Why do I keep dreaming about my ex?

May 20, 2013 1:57 PM

Why do I keep dreaming about my ex? YANM Psych etc.

So this has now been going on for long enough that I'm asking a Mefi, not necessarily for an explanation, but simply some suggestions and perhaps recommendations of how to pursue this further.

My first serious relationship lasted for 9 years, the last two of which was spent in a different country. After we broke up, there was the usual period of re-adjustment, but we remain close friends and visit one another regularly with our new respective partners.

After the relationship ended, I was single for about 2 years before getting involved with someone else. My current partner and I have now been together for almost five years.

Here's the thing: I continuously have dreams involving my former partner. Sometimes we are just doing stuff together, other times it's a dream where it is slowly becoming apparent to me that she is breaking up with me (which was the case in real life – she was the active agent in bringing the relationship to an end).

Neither of us harbor feelings of getting back together. We understand one another on a very deep level, and that's what has enabled us to stay close friends. But we have fundamentally different views about some things, and that was what ultimately brought the relationship to an end.

I'm – for lack of a better term – a Jungian in terms things like dream analysis and the subconscious. My ex-partner in question is a clinical psychologist, so I have some knowledge of psychology; I've done extensive CBT in coping with an anxiety disorder (not sure how that may factor, or if at all, but thought I'd mention it). I have for a long time been actively involved in processes of self-realisation.

I know that these dreams mean something, perhaps archetypically, though it feels like I'm being hampered in discovering what in some way. The likelihood is that there may be aspects of myself I see in her that I'm unable to resolve for some reason. But it's come to the point where I'm really starting to get frustrated with trying to connect to this part of my subconscious and establishing a point of investigating this further.

I'm not looking for some kind of diagnosis; I'm simply keen on hearing any feedback/recommendations (including for reading material) that you may think I might find useful. I guess I would call myself a spiritual individual (I like to refer to myself as a 'scientific mystic'). Oh, and I'm a gay girl, if that means anything (so yes, all my relationships have been with women, just to clarify).

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

Are you open to the interpretation that these dreams don't actually mean anything? Could it not just be biochemical? I am not positing any particular position, but one possible interpretation could be that the actual dreams don't always, or necessarily, mean something.

I changed careers over a dozen years ago and am ecstatically happy now, especially by comparison. But I spent six years at the place of employment that was the second-to-last place in my old career. I never dream about the places that came before, or since, and rarely dream about my current career. But the place- and sense-memories of that one job are particularly strong and vivid. At first, I thought those dreams were my subconscious reminding me to be grateful that I'd made the career change, because in the dreams, I suddenly become aware that I wish I had stayed in [current career] and not gone back to [old career]. But I've come to realize that I have sufficient awareness of my satisfaction. I believe dreams can mean something (from a "your brain is working out a problem while your conscious mind is on something else" perspective), but I think they can also be a chemical soup in which certain kinds of stimulation lead to certain night broadcasts.

My feedback: Take two sheep-jumping-over-fences and call me in the morning.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 2:07 PM on May 20, 2013

I went through a big breakup some years ago, and at the time found Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart very interesting and affirming. I don't think this is unique to her Buddhism (she's a monk), she makes the point that we stop dwelling on people and experiences when they have nothing further to teach us--which I take to mean the mind revisits them in an attempt to unravel their "meaning." You mind find Chodron and that book helpful in contextualizing these dreams.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 2:07 PM on May 20, 2013 [5 favorites]

Just put Jung aside for a moment and think of it practically: Your mind seems still to have stuff to work through, like things unsaid, or it's reenacting the separation on various levels because it's still churning away on some aspect of it. That much of a diagnosis is surely allowed, cause it leads to plans of action or a prognosis:
Some people (like, my dad) stopped dreaming about unwelcome stuff (like, the war) when they finally wrote it down.
I've also heard one example where unwanted dreams about a person stopped when everything, in the dream, had been said. You sometimes can influence your dreams in a subtle way, by reflecting - while you relax in bed before you go to sleep - about what you expect to dream. You could tell yourself something of the kind of "okay, out with it, I want to be done with these dreams! What is it that's bothering you?" And wait and see what happens.
posted by Namlit at 2:12 PM on May 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

other times it's a dream where it is slowly becoming apparent to me that she is breaking up with me (which was the case in real life...)

So, you have an anxiety disorder and you keep dreaming about a time in your life when you were anxious? That seems pretty relevant. Can your process of self-realization also be likened to a slowly dawning realization which makes you feel slightly anxious about something unknown? I would try to think about what other connections you can make between what goes on and how you feel in the dreams and anything else going on lately.
posted by bleep at 2:21 PM on May 20, 2013

You just have unresolved feelings and issues. Because she's still in your life, although in a new role, she's still boinging around in your synapses.

They say that emotional memory is stored in a different part of the brain than experiential memory. So although you've been moving forward, making new relationships, and shifting your love feelings forward, the emotional memory is still kicking up electricity.

I don't think it's very deep or meaningful. This person was and is important to you, so she shows up in your dreams.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:29 PM on May 20, 2013

Keep a dream journal. How you write about it should give clues to the meaning.

When I got divorced and got a job with a big company, I felt I was "working for The Man." At that time, dreams about my ex were dreams about my job -- i.e. "The Man in my life." Because of my health issues, just having a job took all my time and energy and I ended up feeling "married to the job." Also, he had been career military, which is a big bureaucracy, and I worked for a company that was a big bureaucracy. It made perfect sense to me as a symbol.

These days, dreams of my ex mean other things. They are never about him per se. He is just a rich symbol to draw upon for my psyche to talk to itself.
posted by Michele in California at 2:50 PM on May 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nine years is a long period of time, with many associated experiences and emotions, and spending time together in a foreign country could be a particularly high bonding experience. So I'd actually be surprised if you didn't have such dreams.
posted by Dansaman at 2:56 PM on May 20, 2013

Try writing about the dreams - maybe try recreating them as vividly as possible in a short story, and see if that doesn't give you some insight.
posted by shivohum at 3:19 PM on May 20, 2013

I still dream about my first serious boyfriend and we broke up over twenty years ago. I haven't seen or spoken to him in probably fifteen years, or even heard about him much. I have a small amount of detached nostalgia when I think about him, but there is no intensity to the emotion at all.

Nonetheless, about 90% of the sex dreams I have are about him. I have had lots--and better!!--sex since him; we were teenagers when we started dating. For a while it really bothered me that he kept turning up in my dreams and I spent a lot of time trying to work out what it meant that he did. But eventually, I concluded it doesn't really mean anything. Sometimes I think the dreams are about idealized love, but more often, I think it's just that my sub-conscious uses him as a shorthand for love and sex, probably because he was the first.

I have other relationships that are more recent and unresolved, and thinking about them gives me way more of an emotional jolt, but I don't dream about those people at all, ever. Brains are funny.
posted by looli at 3:30 PM on May 20, 2013 [3 favorites]

I was about to write up an answer saying exactly, exactly what looli just said, pretty much word for word.
posted by tangerine at 5:03 PM on May 20, 2013

I have often found that if I have recurring dreams with one person, it's not actually about the person, but what they symbolize to me.

So, for instance -- this is vaguely embarrassing -- I have a recurring dream where I'm hanging out with Barack Obama, and we're just really good friends. Sometimes my family will join us, or his, but the core of the dream is always just sitting there talking, and feeling suffused with good feeling and just like, wow, our friendship feels so deep and meaningful, and I feel sad when I reflect that I don't get the chance to hang out like this very often.

These dreams puzzled me for a while, until my partner pointed out that I have them much more often at times when, for whatever reason, America is very salient to me. I'm an expat American who lives in Australia, and I got the dreams a lot when: (a) an election in America occurred; (b) the Boston bombings happened (I used to live in Boston); (c) things were going on with my family at home and I was missing them. Finally realized that probably what is happening is that Obama symbolizes my feelings about America -- how I value it a lot, and miss it a lot sometimes. I have had that dream less as I've grown more acculturated and comfortable here in Australia.

The point is that perhaps you keep dreaming about your ex because she symbolizes something to you, too... maybe feelings about that time of life, or relationships, or something?
posted by forza at 7:05 PM on May 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

Well, as another anecdotal point of reference, I was with an ex for 8 years in 3 different countries, and never dream about him. Only dreamt about him for about 6 months after leaving him; it's been 9 years since the breakup and I just never see him at all in dreams. I am also "Jungian", for lack of a better word (and as that sort, I think I get what you mean by putting it that way - Jung never wanted people to identify as belonging to his philosophy, but rather as individuals seeking their own ways of being that mesh with their Self and with others, which does happen organically when you're in touch with what you love in life). Jung is criticized by "Jungians" for things such as his sexism (which was nonetheless radically open-minded in his time, and it did also allow for criticism of it, if that makes sense), so yes, I am coming from a sort of post-Jungian tack here. And I totally get people who may be reading this and going "?!?!" and often wish there were a simple way to put it. But then, it's not simple.

So, as a "Jungian", this is what stood out on reading your question: We understand one another on a very deep level, and that's what has enabled us to stay close friends. But we have fundamentally different views about some things, and that was what ultimately brought the relationship to an end.

You're still seeing this person regularly, and yet dreaming that the (former) relationship is coming to an end. It seems to me your heart is trying to tell you that it would like the relationship to end. What's your reaction on reading that? Did you feel a quick rush of relief even if it was followed up by conscious denial? That would be a clue. Otherwise, put aside all conscious justifications of keeping the relationship going - things like if you share hobbies/friends/etc. With all those justifications out of play, do you actually want to continue being her close friend? Or are you feeling yourself slowly pulling away? In your dreams, she could in fact be representing the part of yourself that's quietly disengaging from the relationship. You say you understand one another on a deep level, and yet your dreams are showing otherwise, and that's also reflected in the contradiction inherent in your (conscious) description: "we have fundamentally different views about some things".

If a sort of positive comparison could help, when I dream of friends with whom I do truly connect, it's always peaceful. Never anxious. No matter what sort of anxiety I'm going through IRL or may have gone through in a period where those friends were present. A striking example is that I was homeless for a while after leaving that same ex, mainly due to then being a foreigner and freelancer, and was rescued thanks to the offer of an apartment by a couple of fellow freelance translators who have since become dear friends. I occasionally had issues paying rent due to bad freelance clients, had health worries, etc., and yet I never see them in relationship to housing or anxiety, in any way whatsoever (confirmed by my post-Jungian therapist, FWIW). When I see them in dreams, they're as friends, and it brings up associations with their friendship.

If you are still unsure, you might look up a Jungian therapist in your area and book a few sessions? Would be worth it for peace of mind and "knowing your heart" with more certitude.
posted by fraula at 12:13 AM on May 21, 2013

I know very little about dreams. What has been told to me are two things that may be relevant to you.

The first is that often it's not the specific imagery present in the dream, but the emotions that imagery represents. Thus, if you consider the feelings you have when your ex is present in the dream. That is not the feelings you have toward your ex in the dream, but the feeling that is present. Frustration? Attraction? Confusion? Sadness? Loss? Strangulation?

The second is that dreams are the mind's way of sorting things out. It's a practice realm where the mind can play with various scenarios and see what happens. It draws that imagery from your memories, either recent or far-past.

Point being that these dreams may have little to do with your ex. That may well be the fodder that the mind is using for its games. Your emotional state in the dreams should give you an indication of what it is trying to work out...
posted by nickrussell at 2:56 AM on May 21, 2013