Affair
In general dreaming of a pleasant affair is a way of enjoying or exercising the wonderful feelings of falling in love and sharing emotional and sexual pleasure. Many dreams are compensatory, and therefore make up for the lack of passion or excitement in our daily life. But having an affair in a dream may help keep alive or active the ability to love and be loved if there is not sufficient stimulus in waking life. It is not unusual for married and happy people to dream of an affair with someone else.
This may express nothing more than a desire for variety, but of course occasionally is the sign of an infatuation or desire for the person we love in the dream. Adultery dreams may also express release of sexual feelings; desire for another partner; desire for one’s partner to have sex with someone else.
The person you are having an affair with may represent a particular attitude or situation in your life. Therefore if the dream has a strong feeling such as failure or fear attached to it, the affair might well be dealing with your ?relationship? with such life situations. Examples include – infidelity; betrayal; failure; longing for love; feeling alone in a relationship; etc.
Many dreams of lovers are a painful and often desperate affair where the dreamer longs for the attention and ‘love’ of someone she or he has a crush on. These are often a natural part of growth where in dreams we wrestle with powerful emotions until we emerge with more mature responses. See Beware of Love.
Another possibility with dreams about an affair is that they express the constant process of trying to find a balance between what we deeply desire and what is socially or personally possible. Some people will marry or live with a person because that person is the best they could achieve in the circumstances. Nevertheless they may still long for someone different. Or perhaps there are aspects of relationship missing in their present situation, and they long for a fuller satisfaction but do not want to
destroy their present situation. See: boyfriend; sex in dreams.
Difficult affair: Because dreams are a safe area to explore our emotions and relationships, such difficult dreams may be a way of meeting fears we have about relationship. Often they bring to the surface painful feelings about a past or present relationship. There is thus a chance to work through such difficulties toward an ease with ones feelings of attraction and love. See: processing dreams.
Dreaming about someone you are having a waking affair with: Your feelings about, analysis of, fears regarding the state of the affair and where it will develop. See: Fifth example below.
Homosexual affair: For women their first love affair was with their mother, so was a love for someone of the same sex. So a woman’s homosexual dream may often have this element of seeking the comfort and love of the mother. In a more general sense such dreams may depict ones difficulties or fears of relating to someone of the other sex; ones hidden feelings and difficulties regarding ones father if in a male’s dream; the introversion of ones own sexuality and desires if one is being seduced or buggered; or meeting an autonomous or dissociated part of ones own nature; exploring what is involved at a more than surface level in the relationship.
Loving affair: Our experience or pleasure in relationship is one of the most profound experiences we can meet. It can be enormously healing if we can relate to pleasure in a way that does not cause tension or guilt. Therefore loving relationships in dreams are ways of exploring our own possibilities, not only within ourselves, but also in future relatedness. The person we are relating to in the dream is an image not only of our own desires but also of how we relate to intimacy, love and pleasure. The interaction with them reveals all your difficulties and skills in regard to living and being loved.
In Damon’s dream below, he gradually moves beyond a feeling of separateness to an experience of union. This suggests he is feeling at ease with his own sexuality and ability to melt, thus allowing another person to enter his feelings deeply. In fact when such union takes place there is a very real sharing of self in a psychological way, much as there is at a physical level when the sex cells merge and share genetic material.
Ones partner having an affair: If the dream is disturbing, usually displays the fears we have about being unlovable or inadequate – see example below; a deep wish to be rid of ones partner. So seeing him/her with another person makes it possible to leave him/her without feelings of guilt or responsibility. In a very few cases this depicts an intuition of ones partner having a secret affair in real life. See: autonomous complex.
Example: I was in a building with a number of people. Winnie, a woman I worked with many years ago was there, sitting cross legged on the floor. I went to her and kissed her. She responded and I put my hand down on her thigh under her skirt, and gently moved it under her knickers to touch her vagina. It was moist and wet with excitement and I pushed my fingers into the slippery crevice. As I did so my feelings rose in a beautiful soft and satisfying orgasm. I thought I had ejaculated, but had not.
Then I was in a street and met a dark haired young woman. We embraced and kissed. The feeling of mutual pleasure was intense. So much so I felt what she was feeling as if we did not have separate bodies. I felt an orgasm grow inside her pelvis and reach its pitch, flowing into the rest of her body. It was her orgasm but it felt as if it were mine also. It was a beautiful melting experience with no harshness or disappointment anywhere. Damon.
In the dream below Andrew’s fear of his wife’s desire for another man is being expressed. But the dream really depicts Andrew’s feelings of sexual inadequacy.
Example: I was on board a pleasure cruiser with my wife. As I stood on a high deck I looked down and saw her sitting below with very tight knickers on and nothing else. As a man walked toward her the knickers came off or slipped down. The man was sexually aroused and started attempting to penetrate her. She only put up a token resistance, mewing a bit, but not fighting him off. I rushed toward them and kicked him off.? Andrew P.
Example: I sit on a bed. Near me, looking at a book I am holding is a woman I know, Stella. I realise as we talk that her foot is touching mine. As my wife is on my left across the room I feel uncomfortable about this. Now Stella has her left hand on my penis. I have only underpants on. She remarks that it is interesting that my penis has its own little pocket, which is a reference to my pants, and seems to make sense in the dream. The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Stella is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and start to tell her so. As I do this I realise I am sitting so near to the edge of the bed I am almost falling off. Rick D.
This dream presents the struggle Rick has with his pleasure at having the attention of another woman, and his feelings of connection with his wife. The edge of the bed and falling suggests he feels very on edge and insecure about such feelings.
Example: Someone was fondling my breasts. I felt the weight of whoever it was as they lay by my side. An electric like feeling ran up from my feet. It woke me up instantly as I was terrified. I dreaded going to bed. My husband and I have had separate rooms for years, due to his insomnia. The dream occurred a few times a week. Sometimes twice a night. Eliza L.
Eliza is a spiritualist, so believes the experience is a psychic event. As a casual observer there appears to be a direct connection between the lack of her husbands attention and the clear experience of a sexual partner. Her terror is most likely due to the fact that Eliza is actually frightened of her strong sexual feelings, and so may have chosen an undemanding husband. If not that, she is certainly afraid of this emergence of her dream life into apparent physical reality. See: hallucinations.
Example: I was sitting with my husband, my daughter or sister, and Rachel C. Rachel, who is the same age as my daughter, was telling us all that she wanted and would have a sexual relationship with B, my husband. As she kept talking about this, I thought, at first, how open and honest she was being and how easily she could talk about her sexuality, but as I listened I began to feel cross and upset as I saw B. was going along with what she was saying. She and my husband lay down on the wooden floor. He was being very encouraging and his eyes were shining very brightly. At this point I felt very upset. My daughter/sister pointed out to everyone that I was upset but no one seemed to notice until then, and I felt that B. was really teasing me and making fun of my not being able to cope with the situation. My husband came over to me with his arm out to touch me but I was so angry and I put my arm up to shield myself from his touch and then began to throw things at him to express how angry I was feeling. H.
Example: For the last year I have been having an affair with a married man. I dream I am visiting his home, and as I approach or should I say float up to the front door, which is open, I can clearly see him standing in the hall. One of his sons is shouting down the stairs and he is answering back. He seems agitated and harassed. I deliberately float by the open door and linger long enough for him to see me. At this point I am aware that something is following at my heel. My man then quickly comes out of the house and sadly indicates he cannot leave his family and home for me, and quickly returns to the domestic scene. I then sadly turn away, and as I look down I see a large scraggy Irish wolfhound. I realise he has come out of the back door of the house, and has been following me closely. The striking part of the dream is this rough looking dog, for when I look into its deep dark brown eyes I can see and feel such love and devotion and am so warmed. As I take the road away from the house, the dog stays close at my heels and I know I have a devoted friend who will never leave me and I feel much happier. As we walk away I can hear in the distance my man’s wife calling the dog from the back door. On getting no reply I hear her irritatedly say ‘Well, we can easily get another one’. and bangs the door. J. Y.
J. is working out her situation with her lover in this dream, realising for herself that he is not going to leave his family. Nevertheless, she does take something positive from the relationship, shown as the dog, which probably depicts devotion and warm love.
Useful Questions and Hints:
In what way does this dream comment on my present relationship(s)?
Are there lessons in this dream I can apply to my waking life?
Does the dream show things I am denying myself in waking, or that I could express in waking life?
What problems are shown in the dream that I need to be clear about and work on?
It could help to read Growing Up to Love and Beware of Love. See: Adultery
Comments
Hi – hope you can enlighten me about why exactly I have the following recurring dream.
The place always changes but the people are the same and so is the situation.
My brother in law ( my husbands brother) and I are having an affair or the beginnings of an affair and his wife is always just around the corner or nearby and he pushes the boundaries with trying to touch me or whisper or kiss me without her knowing. I think it is enjoyable but mostly I feel anxious and scared of her. I am very torn in the dream about doing it.
In waking life mu family and there’s is very close, him and I have had rocky relationship in the past and only in recent years really started to get a long.
Hope you can help:)
Thanks Nikki
Desperately in need of your help….
about 8-9 years ago these dreams started…. they all use to be of him cheating on me and me running after him, some of the ladies I knew and some were random… so they subsided for a long time and throughout the years I have always had random dreams of me cheating with people whom we know and it happens to be usually the same 2-3 people but the last few months they have been like an every night thing… and dreams are vivid down to me sneaking in and out, erasing messages, accidentally getting feelings for one of the individuals… also one of the affairs is with a 19 year old which the son of one of our very good friends and I find that im having relations with him in my dreams while my husband is asleep or whatever under the same roof, considering we go on vacations as a group together all the time. whats going on in my brain… please help me make sense if this!
i had a dream about my mum haveing an affair my both parents are dead can you plz tell me what this means
Margaret – It is difficult for me to see into a dream with so little description.
But my best guess is that this is not about your mother. You see when we are young we take so much from our parents to build our behaviour. But often we are unaware of it. And I think the dreams about your parents or are about drawing on all you got from them. Most people are often totally unaware of the experience they take in and how it interacts with them when we love someone. In other words the memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with someone and they are what makes you the person you are. Your dreams tend to put all that in the image of the past person when you are dealing with the influences left in you from the relationship.
Perhaps you dreamt about the affair your mother had because it leads to you feeling insecure?
Tony
I need to know what my dream is telling me. After the dream it has been on my mind all day and everytime i look at him! please contact me so I can get help figuring this out!!!! PLEASE
I had a dream about finding my husband holding hands with another woman. I was looking at them trough a glass window, then went into the building to confront him. I felt scared, hurt, and angry. The woman kinda went away, but I was chasing my husband upstairs but never caught up with him to confront him. I then woke up, went back too sleep and had a very weird ream about forrest critters attacking the home I was in then trying to bite me. I always git them off of me before they bite me, but they were trying to hurt me.
In my dream I had an affair with my own wife who looked exactly like her. What does it mean ?
I had a dream with an old lover whom I had an affair with because i wasn’t aware he was married. Im my dream his wife kept calling me she wanted to see me and talk about who I was in his life and how i met him. We meet up and we were talking and she shows me her wedding ring and tells me “we’re not really married, legally we’re not husband and wife, we just pretend to be and we put on the rings” at that point i was very confused. after a while my lover walks in and he doesn’t want me to speak to her, but he walks away and he stands in a corner laughing at us. His wife tells me “he always makes fun of me always”. I woke up very confused because me and him saw each other for thw first time in 2 years and he started a conversation normally.
I had a dream about my ex husband exercising in front of a mirror looking like, it was a house that we were in and he was in one room i peeped and realised that i didnt want to disturb him so i walked in to another room. Please advise me what this means?
Hi
In reality I almost had an affair with a married man. I tarted working at this office block and every morning hew would walk past and stare at me and i would stare back until one day he bumped into me and introduced himself…. judging his body he was def in my personal space and it felt like he wanted to jump my bones that very instant. To sum it up, we started talking. i started writing him letters about how I felt(that I wanted him the same way he wanted me). We kissed, he had a very naughty wet dream about us,we’ve seen each other naked and almost crossed the line, but the whole idea of us crossing that line and the religious implications cause us to stop. The passion is def there but nothing happens. his company left the office building, I didn’t here from him for 3 months then out of the blue he phones me saying he has been masturbating and thinking about me, it’s been tough and we sort of rekindled the flame and that really lasted 3 weeks and we promised not to talk ever again. Last night I dreamt he was every where I was and later he approached me saying he is serious about us being together sexually and I was excited. Does this mean that I still long for him and how can i stop. I have a bf(husband prospect) and he’s married. All it was/ would have been is sexual..not looking for a relationship or anything serious.
I was having affair in my dream with a girl i’m interested in,yet in real life,i’v not say a word to her..what does that means?
Last night I dreamt that my husband had a girlfriend. She was a simple woman, very quiet and petit. They were going out to see a movie and I was going to be left alone. I told my husband that I wanted him to take me too, and he took both of us. He took me to a private movie room and left me there coz he wanted to see a different movie, but he give me the feeling that he will be coming back in a few minutes. I left the room and asked a woman who’s working there, where is my husband, she said he is in such and such private movie room. And the woman was with her and they were holding hands and enjoying each other’s company. While I was abandon and left alone. I woke up feeling very hurt, and abandoned. What was interesting is that this dream ignited my love for my husband. Im just worried abt this dream. I did not tell him abt the dream. What does this mean? Thank you.
There is a married man in my office block who has intense desires for me. At first I was buffled as I have never experienced such a situation. We have been flirting a lot and I have told him about what I would like from him (sexually) if we were to cross that line. He has been so indecisive-sometimes he wants to eat me up then other days he’s remembers he’s married.
anyway to cut a long story short…We had decided to leave things and let our fantasies remain as that. Yesterday he came in to my office and told me that he had an intense wet dream about me-a 34 yr old man. It was so intense he couldnt fall back to sleep after. He now wonders how we would be in real life(more than before) because the dream was X-rated on so many levels. Does it mean deep down he wants to ravish me and it’s even coming through his unconscious mind. What does this mean?
i had a dream that my fiance was having an affair with my mom! it hurt so bad. The dream started out of me being really tired and my mom was kinda trying to wake me up but then I hear my fiance say “she wont wake up it will be fine” and then I heard them discussing a previous time and how fun it was. i was trying to see and eaves drop but i couldnt get a real good look to see if it was really happening. but then I go to confront them later about it and I cant seem to get where I’m going to do, so lots of obstacles get in the way. Please help, I am a little disgusted by the dream and am also feeling angry!
Last night I dreamt that I caught my husband in bed with another man. I was deeply upset and told him to leave. I then was walking towards a library with my daughter and was looking for my husband to talk to. I kept seeing him but his hair style was always wrong, so I knew it wasn’t him. I was then on a holiday, by some mountains, and my husband appeared. I told him that if he had told me he wanted to experiment I would have been happy to do it as a couple. He apologized and told me he was definitely gay and never wanted to see me or our child again. Needless to say my husband has not got any homosexual tendencies, and I have never suspected him of having an affair in real life. We have a happy marriage and a good sex life. Could you please help?
Linz – Somehow I feel you are looking for cracks in the relationship. This could be because you have a small fear, and it probably started at the time of the dream. Maybe you felt how good your marriage is and then looked around at saw all the broken homes and wondered if you were really so secure.
I say this because dreams are mirrors held up to us of our hidden feelings, and this dream is something that you say you “never suspected.”
Here is one that I had about my wife when I felt uncertain.
Tony
was looking for some direction for me and my partner, we don’t usually remember our dreams but one night we both had quite disturbing dreams that we remembered, it baffled us!
Mine was that I was surrounded by my family members who had organised a surprise wedding for me and my fiancée and I was very angry over the dress they had picked (which I had not yet seen) and arguing with my mother, I entered a room on my own where the dress was when I saw the dress my fiancée (who is my actual fiancée rather than an entity representing him) entered the room, and I fell in love with the dress instantly and was happy with what my family had done. It was a very extravagant white dress.
on the same night my partner dreamt that I had sat him down in our living room and told him I was having an affair with multiple men, and I had told him it was ok, then handed him a white t shirt with lottery balls printed on it. He said I did not show any emotion and was acting very normally.
We were both very confused and intrigued as to what these represent.
Lea – I see the wedding dress as an expression of the traditional feelings you have, but were not really conscious of.
As for your fiancé’s dream, it is a normal anxiety dream that he fears you are more attractive than him, and so fears you will easily find other men. If you can, assure him. He probably needs assurance often, as such fears come from childhood.
Tony
Help, this dream baffled me completely…
I almost had an affair with the man which is also my husband. In the dream they were the same person but two different entities and my actual husband was out. We fondled up until the point where we almost had sex. All the time I was thinking of guilt. I jumped up and ran out of the bed to the bathroom. I could see the affair person in the downstairs bathroom through a hole in the floor of the upstairs bathroom. He was looking in the mirror angry and calling me a bitch but crying.
????
Michelle – I have learnt from hard experience that we are never totally done with someone we have loved. So I feel there is part of you that would still like your husband to be okay with the ex. Not that you would like to have sex with him, but that you would like the attention and contact.
It would be good if we could actually say to husbands and wives – “I love him/her”. I witnessed this with a woman I loved – and she openly said to her husband, “But I love Tony.” It turned out that he and I became friends. But if you are able to do that, I feel you have to have fire in your heart.
In the second dream you have a similar quandary – the second man. Either you want to have a sexual relationship with another man – and that is fine in your dreams – but to dream it and feel guilty is a mess. The man in your dreams is your male self that you love very much, but are perhaps afraid to allow into your dream life. So imagine loving him without guilt, the full works. After all, there is nobody else in your dreams except your own emotions, fears and hopes. So avoiding them is avoiding your full self.
Tony
help.i had this pretty confusing dream.in my real life,there is this guy whom i m almost having affair with.we stil remind talking, but somehow we are not really talking properly anymore. perhaps ackwardness. and i have a boyfriend. we are having a fine relationship. however,somehow i dreamt about that guy alot.previously my dream always ended we get together finally,very happy talking,or he treated really stil very sweet even so he knows i dont wanna give up my relationship with my bf. now the dream turn 360 degrees, he totaly ignores me, he get a new girl,leaving me. i know i shouldnt be concerned at all about him,but somehow there is a part of me who wish to know whats actually going on.why do i always dream about him.especially the new changes of the current dream. thank in advance
Christie – It seems to me that you have a conflict of interests, and that is the cause of your different dreams. After all, they are your dreams, and what swings you away again from the second boy friend must be difficult feelings.
Is there a feeling of abandonment anywhere here? It could create dreams like this, that you felt unloved.
But I feel it is the conflict that is the most likely. If that were not so you would have had an affair with number two as well. As you say, perhaps awkwardness.
Tony