Recurring Dreams

Dreams - what do they mean and why do we have them? I have read some of what the scientific world believes dreams are, however for me, I cannot reconcile myself to their black and white approach.
I have been having this one particular recurring dream since I was a young child. The essence of it is that my mother and I go shopping and then somehow become separated. She eventually goes home and somehow I know that she is home..although I am still trapped inside the shopping centre unable to find the exit. It almost appears that I am "haunting" the centre over many years.
The dreams continue over my life time with this main part being played out - sometimes with different travel arrangements to the shopping centre, and then it plays out various endings, including us both leaving on a train (albeit separately) and me becoming lost and catching the wrong train and never being able to find my way home.
I am still having these same recurring dreams many years later and cannot find the answer, although I know that even my guides are helping me be separating the dream and "honing in" on specific sections of it with a magnifying glass. Each section of the dream magnifies and adds even more "chapters" to this incredible "never ending story". It becomes both frustrating and annoying that I cannot find the end.

One day, many years ago - I think it was at least 15 years ago, I travelled to where I thought this dream was taking place - of course it had to be in a past life - it was to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Around Centennial Park where, my grand parents happened to have lived. I drove around the area and actually found some of the land marks that were in my dream. I found one house in the area opposite Queens Park and happened to see the neighbour outside in the front garden of her home. When I asked her about the house next door, she told me that it was only three years old. That the old house that was there had been pulled down and a new one had been rebuilt. Yet this house that was only new was the exact same house from my dream - with one exception - the house and garage where opposite distances from each other. In my dream the garage was in the back of the house, in reality it was in the front of the house - other than that, the outside of the house was the same colour, the garden was the same - rose bushes and all, even the drive way was in the same position. Yet I had never seen this house ever before.
I wandered across the road to Queens Park and walked down the hill to the flat. I found of of the trees that was also in my dream and it was exactly the same shape as in my dream. It had been quite a while since I was taken to Queens Park as a youngster of perhaps 3  years young. The tree would have changed over that many years - yet there it was - same shape, height and all. I got goose-bumps all over just thinking of it.
Yet, I could not find the intersection where I would drive my mother to this area, nor could I find the shopping centre. I could not also find the railway station, even though Eastern Suburbs Railway Line had been in place for about ten years by then.
So some of it still to this day remains a mystery - is it past life? Is it early this life? Or is it merely imagination. What do you think?