I met my friend for coffee the other day. Samantha's* 25 year marriage ended in divorce several years ago, and after a prolonged recovery period, she is making great strides in her newly rebuilt life.
We simultaneously arrived at our destination and after a brief greeting she turned to me with a worried look and announced, "I had the most realistic dream about Brian last night. It really freaked me out. It's been five years already -- why am I still dreaming about him?"
This is a question that is regularly posed to me by friends and clients during and after a breakup or divorce.
It's been over a century since Sigmund Freud introduced his theory on dreams. According to Freud and his contemporaries, dreams represented buried traumas or "neurosis" in our subconscious, which required prolonged therapy in order to analyze and ultimately resolve them.
Today it is speculated that dreams may represent many things, but they can also be fantasy, fiction, and fun; ergo the saying about that cigar.
It is completely normal to dream about an ex -- and most people do. It is unrealistic to think that someone we once cared deeply about, and who took up a great deal of space in our lives, hearts and minds will be erased once the divorce papers are signed. Yet dreaming about an ex can undoubtedly be disturbing -- especially if there are unresolved issues and feelings, or if there was minimal closure during the ending. I've had numerous clients express to me their acute feelings of anguish, shock, fear, guilt and rage after awakening from a realistic dream. This unsettling experience can make you question your reality, your choices, and even worse, agonize that your recovery is in jeopardy.
On occasion these dreams will represent something substantial regarding your ex and your split. If that is the case, it is prudent to spend some time contemplating the meaning of your dream, or what you think the dream represents. The reason being is that it is nearly impossible to reach a meaningful, healthy and full recovery from your divorce without a thorough and honest understanding of your personal circumstances and narrative. And at times, a dream may help you fill in some missing gaps, and that is actually a very good thing.
If your breakup is a recent occurrence, there is a good possibility that your ex will make nocturnal visits a bit more than you will like. Try not to get too rattled and try to make peace with that fact. And if you've been divorced for several years and find that you are having a spell of frequent dreams, perhaps there is something happening in your current life that is triggering these dreams.
After discussing my friend Samantha's dream, we were able to make some astute conclusions. It was her ex's weekend to have their children in his home. Plus, it was Halloween, and she was worried that her teenage sons wouldn't receive proper supervision. After she realized this, she decided to call her former husband (calmly and rationally) to discuss her concerns, and the conversation assuaged her fears. Since then, there have been no dreams about Brian.
Here are some suggestions to help you turn your dreams (and occasional nightmares) into interesting insights:
Alternatively, not all dreams have significance. If you've reviewed your dream and determined it was simply an old memory, or not particularly representative of anything at all, let sleeping dogs lie.
As much as we may wish to erase memories of our ex from our brains (both good and bad), it's simply not possible. Our exes were once a vital part of our lives, and our recollections and feelings, even when we think they have been processed and released, will surface periodically. So try to accept and even expect an unforeseen nocturnal visit from time to time. Once you make peace with that concept, chances are you will have sweet dreams.
*Please note that all names in this post have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
When I left him, he turned from a loving, controlling figure, to someone who wanted to destroy me. In the dreams I replay packing my belongings, and buying the get-a-way ticket over and over . I can connect the dream to stress in my real life, but sometimes it comes out of nowhere.
I am now happily married but still wake up in anxiety maybe 10-12 times a year. Lucky for me, I can share my feelings with someone who supports me. What I went through gives me better appreciation of what I have achieved now in my marriage.
If I could go back, would I not get involved with that person, not have the amazing life I experienced?, life long friends I met through him? living and traveling in places I would never have seen otherwise? That is impossible to say. That's life.
Learned to accept these type dreams as notifications of the elevated mind contact state that occurs between people who were very closely connected at some point; resulting from that person thinking about you on some level-so how the connections are being made between you and them. It did upset me at first because was trying to move on/put all that in the past, eventually did accept all that happened and have moved on, so when dreams come just accept as such with hope all is well with them/family.
Mo relationship w/them as consider as , "once upon a time", not part of who I am. Do accept things as they once said,"if you love them let them go, if they are yours (to have),they will return to you". LOL
I hope I understand this better now after reading this. Hope so....
So, I have them categorized...do they represent positivity and happiness, confusion and doubt, or downright harm and depression.
I remain friends with all the ones about which I dream. Interestingly, I never dream about my current (and last) wife. She is amazing, I am grown up, finally, and there is no questions to ponder that require the no-rules-playing-ground of dreamscapes.
My first love, with whom I remain in contact and has stayed with my wife and me, seems to represent very positive feelings...she is my dream-lucky charm.
My first wife of twenty years, with whom I remain in contact and also who has visited my wife and me, seems to represent moods of self doubt.
My last live-with, before my current wife, was a nightmare, but she seems to always show up as a test of my committment. I knew this woman since I was ten years old, so I have images of her from ten to forty five-the time we separated (it was only a three year relationship after both of us were divorced in our forties).
She appears as my test of faith and it always leaves me shaken when I wake. But, since my current wife is well aware of the whole thing with this last one, she is very comforting about the crazy one I left to marry her-my current wife.
Fascinating.
Other past men in my life also figure in my dreams, but in more ambiguous ways. It's fascinating when I analyze these dreams. I always learn something about myself - I've long since realized it's really about me, not them.
Ii is extremely unsettling, and fortunately, my current and last wife points and laughs at me. She knows my first wife and knows that I am better off now than then, which is true.
But, the realness of the dream, although totally in an unreal setting and time, is still weird as hell.
Dreams.They are fueled by chemical called DMT and this compound is in over four thousand plants so far discovered and most mammals. It is what causes the closed eyed hallucinations we call dreams. Why we dream is still up to the dreamers.
That would certainly keep me, my wife and all three dogs from dreaming for certain.
sometimes erotic, other times shes estranged.
I find talking about it very helpful (even to yourself), a kind of a venting process that may be required to end the dreams.