dreaming about someone I have never seen before

[andrea22]

Hi, I've never done this before so I hope I do this right. Over the last year, maybe 2, I have had dreams that involve the same man. Each dream is different though. And I'm still me, not someone else in the dreams. There are often other people in my life, like close friends or family members who are in the dreams as well. I think I have had a total of 3 or 4 dreams over the past year or so. I Don't remember much of the dreams, just bits and peices. In one dream, we were hanging out with some of my family at a bbq, in another dream we were making love. The latest one we were just kids, like 15 years old and we were doing homework or something. None of the dreams are lucid, but we know we don't have much time to be together. And when I wake up I feel lost, like I'm missing something. I feel heartbroken. I miss him. I feel like we have had a whole lifetime together, yet I only remember small bits. The feeling lasts all day sometimes longer. The feeling of his touch, and his smell still lingers after every dream. It really messes with my head and makes it hard to live my life for the few days after. I am exhausted too. I have little energy to do anything. And my brain is really foggy, like I haven't completely woken up yet. I don't know if it means anything. But if anyone has any ideas that could make sense of it, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm sorry I couldnt give more details about the dreams themselves. It's more about the feeling during and after them. Thank you

[Athanor]

Although in order to provide a more accurate interpretation it would usually be best to have some additional general background information about you, a few ideas can be tried out to see if they might fit your personal circumstances in some way. For example, although it’s not very romantic, the appearance of a man in the dreams of a woman at least partly symbolizes her so-called “masculine” side. This is especially true if the man isn’t someone actually known by the woman. It looks like your conscious personality is very closely related to emotions and relationships. If so, the unknown male likely symbolizes other parts of your personality which are less fully developed because they just aren’t used day to day when you’re making decisions and moving through life. Because of this, the inner man becomes something that is “missing” and you feel “lost” because he isn’t part of your everyday life. However, from the point of view of the dreams, you two should be spending “a whole lifetime together”. That is, his presence is as important as the other parts of yourself that were also in the dreams such as family members and close friends. This all probably sounds a little off the wall but in a practical sense, this inner man’s presence in your life should take the form when needed of such positive “masculine” traits as being assertive, target-orientated, determined, and in showing initiative and clear thinking etc. For example, the dream about hanging out at the bbq might have something to do with the symbolism surrounding the cooking and eating of food. Generally speaking, cooking the “raw materials” related to food and then eating the prepared dish represents the eventual “chewing over”, “swallowing” and thinking over the various “raw” experiences in life in order to absorb the “nutrition” of understanding. Something might have happened before this dream where you didn’t only attach a feeling value to an incident etc., but you possibly thought it over to some extent, so the dream was encouraging you to continue this type of thing by using an attractive romantic symbol of a guy being with you and your family at a bbq. The dream of making love to him stepped up this image and maybe represents the idea of a really important “union” which took place between not only feeling about something but also in using some other “masculine” trait like being very assertive when it was necessary or you were showing strong initiative about something important etc. The latest dream might show that for some reason, you maybe went backwards instead of forward in your attempts to be determined about something and therefore, you were shown as being only around 15 years old. In the dreams, you don’t feel you have much time together, showing that your ability to be determined or assertive etc. kind of “comes and goes” when it wants to. The strong feelings of “being in love” with the guy when you wake up could be a mixture of the dreams trying to get across how important and pleasant it can be to “get involved with” your own masculine side along with hinting that the kind of inner man you have will automatically be projected and seen on an outer guy, causing you to fall in love. Again, although it isn’t very romantic, the more a girl can stick with her true feelings and at the same time be reasonably assertive, clear thinking and determined in various parts of her life etc., the better chance she’ll have of matching up with a guy who, along with his masculine side, has developed his “feminine” side so that he’s receptive and considerate to a good enough level to make a long-lasting match. Anyway as mentioned, without knowing anything much about you, this way of looking at these particular types of dreams might not fit your personal circumstances very well, but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way. Please feel free to ask any questions or to make any comments about this particular way of looking at your dream.

[andrea22]

I'm sorry I missed that part. A little about myself. I am a Pisces, I am very empathetic, quiet, creative. Calm. I am unhappily married going on 10 years. I have 2 children. I'm 31 years old. I had been planning for over a year to finish school, get a job and divorce my husband. Then some devestating changes happened to our family and I couldn't put my kids through a divorce at that time. I finished school, haven't got a job yet, and my husband and I are in marriage counsling now. My sister said that maybe my subconscious has created a dream relationship were I can experience the emotional connection I do not have in my waking life. what you said about my latest dream, about going backwards instead of forwards in something I was determined about. I was very sure and determined to leave my husband. But then the last year, we bought a house, got a dog, started marriage counsling...and I do feel like I've gone backwards. Thank you for your insight.

[Athanor]

Don’t be sorry that you didn’t provide background information because the vast majority of those who post their dreams don’t do so. But because a dream is specifically created in great detail to describe a unique situation in connection with the dreamer, an overall context of what the person is like and what’s happening in her or his life helps to unravel the meaning of the dream more accurately. The situation you’ve described regarding your marriage is indeed a complicated and unhappy one. From what you’ve said, the dreams about the man, because they stay with you so clearly, are likely closely related to what’s needed in order for you to move ahead in your life more effectively overall. Your sister’s idea could partly be true since generally speaking, those of us who are heterosexual are programmed in some way to feel comfortable and satisfied in life only if we have some kind of reasonable emotional connection with someone of the opposite sex. Those in the LGBT community have an equivalent need. So in the absence of a satisfying outer relationship, it’s true that the unconscious psyche will “keep hope alive” as it were that a good relationship can be found someday. The only caveat is that the psyche doesn’t generally encourage staying very long in only an “inner” relationship. That’s because the basic, main objective of dreams is to help the individual to gradually fulfil her or his unique possibilities in the outer world as well as possible over a lifetime. You might already have had other dreams which featured a special or large tree and if so, the tree likely symbolized this process of gradual growth and unfolding over time in spite of “storms”, “plagues of insects” and “fires” etc. which are almost always part of a person’s life and which can hinder this self-development at times. Perhaps your marriage counselor has touched on the idea of the possibility of differing personality types regarding you and your husband. While some differences are usually vital to keeping the marriage alive and growing, too wide a gap can be difficult to bridge if special understanding isn’t brought to bear on it. If you’re interested, you might like to read “Personality types: Jung's model of typology” by analyst Daryl Sharp. It describes briefly but clearly the practical realities of how our personality type affects our everyday decision-making and interaction with others. It’s available on such sites as Amazon and Barnes and Noble for example. However, you can actually download it free from the publisher’s website which is innercitybooks.net If you go to the site, just click on “e-books”, then scroll down the e-book page to the bottom where there are a few free books including “Personality Types”. You can then download it in PDF format. And if you feel that you’re basically a quiet, inward-looking person and that this isn’t really going to change all that much, you might also like “The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World” by Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D. In any case, some of the ideas in these books might help to orientate yourself during the marriage counseling sessions. So I hope these additional ideas can be helpful and please don’t hesitate to ask any further questions.