photo by timsamoff

Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means. This week, a reader asks Lauri:

About a month ago, my three year on-again-off-again-long-distancey-quasi-relationship ended when he told me that he’s decided to date his roommate. I was understandably peeved for a while, but overall the road to recovery has been pleasant and I’m finding silver linings all over the place. Usually, when something big goes down in my life, I dream about it incessantly, but I haven’t dreamt about this big break at all… until last night.

In my dream, I got super stealth and snuck into their apartment because I was on a mission. There was definitely a heist vibe to the dream overall. I had come to retrieve all the books that I’d loaned him and to give back the ones of his that I still had. (We met during college in the English Department. Many books were exchanged.) I noticed that their clothes were hanging in the same closet, but no serious snooping went down. I just wanted to get in and get out.

After I’d gotten my books back, I was just leaving when they walked in the front door. Everyone felt really uncomfortable for a second, but none of us were mad at each other even though I’d obviously broken into their home. He followed me outside and tried to talk to me but I ran away and escaped in an elevator, all of my books back in my bag.

This is someone that I used to talk to every day, but I’ve told him that I don’t want a friendship right now so we no longer speak, against his wishes. I thought I was close to being completely over this huge break-up, but now this dream has me questioning that. Am I really as over it as I think I am? Or do I have some stuff going on deeper than I realized?

Lauri: You are absolutely over it! And this dream is not only confirmation of said “overness” but also closure, I’m happy to say. The reason why you break into their apartment and retrieve your stuff in the dream is because it is connected to you telling him, “Sorry, no friendship.” You see, if you had maintained a friendship with him, then you would have essentially allowed him to metaphorically hold on to certain parts of you, represented by the books. So by taking your friendship away, you got all of you (your books) back. It was absolutely the right thing to do. You probably wouldn’t want a new boyfriend of yours to remain friends with an ex.

Your dream threw you a bone of encouragement in showing you their clothes together in his closet. This was also a reminder to you that he must have been keeping his relationship, or his desire for her “in the closet” for a while before he finally told you about it. The best part of the dream is when you jump on to the elevator with all your books in tow. This shows us that you made a clean “break” from him, hence the break-in, and in doing so you “elevated” yourself above the sticky, confusing level of remaining friends. You done good, girl!

Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it. Anonymity guaranteed! And don’t forget: you can get access to Lauri’s Instant Dream Decoding Dictionary on her site.