell him — but I have no agency over when or whether it happens. Awareness without control is not lucid dreaming. It's the opposite.

There is documented peer-reviewed research on mutual dreaming. It's rare, poorly understood, and the cases that hold up are the ones where two people describe the same dream independently without prompting. I'm not claiming certainty. I'm claiming this is specific and persistent enough that I'm done keeping it to myself.

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**How it started**

I was a teenager when this began. Nothing had happened — no trauma, no loss, no obvious reason. He was already there when I arrived, which is how it always works: I enter the dream mid-scene, already knowing him. He was roughly my age, maybe a year or two older. It wasn't romantic at the start. It was two people who recognised each other without explanation. Neither of us fit easily into the world around us. He didn't speak much even then.

I'm in my late thirties now. He has aged with me across these dreams. The relationship has changed significantly over time — in ways I'm not going to describe here. If you know, you'll know.

I don't know his name. I know it in the dream. He's told me. I use it. I cannot bring it back when I wake up. That specific gap is one of the most consistently frustrating things about this.

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**The crows**

It started with him drawing them. One crow, then twenty versions of the same crow because the first wasn't accurate enough — and then twenty more, because none of them were right yet either. Then three crows. Then crows appearing constantly in the dreams, watching me.

Then they started appearing in my waking life. In my country, in continental Europe, far from where crows carry the cultural weight they do in Ireland or Scotland. They kept showing up in ways that felt pointed.

I'm not saying this proves anything. I'm saying it's part of the pattern, and if you're in a space where the Morrigan means something to you, you'll understand why I'm noting it.

His obsession is specifically the Morrigan — not Celtic mythology broadly, but her. The crows, the underworld imagery, the way he speaks about paths and choices. He has said things to me in these dreams about shared notions, about the Atlantic, that I didn't understand until later. It's not casual interest. It's something he carries.

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**Something that happened a few months ago**

I was staying at my mother's house. I fell asleep and dreamed of him. I didn't wake up on my own. My son tried to wake me and couldn't. He then left the room, found my mother, and brought her back to wake me. My mother said I wasn't moving. She had difficulty waking me. She was frightened.

I only know this because they told me afterwards. From inside the dream I wasn't aware anything was wrong. I was just there, with him, until I wasn't.

That is not normal sleep. I don't know what it is.

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**He looks like this**

I believe he's Irish — possibly Scottish, but everything points to Ireland, west coast, possibly Donegal or somewhere on the Atlantic. That's not a guess. It's in his accent, the Gaelic he uses without thinking, the way he speaks about the Atlantic as something that belongs to both of us. He may not live there now — Irish diaspora is large, he could be anywhere, UK, US, elsewhere — but that's where he's from. He doesn't look stereotypically Irish. He doesn't look American either.

Tall, around 195-200cm. White skin, northern Atlantic. Dark hair, almost black, medium length — not styled, just grown past where it should be, pushed back when it falls forward. In earlier dreams it was longer. In recent ones a small amount of gel, practical not aesthetic, just to keep it out of his face when he's working.

Heterochromia. One blue eye, one green with yellow in it. The green eye has a slit pupil — from an old injury. There's healed scarring near that eye and on his temple, skin that didn't close quite cleanly. He has small scars on his hands as well. His forearms are muscular, veins visible — not trained for appearance, just someone who uses his body functionally.

He doesn't look conventionally handsome. He looks like someone you'd avoid on the street without knowing why. Strong jaw, not sharp. Doesn't smile much. When he makes eye contact it's infrequent but complete — not looking at you, reading you.

He always has a notebook. Black pen or pencil, fine lines. He draws constantly and compulsively — when something isn't right he draws it again, and again, until it is. Twenty versions of the same crow because the first nineteen weren't accurate enough. Realistic subjects, mythological ones, birds, buildings, underworld imagery — always from memory. It's also how he manages being around people without having to perform presence. His brain doesn't stop. He just doesn't narrate it.

Heavy tattoo work, at least one full sleeve. Underworld theme — River Styx, dead trees, asphodel, pomegranate in red, figures that read as souls rather than people. Mostly black and grey with blue tones. A crow tattoo somewhere on his body.

Obsessed with crows. Celtic mythology, specifically the Morrigan. Listens to Dead Can Dance, Clannad, Irish rock, music that sounds like it belongs in another century. Reads but hyperfocuses rather than broadly. Builds things with his hands. One close friend, maybe two. Has had legal trouble that wasn't straightforwardly his fault.

Likely neurodivergent — hyperfocus, selective speech, avoids eye contact except when he chooses to make it, which is rare and complete. Not a diagnosis. Possibly never diagnosed. But the pattern is consistent and specific.

Dresses functionally. Black jeans, boots, plain dark t-shirts, leather or dark denim jacket. Nothing decorative. A simple silver chain always tucked inside his shirt. I don't think he takes it off.

He smells like leather, wood, and clean skin.

If the dreams are shared and started when we were both teenagers, he would be in his late thirties to early forties now — roughly my age. That's not a hard limit. But it's the most likely range.

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**About me**

I'm a woman, also tall, somewhere in continental Europe — not the British Isles. I'm multilingual. I have a son. I'm not posting a photo or further identifying details.

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**If any of this means something to you**

I'm not looking for interpretations or theories. I've done that work already.

If you recognise this person — if you are this person — don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me something specific about the dreams that I haven't written here. Something that couldn't be guessed from this post. I'll know if it aligns.

It's this big beautiful house with a bunch of staircases, and I'm always told (directly or I remember in the back of my mind) that one wing of the house is closed off, sometimes for different reasons. The floor isn't sturdy, some family is staying there, etc.

Sometimes I get to see inside of that wing and find that those warnings are true.

It's just a dream right?

But why does it keep coming back

The same dream....

Once every few months.

Same conversation

Same faces

And I wake up in the morning terrified.

Confused

If it was just a dream

Why does it feel like it's a subliminal message

This time, I stay invisible and listen in to their conversation. They were looking for me, they knew that I was here but couldn’t track me. This time, I stay a good distance away from them and appear again, trying to initiate conversation and prove them that I’m sentient, sapient, self-aware, and more human that they could think.

Their knee jerk reaction was to throw a taser at me, which I dodge and let roll back down the hill. I told them that it was rude and snuck back behind the mountains. Turns out that these people have really good throwing skills because they throw two more of the taser things over the mountains to try and get me, but they don’t seem to affect me anymore. I find that they are running around to find me so I levitate up and sit on one of the peaks, and start talking to them. They do pause for a bit to talk to me, and I argue that if I can have a casual conversation with them, there can be a better way to deal with me.

I wake up for a bit but fall asleep to continue the dream.