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 (18 and older only, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri:
All of my life I went to school with the same people, up until high school, when my family moved. So for eight years I had almost every class with the same 20 people, and these people from my childhood keep coming up in my dreams.
The dreams follow the same story line, where all 20 of us go on a field trip at our current ages (19/20). I always end up around my first ex and my first huge crush (J and B) and I always end up making myself look stupid somehow. (It may be important to note that I was always extremely nervous around J and B and I had a years-long on and off thing that wasn’t resolved before I moved).
Recently, there was a new addition to my dreams where, after the embarrassment, I find my old best friend, E, and we end up having sex somewhere quick, like a bathroom cubicle (I’m asexual and she’s bi). I just want to know why, after six years of not speaking to or seeing any of those people, I keep having dreams about them.
Lauri: It’s very common to dream of people from our past, even decades after the last time we saw them. The reason why this is, is because these various people leave an impression on us and become a symbol for some part of our self.
These people were a big part of your “coming of age.” So you may find that you dream of them whenever the idea or the question of getting into a relationship enters your mind.
The way you keep embarrassing yourself in front of them in the dream suggests that you are feeling embarrassed about some part of you in real life. Do you have a lot of concern about how being asexual may look to others? Is that something that is hard for you to share or explain? I would imagine that being asexual, whether it is something you are embarrassed about or not, could be a difficult thing from time to time, because of the societal pressure that you’re supposed to be in a relationship or at least looking for one.
What I think this dream is trying to show you is that the most important relationship you can have is being your own best friend (so many of us are way too hard and critical of ourselves, rather than being forgiving and supportive of our selves). That’s what your old best friend E symbolizes, the friendship you need to have with yourself: like yourself, enjoy your own company, forgive yourself, encourage yourself, etc. just as a good friend would. You have sex with her in the dream because sex symbolizes the merging of someone else’s qualities into yourself.
I think the fact that she is bi is also important. She’s attracted to both sexes, while you are not attracted to either. Society may be causing you to feel pressured to take on some sort of preference. I say for now, just focus on the friend quality that she represents and start working on liking all the wonderful, unique and even quirky things about you! When you like yourself, others can’t help but like the hell out of you, too!
Visit Lauri’s brand new site, WhatYourDreamMeans.com, for even more dream interpretations! If you want to be able to figure out your own dreams every morning, then check out her latest book, Dream On It: Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life, which will give you the tools you need to become a dream expert, too. Check out all of Lauri’s books here.
