I dream often; almost every night. I also have the good fortune of frequently remembering my dreams vividly. I don't have scary or sad dreams very often but I do have extremely frustrating dreams that seem to follow a common path. There is no magic and the location is normally different but it seems to always have a common plot.
One common aspect of my dreams is that I am working in a restaurant or bar. This is understandable because I worked in the food-service industry in some capacity for most of my life. Later in life i was the owner of a bar and restaurant and only recently became completely detached from the industry. So it is understandable why it would be on my mind.
However, always in these dreams the bar I am working at is horribly understocked and most of the time in a location that is not at all conducive to acquiring what you need to make drinks. The ice and beer will be on the first floor and my post is behind the bar on the roof for example. No matter what I do in these dreams I can't get the bar ready and the drinks I have to make I'll finish half of, go to get the other ingredients only to discover the half cocktail I have made is missing upon my return. I never complete my objectives in these dreams and it drives me crazy.
Other times I am in the kitchen and the setup is always really strange like the food is kept in a room waaaaaay over there and the burners are over here. I am always burning stuff and don't even have the equipment to remove the now on fire food. Again, I am never able to complete my orders in these dreams as the waitstaff become more and more upset with me for screwing this up.
I have worked in restaurants and bars where I would get "in the weeds" at many times in the past (in the weeds means that you are really busy and struggling to catch up with the orders.) This obviously is a stressful situation but I never realized until recently that these real-life experiences must have made a permanent burn on my psyche. I haven't worked in or owned a restaurant for several years and while I was working in them I didn't have these dreams. I wonder why it is happening now? There is no chance I am going to get "in the weeds" these days and I wonder why it is there.
I would say I have a dream involving one of these two scenarios at least 2 times a week and the bar or restaurant that I "work" in are never the same twice. Perhaps this recurring scenario says something about how I hate not being able to complete objectives or am haunted by something that I am not consciously aware of that is incomplete in my current life.
The brain is a very powerful thing - there's no denying that. Do you have recurring elements in your dreams that are similar? Am I feeling as though my situation is unique when it is actually very common? I'd be interested in your feedback for sure.