What does it means to dream Dream within a Dream?

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I dreamt I was in an underground parking garage with my husband. We were walking towards the car when suddenly the parking garage started to fill with water. Just as we were about to drown, I “woke up” in my bedroom – except I was still dreaming. The next dream depicted a very painful situation that had happened to me when I was a child. Upon reflection, I understood that I had been hiding this experience (depicted in the second dream) from my husband out of fear that if he ever found out the truth he would see me as a monster and reject me. Hence the feelings of drowning in the first part of the dream – followed by the overwhelming situation that made me feel that I was “drowning” and out of control.