Thank you for asking this question. I’ve been dying to tell someone about a theory I have developed regarding this. I’m also dreaming about my childhood stuff more often than about contemporary things. Games I played when I was 15 appear more often in my dreams than the ones I’m playing now and I dream about my childhood friends I haven’t met in years more often than about my wife who I spend every day together with.
The answer can be put into one word: puberty.
But I think I should explain some more. The revelation came I think when I watched some d video of Simon Sinek explaining what an overdose of smartphone and social media does to adolescents. In our age of 13-16 years old we go through a very profound change. For girls maybe one year younger, as they tend to go through puberty a little earlier. It is at this time that we make the transition from child to adult.
You probably knew this already. But I think few people are actually aware what that means. As Simon Sinek summarized, the critical difference between being a child and an adult is that the former relies psychologically on approval by their parents, whereas the latter seeks the approval and acceptance of their peers. This is a profound change in how your life works. And it comes with a lot of pain, through social pressure never felt before or uncertainty about your own identity, for example.
I’d go even so far as to say that it is at this time in your life that soul is forged which will then inhabit your fleshy shell for the rest of your life. And whatever you throw into the crucible at this point will determine what you’re made out of, for the rest of your life. Everything you’ve been before that point gets crushed down, crunched up and disassembled into pieces, to be put together again. This process leaves an eternal mark on you. From a dreamer’s perspective it seems a reasonable conclusion that you will thus dream about whatever kept you busy during these times of your life, as they literally defined your personality.
I see confirmation of this in my own dreams and your post, but also the mere fact that school and missed homework dreams are a meme in this community.
But I also know that this is not the full picture. It’s probably not as simple. Reality is rarely black and white and when it comes to dreams, the color gradient stretches particularly wide and contains many different shades. I’m curious to learn other people’s insights to broaden or confirm my theory.