Possible dreams of abuse, how can you tell?

Every now and then someone posts about their dreams here, and like I've said before, I find it a very fascinating topic. While I understand that dreams can be significant in different ways, I'm uncertain what to think about some of my own dreams that I used to have all the time when I was under 10 I think... I don't remember when they ended but I still had them in our new house.

***TRIGGER WARNING, abuse ***
The dreams were of my mother being angry at me and drowning me in different ways either in a ditch or down the toilet, and me crying for her to stop, but she kills me by drowning every single time, and I wake up in horror. I think that the dream changed and gradually stopped after I noticed that I didn't really die but was able to breath underwater and "tell" the dream it can't hurt me.
I also had another recurring nightmare that had to do with her, but it was less violent and more symbolic.
***END TRIGGER***

I have never taken the dream seriously because I had so many nightmares when I was little, and it didn't come back once I got rid of it. Every time I think of it, I feel like I shouldn't make a big deal out of it. I've had so many dreams which bear little or no connection to real life, it would be stupid to think they are all significant. But in addition to the fact that the dream was regular for years, there are some other things that might suggest it wasn't a random nightmare. First, up to this day I have mild claustrophobia (I hate underground caves and can't stand things on my face/around my neck) and have had massive panic attack twice, when someone locked me in a toilet and another time when I got trapped in one because of a broken lock.
I have no fear of water though, but I have had fear of drowning.

Moreover, I remember that when I was still little, if mother put her arm just gently around me when we were resting side by side, I started to feel like I suffocate and had to scream that she lets me go. It happened many times and was funny in my sister's opinion.
The last one is just a guess, but sometimes I felt like mom had a strange guilt around me, like she was trying to make amends for something, and I also felt that there were sort of charged quiet moments when we were alone, especially in her last years. This could be my imagination or misinterpretation of situations. Since was rather inconsistent in the way she brought us up and always too open about her feelings and emotions so on, and therefore those moments of silence when I felt that she was thinking about something that had to do with me felt quite unusual. Of course I didn't ask her what it was.

Although I made this post I feel like I shouldn't focus on those dreams and other assumptions, and it feels childish. It feels all rather insignificant, but on the other hand, it haunts me a little.

Maybe I should add that the memories of these nightmares seem to always have dominated my memories and thoughts about my childhood. I hope this makes sense to someone, although it hardly makes sense to myself. Even so much that up to my early twenties I got unreasonably fearful, with physical symptoms, if someone started to tell their dreams. I think I can say that talking about dreams was triggering for me.

Perhaps the question isn't whether she did it, but if she did, whether it is still important to me.

Oh, I don't know. It just crossed my mind that when I first met R (my first part who surfaced properly, how appropriate), his body was lost (inside) because he was drowned and had been that way for years, and I had to make a strange trip inside to find it in order to fix something in us.
Well, I could tell this for many times (probably have too) and it would always be different, depending on circumstances, but that was basically how it went.

I would say it looks like it is still important to a part of you.

**May trigger**
My mom would drown me alot as a form of punishment so I wouldn't put it past anyone to do it. Like my experience helps me see credence in your dreams as an example of unresolved subconscious issues/points of interest.

I do see both metaphors of abuse as well as reliving actual events in the dream-like state. The key things for my dream system I've found is that at times it feels like a metaphor other times, it's more like a movie, reliving the past, or I get the third person narrators telling me, this is based on a real event, but will use metaphors to soften the message. For example, in one dream a protector alter brought me to the edge of the Elysian fields, and told me how my mom brought me to the point of death many times, then various alters with us started to die in a couple of manners. That particular theme of mom = near death reoccurs in my dreams.

Some I know of as true, others, I could see happening, or would explain certain things she said/did but never explained. Then another parts I knew was more of a metaphor for the emotional/soul(?) death rather than physical that occurred.
**end trigger**

As an outside observer, all I can say is, you know what the truth is inside, trust your gut, you have very good sense.

As a T, I can tell you that you/one can work with a dream image of sequence in the same way, whether it's a memory or a metaphor. Sometimes you don't know, or don't yet know, whether something took place in the physical world or not, but you can listen to it and work with it as you would with any dream, keeping in mind that you don't know whether it's symbolically or literally true. It's always emotionally true. Maybe your dream is showing you something of what you felt and experienced, and you can certainly listen to it and honor it, cry over it or do whatever you need to do. It's important. I know this doesn't help you at all with figuring out whether your dream could be of something that "really" happened. You had a great reply from Borg, and there's very little I can add to it, except to say that things can happen that most people don't want to believe could happen. I do understand wanting to know whether it really did or not. I don't know if there's always a way of knowing for sure. I wish there were.

Thanks to both of you for your replies, I found them validating.
It's good to hear from someone else I'm allowed to ask from myself why I had those nightmares in the first place. Whenever I try to approach some topics and memories, I suddenly say to myself it's not important, it will only create more problems to think about stuff, and I should toughen up and be sensible (even when it would be completely sensible to process things!) -- and then I give up.
It's like posting on this forum, I sometimes fight with myself for days to be able to post something I want to post.
I do find emotions scary sometimes.

Something interesting happened the same night I made the original post here. I felt peaceful, and then I played with some of my daughter's plushies and a doll o__o. I actually hugged them and provided safety for them and it felt like it used to feel when I was little, like they were providing safety and comfort back to me too. Although I don't avoid doing childish things in general, I never play with plush toys ! Telling about it feels awkward, but at the same time I feel like I owe it to myself, my child part/s. I decided I can play with plush toys and dolls every day if I feel like it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of! I also slept better that night.