Dream about rape

In the past year, I've had quite a few dreams about rape. What happens in the dream is that I'm suddenly lying in bed (place unknown) while a man is raping me from behind. The first few times when it happened, I did not know the man. However, he was always blonde with blue eyes. The last time I had this dream, I knew the rapist. It was a man whom I met recently on a trip and who has been showing interest in me in an aggressive way. The trip is over now and he is out of life. Nevertheless, I'm wondering why I keep having these dreams. I've never been sexually abused or raped in my life.

Can someone help me with this, please? Thank you!

Do you feel like maybe you are not in control in some other way in your life? Like someone is doing something (does not have to be sexual) without your having enough say in the matter? Remember dreams tend to exaggerate issues, and at times it seems our subconscious wishes to shock us out of some reason.

Especially in the case of dreams where you cannot recognize the assailant, chances are good that the assailant actually represents another part of your personality. So another possibility would be that you feel like part of you is forcing a other part of you to do something you do not want. Yes, I know this sounds a bit split personality, but I think all of us have that to some extent. Perhaps your rational part is determined to peruse a course of action that causes your more emotional part to suffer? Like if for example you were doing what you think you ought to do instead of what you want to do?

I think the man from the trip just got filled into this dream simply because he was showing interest in you in an aggressive way, and part of you really preferred for your dream assailant to have a face, so your subconscious filled in his face, but that's all.

Alternatively, do you have an unusual fear of being raped or of sexual relationships with men? That would explain it.

Another alternative, and I am almost hesitant to ask this, but do the dreams really make you feel bad or not? There is a whole genre of erotica about rape, and there are more women who fantasize about that than you might expect. Note: if this were the cause your emotional reaction to this dream would be very different though than if you had this dream for other reasons. Furthermore, such fantasies in the middle of the night most definitely would not mean that you want this in waking life. Along these lines the dream could be about not wanting to always be in charge and not wanting as much responsibility for all of life's decisions, etc.

Of course, all of those interpretations can be completely wrong, and feel free to discard any that do not sound right.

Joanna, thank you for your reply.

I must admit that I have been through a very turbulent year. I've moved twice in the past year within the same country and have visited my relatives a couple of times. They live in a different country. At the moment, I am still studying, expecting to graduate in December. I still have no idea what I'm going to do afterwards (work, pursue a different academic program, etc). I started having these dreams last year when I was about to move to this second place.

As for the sexual part of it, I do not and never have had any fantasies about rape. In my opinion, it's one of the most dreadful things that human beings can do to one another. In fact, it might as well be my biggest fear, yet not unusual. I do not really think or obsess about it.

It is plausible that I'm afraid of having sexual relationships with men. I've dated quite a few guys in the past year but never took the relationship to the bedroom. I just didn't want to give myself to another person too soon. Note that these relationships usually didn't last for more than a month. I still hold that view that I'm not going to sleep with anyone until the relationship is becoming stable. However, I do have a feeling in the back of my mind that these relationships didn't work out because I refused to have sex during the early stages. Basically, all these men just disappeared after I told them that I want to wait until I'm in a commited relationship. That doesn't mean I'm a virgin though. I have had long term relationships before.

Do you have fantasies or fetishes about some force, but not quite raping you?

Since you don't want to have sex unless you are in a stable, long-term relationship, perhaps you have some sort of fear that the man will "take what he wants", so to speak? It might not even be a concious fear, but an underlying or subconcious fear or uneasyness.

It could also be that you have been abused at some point in your life, but your mind is supressing the memory, and it's resurfacing as a dream.

I do think that all the moves in a short amount of life combined with uncertainty about what to do in the future may be related to a feeling of not being in control, which may have caused your dreams. If that is a case then taking greater control of your life and of yourself will hopefully cause the dreams to stop. If I were you I would try to not worry too much about the dreams and focus on other stuff, but do not spend too much energy ignoring the dreams, lest that backfires and brings them on with more force. Acknowledge them and move on. Work on increasing your self confidence and decisiveness in waking life in the hope of establishing a thought pattern that is too self assured to be a victim.

I suspect given all that you have said that the sexual nature of these dreams is not actually what the dreams are about. I think your dreams are using forced sex as a metaphor of sorts, exaggerating and transforming other issues.

That would be my guess, but of course I may be wrong.

That sounds right. The problem is that I can't really take control of my life until I graduate in December. I will probably have to leave the country where I'm currently studying due to the termination of my student visa, and I have no idea where I will end up afterwards. I think that's bothering me. It's just strange that this dream is a recurring one. I usually never dream about something more than once.

Recurring dreams can be like that. I used to have recurring nightmares about skiing out of control when I was a young teen. And those were my only recurring dreams, and because they were skiing themed they would happen only in winter time, but for more than one year: recurring seasonal nightmares, weird. Mine eventually just went away, and I was not paying enough attention to my dreams at that time to be able to see why they stopped. The one thing to keep in mind is that expectations play a major role with dreams, so I suggest that you try not to expect that you will get these dreams again, in fact if I were you I would expect them to stop right now. I don't think that your idea that you can't control your life until you graduate is accurate. We all can be in control of our circumstances to the best of our abilities whatever our circumstances are. A lot of it is in our attitude: if you change your attitude, and think of yourself as in control in as many ways as you can that can make a difference. Think of your studies, your gaining of competence. Think of hobbies in which you are competent and in control. Think of how compared to someone who is a waking life rape victim, you are much more in control: you say when, you say what, you say with whom, you're in control of yourself. Focus on that. During waking life pay attention to your thoughts and feelings, and whenever you catch yourself thinking that you cannot be in control until you graduate, change those thoughts to more positive ones. You may also look into learning lucid dreaming which is all about gaining control in dreams.

Thank you for your interpretation! It has been really helpful. Also, I noticed that I get these rape dreams when I'm trying to recover from a broken relationship. My recent ex got into a relationship with this new girl and already made it official on Facebook. They've only known each other for a little under 2 months. The thing that bothers me about this is that I was going to be away for 3 months and he promised me to continue dating long distance. In reality, I didn't hear from him since I arrived to my new place and somehow it feels like we haven't officially broken up. In the past year, similar things happened with 2 other guys and I always get these dreams around the time when I realize that everything is lost. However, they never play a part in those dreams. The first time I got a rape dream is when I was sleeping next to my bf at the time when everything was still fine between us. It's really strange.

There are a connection between your experiences with men and these dreams, so let's speculate along those lines if you don't mind. I'm going to talk about you as a dreamer in third person, because I'm more comfortable with that.

There's a part of the dreamer who wants to have sex (naturally), but the dreamer doesn't want to have sex with the men she dates or just meet in the passing. So there are a conflict here: The dreamer's ego have decided that she will not have sex if not certain conditions are met, but part of the dreamer's unconsciousness wants to have sex nonetheless.

When the dreamer dates, of course the men she dates are potential sexual partners, so unconsciously there's a build up of expectations of having sex with these men. Or for that matter, if the dreamer meets somebody she is attracted to, who is interested in her, there's somewhere a unconscious expectation of having sex. So inside of the dreamer there is this need, and this expectation. But the dreamer's ego denies her sexuality this fulfillment, and the men eventually turns away.

Then the dreamer is alone and has these nightmares where sex is forced upon her, sometimes by the same men who perhaps were subject to (unconscious) sexual fantasies. So the ego rejects her own sexuality, and the frustration of that part of her comes back in the dreams, as nightmares, as suppressed content often does. Often when our ego strays to far from our instinctual self, the latter forces itself upon us in our dreams, if nothing else, as a compensation, because the psyche strive for balance.

So that's what I think, but of course this may be wrong and I apologize if you feel uncomfortable with my speculation, I know it is private (which is one of the reasons I prefer to speak about this in third person.)

Does this mean that the dreamer should have causal sex? No, that's not what I'm saying and I think it is not what the dream is saying either. Dreams never says "you should do this, or do that", they are mostly displaying an inner dynamic. And in this dynamic, as I interpret it, there's an unbalanced relationship between the ego's attitude and inner needs, and so the ego's attitude is compensated in the dreams by the opposite attitude. To use this in real life, would mean to find a balance between the two conflicting wishes.