The house I lived in from 6th grade to the end of highschool is the setting for pretty much all the dreams that involve a place where I lived. There have been some re-occuring dreams that occured in the place we lived previously but it has been probably 20 years or more since I had a dream take place there (I am 44 years old).
I expect that although that house as a dream setting is the most common in my dreams, it accounts for a very small percentage overall. Most of my dreams seem to occur in different places and not associated with locations from waking life.
I’ve had dreams at my grandparents’ house so many times that it has become a dream sign and I’m always sure to get lucid there. Another common location is my lucid dream world. It doesn’t exist in RL so it’s also a dreamsign. I dream of my grandparents’ house the most though. Used to dream of my highschool a lot too, but not anymore.
It’s interesting this question came up because I was just thinking alot of my dreams seem to alway be located in my Parent home where I grew up for 20 years and they still live. These day’s I only make it back there once a year.
My dreams are usually a variation of my house, or my school or some place familiar. Sometimes it’s a school bus.
Theres always something different about it… Like a whole swamp in my backyard, or an apple tree on top of my house or something or my school with over 100 floors. Stuff like that.
I usually get a lot of repeated dream settings. Mostly, it’s my house or the apartment I used to live in, or some strange mix of both. There’s also college and my old school, and just like the house/apartment, they seem to get mixed quite often.
Other repeating settings include shopping malls and arcades.
The recurring settings that I remember most are my school, my house, houses I used to live in, and a summer camp that I go to. I very rarely dream about my neighborhood outside of my house, but I did last night, which I find odd.
Being a little more general with my dream location, I find that most occur within structures. In fact a theme that has occured multiple times is when I am unable to leave the place I am in (room, house, etc).
I do find it interesting that some people do not have re-occuring locations in dreams. Some kind of basic dream category?
I follow the same basic trend as most of the posts suggest; most of my dreams are set in some form of my house, my school (mostly my current one, but occasionally my old middle school), or my church. The dreamscapes usually aren’t too true to life, though – usually, my school seems a lot bigger and more complex, almost like some sort of prison or something . When they’re not set in someplace familiar, I’m usually running around in some sort of run-down urban area. I’m not sure what that means.
I share johnr’s curiosity… why do some people not have recurring dream locations? Is there any research on that?
The house I lived in until a couple years ago is the premise for most of my dreams.
After that, it’s usually other places I frequent, on the rare occasion it’s somwhere I have never been (in this lifetime), but they always feel familiar.
This is an easy question to answer, since over half my normal dreams take place in a zoo, theme park, or cave. However, my mood toward these places changes constantly.
What does this have to say about my psyche? When I was little, I REALLY liked giant roller coasters and I’ve always been smitten with Disneyland, though crowds aren’t really my thing. And I like animals, so in my dreams I’m always trying to free them from the zoo. The location often has both animals and roller coasters. For about a year, almost ALL my dreams had some form of cave in them but these are growing less frequent. There were about 3 or 4 dreams where I emerged from the cave into a theme park. I should really learn to pick up on these obvious dream signs…
i some times end up next to a wooden brown small shack. for some reason i can never get in. every time it makes me mad too.
but maybe i dont whant to know whats in there
I have found that at least half of my dreams are set in either my old middle school or my high school, but they are different every time. I always know that it is my school, but they never look exactly as they do IRL. I’ve tried to use my school as a dreamsign, but I’m there so often that it’s hard to do a RC every time it comes up…
It’s interesting this question came up because I was just thinking alot of my dreams seem to alway be located in my Parent home where I grew up for 20 years and they still live. These day’s I only make it back there once a year. 
. When they’re not set in someplace familiar, I’m usually running around in some sort of run-down urban area. I’m not sure what that means.
