I took a seminar on dreams and the subconscious years and years ago. It has been very helpful to me as I used to have a lot of recurring dreams, always very vivid. I use the technique he taught and I almost never have a recurring dream now.
Sometimes a dream is just a dream. Sometimes it is our subconscious talking to us. Vivid, recurring dreams are usually a sign that you are very intuitive and you should pay attention.
We dream in pictures. But the things in my dreams have a different meaning to me than they do to you. So you have to determine what they mean to YOU. Dreaming about one's mother, for instance, depends on your relationship with your mother. A sweet nurturing mother is different from an abusive damaging mother. Your subconscious builds a story around the emotions.
He taught us to pretend we were talking to an alien from another world. Seriously. This alien does not understand the simplest of terms; mother, father, home, child, etc. You write down the main parts of your dream and explain to the alien WHAT the people and places mean. He does not understand the term "mother". What is "mother"? You pull apart your dreams and figure out the symbols. I have several people who regularly show up in my dreams. You don't consider who they are, it's what they represent.
My uncle in a dream is not a dream about my uncle. It's a situation in which I do not feel safe. Violated. My first husband is a situation that has spun out of control with no good options. Places in your dreams are the same thing. Home to me does not mean the same thing it does to you. I often dream about my Grandma's basement. It was dark and foreboding and I was not supposed to go down there. That's my subconscious warning me that there are dark places that I should stay out of. Sometimes I go anyway in my dreams, and there's something wonderful down there. Again, subconscious trying to tell me to summon the courage to muscle through. Likewise, if I go down there and something awful happens...well, I knew that I should not go down there to begin with.
A dream about my home is not about my home at all. I cherish my home, fought for it, nearly lost it at one point from someone else's selfishness and stupidity (WH). What in my life fits that description? If I'm fighting intruders (what's an intruder?), was I successful? Was the answer stand and fight or hide and wait?
Describe your mother to the alien. Then ask yourself what this describes in your life right now. The fact that you are having a conversation with your mother who has Alzheimer's may, indeed, be a dream about your frustrations in trying to communicate with her. Or it may not have anything to do with your mother at all. It's your dream. Only you can interpret it.
Sorry this has been so long, and maybe a little hard to follow. Hope it helps.
