This has happened to me too, and it's been too often and too detailed to be coincidences. I don't just dream symbolic like you, where one thing symbolize another thing, but detailed, graphic and true to life.
I keep questioning the validity of my experiences, my own sanity and memory- and basically watch everything from the sideline, analysing and theorizing without allowing myself to get sucked in and succumb to the magic, at best thinking of it as "normal", at worst doubting it ever happened. I guess it's a healthy reaction that serves to protect me from madness - yet sometimes I think I'm a bit too over-protective.
Your post made me realize that the sceptic in me has possibly made me overlook all the precognitive dreams that come to me in symbols as opposed to detailed graphic scenes that cannot be overlooked. Most dreams are symbolic anyway, so it would make sense that precognitive dreams would be mostly symbolic too. I will pay attention to that in the future- perhaps I have more precognitive dreams than I am aware of. - Thanks for making me aware of this!
My precognitive dreams are mostly about mundane stuff, it gives me a feeling that it's all a bit random, like little glimpses of something, and not always important messages or warnings. And it's nearly always stuff that means more to other people (or animals!) than myself.
My theory is that:
1. everything(and everyone) is connected, and our subconscious mind who doesn't ask questions all the time is naturally more connected to this common conciousness. That would explain why I'm having precognitive dreams about stuff that is trivial to myself, but important to other people/animals.
2. time is an illusion, everything is happening at once, so it only makes sense that one would dream of things happening both in the past and future.
The reason for why I'm writing all of this is that you said you didn't like how your dreams manifest- and I think this is something a lot of people who experience precognitive dreams fear:
If one's dreams keep coming true, how should one react when having intense dreams of awful things happening to loved ones or oneself?
My thoughts are that: The fact that a lot of your dreams come true, does not mean that all dreams come true. I theorize that our subconscious is connected to a common conciousness, but for all we know, it is all in our heads. And even if it *isn't* all in our heads, and we get impressions from a source outside of ourself, it would all be interpreted by our mind, with the initial idea possibly lost or warped in translation. In addition, our minds are infinitely creative and full of ideas and imagery that would either overshadow other impressions, or mingle with them, making it impossible to tell fact from fiction.
Most people grow up learning to ignore and question things as gut feeling/intuition and mystical profound thoughts/ideas/experiences. As a result, we don't know how to listen to these things, and I believe that one has to be careful when one starts listening, as paranoia, fears and other unhealthy thoughts from one's subconscious can disguise themselves as truths, omens, things to consider, things to be afraid of.
Be open to things.. but don't be afraid:)