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:
In real life, my third cousin is 20 years older than me. He lived with my family until I was 6. My dad was pretty much his father figure. He is a great person (if very conservative) and has a wife and three children. My immediate family is very close to each other (in a healthy way) and has always remained in close contact with this cousin. All of these facts (except the marriage and kids) were still true in the dream I had last night: I was in a long-distance relationship with my (third) cousin. It was still pretty new, and not physical yet. We were talking on the phone, and he kept saying how he should move to my small college town so we could be together. I was really hesitant (trying to avoid getting more serious) about wanting him nearby and tried to convince him that a nearby (and larger) city would be better for his career. Needless to say, no one in the family knew about the relationship. Help!
Lauri: Fear not! Your dream does not suggest you have a any suppressed, incestuous desires to bed or wed your cousin. An important rule to remember when figuring out your dreams is that the people in your dreams are actually some symbolic part of you rather than that particular person. So your dream is not about your cousin but about what he represents to you. You described him as conservative. Is there a part of you that is conservative financially, socially or politically? Or is it that he represents family, and you are conflicted as to whether you are ready to go down that road yet. In the dream the relationship was a secret. In real life, do you have conservative views you haven’t shared? Or is there something else you are keeping on the down-low? You discuss his career in the dream so this may very well be connected to YOUR career in waking life. Maybe a family of your own would curtail your career at the moment. Whatever the case, your hesitance in the dream suggests you are hesitant about opening up about something in real life… and where a dream ends is usually where the message is. In other words, your dream may be telling you, for the sake of your career, that there is something you may be better off keeping your distance from.
Response from dreamer: Thank you so much for interpreting this! I do have two issues that sound completely at odds right now. I’m in a relationship that is a little frustrating because we never communicate and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I’m worried it never will. Because physical involvement has been low, I haven’t had a need to tell him I’m a virgin (and that it’s not for religious reasons). Because of past experiences, I am extremely nervous about doing so. At the same time, I am going to a specialist to see how much current medical problems will affect my ability to have children in the future. In many ways, I do feel like I have a double (or triple) life. Whew, now I don’t have to feel awkward when my cousin comes to visit!
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 free Dream Dictionary on her site.
I need help and guidance quick! Please? I think I am falling in love with my third cousin! I don’t know that these feelings are probably wrong but at this point I don’t care. I am at a point where I am totally confused and not sure what I should do! =( I think I would leave my husband just to be with him. I don’t even care what my family thinks anymore. I want him so bad! Do I tell him or try to surpress my feelings?! All of this is driving my CRAZY! I can’t eat, sleep or even think straight and need help! PLEASE???!!!
i have had a crush on my 3rd cousin for years and he is 4 years older than me and our family is very close and i always fantasize about kissing him and im not sure if i even want to stop liking him i dont think he knows about my feelings and i dont think he feels the same way. he might even be creeped out if i told him. what do u think abbout this and what should i do?
A friend of mine had a very similar dream recently, and she was really freaked out. She thought for sure she must have some incestuous love for her second-cousin and finally divulged the dream to me after two weeks of being creeped out to herself.
She basically realized that issues in her own relationship at the time were being projected in her dreams and onto her cousin, who is happily married. She ended up deciding that she was really just jealous of her cousin’s healthy relationship with his wife and her brain was telling her through her dreams that she wanted something different.