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. Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it) This week, a straight female reader asks Lauri:
I’ve been with my boyfriend for over 4 years: we live together, have been through some personal crises, and are still deeply in love with each other. We plan to stay together for the rest of our lives.
That said, the other night I dreamt I was pregnant by him. I was in the 5th month and it showed. I thought that this might explain why I’ve gained some weight and why people always ask whether I’m pregnant (which does happen in real life). In the dream, I was overjoyed, but wanted to take a pregnancy test before telling my boyfriend, just to be sure.
So I bought one, went to the bathroom and…I just couldn’t make myself pee! Most of the dream was about how I knew I would have to pee in order to confirm the good news, but I just couldn’t. I kept thinking that I wanted to be sure about the pregnancy in order not to disappoint him with a false alarm. Then I woke up.
What does it mean?
Lauri: Unless you are trying to get pregnant, pregnancy in a dream usually means there is something new growing and developing somewhere in your life. You have a specific amount of time, 5 months. You should be able to connect that to something in your waking life that has been going on for about that same amount of time. Did you two move in together 5 months ago? Did you start talking about marriage 5 months ago? You may need to put on your thinking cap and see if you can figure this out.
In the dream you want to prove the good news to your boyfriend, which means there must be something you are wanting to prove in real life. Are you needing to convince him you are in this for the long haul? Is there perhaps something you need to prove to yourself? Whatever it is, it seems that you are afraid you are not going to be able to get the job done. As I re-read your dream, I can’t help but think that this may be more about your need to convince yourself of something.
Anyhoo, the inability to pee in the dream may be more about your inability to express yourself in some way in waking life. Typically, the need to pee in a dream is really about the need to relieve yourself of waking frustrations. So I am wondering if there may be a certain level of frustration within your relationship that you — or both of you — need to relieve yourself of in order to feel certain that this relationship is here to stay.
Of course, the inability to pee could also just be your body’s need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and your brain is just making you dream that you can’t pee on the stick as a way to keep you from wetting the bed!
Response from the dreamer: Thank you a lot, first of all. And I do think I have an idea what the
situation might be:
I’ve been working at my master thesis (to finally finish my studies that have been going on way too long now) for about 5 to 7 months, depending on how you count. My boyfriend keeps helping me in many ways (he is about to finalize his PhD and knows about how to go about such a project), but I’m quite stuck, only proceeding in tiny steps. I’m even seeing a counsellor at the university about these problems, who is quite confident I’ll make it.
But still, it’s painfully slow and it hurts almost physically, always doubting my abilities, always trying to discipline myself, never being satisfied with myself. The stress that both my boyfriend and I have due to finalizing our studies and due to especially my reactions to this stress (crying a lot, being quite irritable) of course affects our relationship in some ways, although there is no doubt that we’ll come out of it in June (when we have our deadlines).
Still, I am so deeply afraid of failing, and so afraid of the process of writing itself. Also, deep down, I’m afraid to scare him away or hurt him somehow, although he assures me that there is no such danger. That whole situation is weighing me down.
Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it. Anonymity guaranteed! Don’t forget: you can get access to Lauri’s Instant Dream Decoding Dictionary on her site. And check out Lauri’s new book Dream On It, available everywhere!
