Boyfriend or Ex

Dreaming about your boyfriend is usually about your emotional feelings, attachment to, or fears about the boyfriend. This includes the difficulties, struggles with feelings and sexuality felt in connection with boyfriend or other males. It might also be your insights into his behaviour. Please read Ages of Love

Boyfriend dreams often have an element either of fear or dreaming of possibilities. In other words the dream explores what you fear might happen in the relationship, and what you hope will happen. See Inner People 

Example: I constantly have a dream that me and my best friend/boyfriend of 3 years just suddenly aren’t together. I never know why, but I am either with another guy or simply alone and just have this horrible feeling in my stomach, and know it’s not right. In my dream I get upset my bf never called or contacted me after breaking up, and I never know why we ended either. The dream ends with me giving in and trying to find a way to call him but then I wake up. The obvious conclusion would be I think I belong with my bf, but is there anything else possibly?

This is a wonderful example of how the mind works, and the play between what we allow ourselves to think – our conscious mind – and what we do not allow ourselves to know – our unconscious. As an example of this here is another young woman’s dream.

Example: During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased. I don’t understand what this means, and its really bothering me. Why am I dreaming of this? Can you help me understand the meaning of these dreams?

Each person we spend time with, fall in love with, make love to or grow up with, or even with animals, we develop an incredible and often invisible bond. For instance many women and men write and ask why they keep dreaming of partners, parents of even old friends they have moved on from.  You keep dreaming about your ex from years ago or old friends because while you lived with them you experienced millions of memories, situations, conflict and learning experiences. So you carry them with you as memories, lessons learnt, love or anger still trying to find a way of being absorbed.

So in a way it is not your husband, ex or others you are dealing with but yourself – we dream about them and use them as a symbols of what we picked up from the relationship. We cannot have a mass of experience with someone and move away without it influencing us. Life is, in a very real way, a learning experience, and every new experience has to be fitted into what we are learning.

Cheated on: Many dreams of this are sent and here is an example:

Example: In my dream I’m with my ex girlfriend (who I still hang out with) we are hanging out being really close and lovey on each other. Then I leave the room for something and when I come back she is with a man. In this reoccurring dream she is always with a different guy and I don’t know who any of them are. When I walk in they are really close to each other and holding hands sometimes she is sitting on his lap. In my dream it always breaks my heart and I tell her how I feel and she acts like she doesn’t care. Then I wake up. In real life we were together for 2 years and I’m a girl. While we were together she cheated on me with men. We still hang out today but we are just friends with benefits.

This type of dream is usually from a young woman who either sees her boyfriend with another man or has powerful suspicions that he is seeing someone else. The dreamer is actually meeting her unresolved feelings of jealousy, of feeling not as good as the other person and not being lovable.

Ex-lover/boyfriend: This frequently shows any feelings or hopes still connected with him. The ex-boyfriend or lover often becomes a symbol for all the hopes for love that are not being satisfied at the moment, or in the present relationship. Sometimes it is a way of digesting or living in the past. It may occur in some dreams that the ex-lover is seen as a dead body, or a murder is involved. This is usually because we are killing, or have killed some of our longings and love for that person.

Example: Although married for almost nine years, I have been dreaming almost every night about an old friend. We used to date twelve years ago, but although we still meet occasionally, our relationship now is purely platonic.

About two weeks before I found out he was getting married I had a dream where he handed me a single red rose and said ‘I love you, but the time’s not right’. In the latest dream I was reading a paper with the heading ‘Broken Hearted Babies’, with a picture of both of us as babies, with our names underneath. Amanda – Teletext.

Obviously Amanda still has unfulfilled longing and dreams in regard to her ‘old friend’. Even so it is worth reading the things in the previous section.

Example: I dream I am in a room with my ex-boyfriend – Gary. I feel scared about having sex with him but want him to show me all the excitement and thrill of sex. I love him but can’t tell him how much I want the enjoyment of his body closer to mine. You are the first person I can write to telling about having sex with my ex-boyfriend. Donna – Lancs.

Relationships are complicated and here Donna is experiencing the conflict of wanting him yet being separated. Remember that dreams are like computer games I which you can be killed, make love a thousand times, and come away none the worse – unless of course you feel that what happened was exactly like waking life. Then you would have the sort of questions and dilemmas you are telling me about. See Dreams Like a Computer Game; Dreams are a reflection of your inner world.

Daughter’s boyfriend: This may illustrate your judgements and feelings about the boyfriend.

Male dreaming of boyfriend: Usually this is about the qualities of weaknesses you witness in your friend. See the entry on Characters and People in Dreams to understand this. It can also be about the reasons you have become friends, and the intricacies of the relationship.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If this is about a past love, what do I honestly now feel about him and why?

Do the events in the dream show what I fear – and if so can I honestly see them as fears, not reality?

What relationship situation does the dream depict, and how does this comment on waking life?

See Growing Up to LovePeople Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections

Comments

-Cathy 2015-09-10 18:06:06

I am deeply troubled by the dreams and thoughts of my first love from almost 16 years ago.I was 18 then and loved him way too much and I thought he did too or at least that’s what he made me believe.. After almost 3 years of being together, he suddenly went out of my life one day…without a single word.This broke so much inside of me then, which I think has still not healed completely.More than him leaving me,it was his act of not considering me or the relationship that we shared worthy enough of even a parting word..that haunts me till date… although I am happily married now for the last 10 years with a very loving husband, who loves me to pieces..it kills me to write it, but sometimes I feel that I have not been able to reciprocate the same love back to him.
I haven’t met or spoken to my first love ever since then…almost 14 years..although I know his whereabouts today and that he is also happily married….but the dreams make it too painful for me..sometimes I feel so agitated during the day..it becomes hard to focus on so many positive aspects of my life that I am blessed with today…
I feel I may be still looking for an answer from him..which I know I will never get…but I want to get rid of these dreams and every thought of him so that I can truly cherish the blessings I have in my life..Sorry for the long write-up but I needed to pour my heart out somewhere..

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-09-20 15:07:14

    Dear Cathy – It would have been helpful if you had shared a dream about your first love, for the content of the dream reveals a lot about the state of mind you are in.
    We all have to face an enormous resistance before we are willing to let go of painful thoughts and emotions. Most of the time it is our fear that stops us; the fear to be hurt again; to be abandoned this way again.
    What we create with holding on to the painful thoughts and feelings, is that we are in constant pain and agony, so we are in fact creating ourselves now what we are trying to avoid from happening again.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/#MakesInner
    Sometimes we hold on to pain because we do not want the person who hurt us to “get away with it”.
    Rather than letting go, we show him/her how we still suffer from the way he/she treated us; if not in our waking life, then perhaps in our dreams.
    It asks for a lot of honesty to sort out why you cannot let go of this experience and if holding on brings you what you really want.
    I know that dreams can be helpful in doing this inner work, so perhaps you feel like sharing them?
    http://dreamhawk.com/forums/
    Anna 🙂

      -Cathy 2015-09-21 16:03:15

      Thanks Anna. You are absolutely right as you said that it’s the fear to be hurt again and left abandoned that stops me from letting go. I use the pain from the past as a shield for the future. I know my husband is well aware that I never let my guards down, for some reason… but he still me makes me feel so much loved….and that sucks..
      When talking about the content my dreams …there is a plethora of vague pictures floating in my mind. I once saw my ex with a woman and kids(I was assuming them to be his wife and kids in the dream) in a strange place, which I do not identify. All I remember is we kept looking at each other for a long time but did not speak at all and then he vanished.
      Another time – I was inside a strange house when someone knocked on the door..I opened it and it was him standing there..but the moment I saw him I closed the door and the room inside where I was suddenly became so dark, I could see nothing.
      On very few occasions I have also seen instances from the time that we had spent together in the past, exactly as they had happened then.
      One very common thing each time when I see him in the dream is we never speak to each other and just look.
      I don’t know what all these vague dreams mean but maybe if I stop seeing him in my sleeping life,it will bring some peace to my troubled mind…

        -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-09-21 17:35:17

        Dear Cathy – Thank you for sharing some of your dreams too :-)
        You wrote; “I use the pain from the past as a shield for the future”. It is good to become aware though that it is a “projected future”; what you do is you project your unresolved past into an in fact unknown future, believing that now you are safe.
        But dear woman, this is what happens to the NOW with your approach; “I am deeply troubled by the dreams and thoughts of my first love – which I think has still not healed completely – that haunts me till date – sometimes I feel that I have not been able to reciprocate the same love back to him – but the dreams make it too painful for me – sometimes I feel so agitated during the day – it becomes hard to focus on so many positive aspects – but he still me makes me feel so much loved….and that sucks.”
        I feel that this dream shows what you could work on to make your inner world less dark:
        “Another time – I was inside a strange house when someone knocked on the door. I opened it and it was him standing there, but the moment I saw him I closed the door and the room inside where I was suddenly became so dark, I could see nothing.”
        I believe that the room that went dark is not only a symbol of your troubled, depressing feelings; it could also reflect what is still unknown, not defined by your intellect or conscious self and probably something (feelings or insights?) you are afraid of.
        The same could be reflected in your not talking to him; you do not express/release what is bothering you.
        See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/defence-mechanisms/
        Perhaps reading the experiences of other people who did dare to let go, will motivate you to explore it for yourself as well? http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/peoples-experiences-of-lifestream/ and please also read
        http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/forgiveness-as-a-power-source/
        Now back to your dream.
        A way to work with your dream is to use Power Dreaming.
        I feel it will be helpful to explore this dream from the point where you opened the door; so you do not close the door and you allow whatever arises.
        See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
        Anna 🙂

          -Cathy 2015-09-22 18:36:22

          Thanks Anna for providing your insight.
          I hope to make use of the experiences shared by you in the reading materials to get back to my “happy” self.

-Eli 2015-09-04 14:04:53

Hi

-Eli 2015-09-03 21:30:11

Dreams

-Liz 2015-08-20 16:45:18

Ive had recurring dreams my boyfriend cheaps with my family members, through marriage, and i always catch them together. Last night i dreamy we were at my family function and felt him very distant. Later he disapeared and showed up frantic trying to hide what looked like a body in the trunk, i tried to confront him so he hit me, a situation that hits close to home with an EX. Family then began to speak badly about him to me but i was just numb. Then i wake up feeling scared.
Please tell me what this means we have 2 kids together but are constantly working out our differences. Thank you.
Reply

-Mithu 2015-07-24 19:09:16

my ex boyfriend and I work together and that is why we have to interact on a daily basis.when we broke up we decided to stay friends but recently we had this huge argument and we decided to quit all private communications. To day I dreamed that I received huge piles of gift from him and they useful gifts and I get in touch with him again..could you tell me what it means?

-Kerri 2015-07-23 15:34:37

Over the last 2 years I’ve had reoccurring dreams about my ex whom I’m still in love with. The dreams started out with me searching for him and I couldn’t find him, they changed to me finding him and us being together and completely in love again. Shortly after that he actually came back in my life but was playing games rather than wanting something serious. Since then I’ve somewhat given up on him but the dreams continue. We’re so in love in my dreams. It kills me to wake up sometimes. Anyone have any idea how to make them stop? I don’t want to feel this way anymore.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-08-05 7:34:08

    Dear Kerri – I feel it will be helpful to explore if you feel that “something has been ripped out of you”, after your boyfriend left you. Sometimes that happens when you felt complete while you are with a partner and when the partner leaves, you “only feel half”, because in a way you used your partner to feel whole.
    If you feel that is what you did in this relationship, then your dreams might be compensatory dreams; you need to be with him while you are sleeping to feel whole again: to make up for the lack you perceive in your waking life.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/ages-of-love-2/
    and
    http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/compensation-theory-of-dreaming/
    A way to stop these dreams could be to work on integrating “the gifts” (see the dream from Mithu on this page) – which could be a symbol of the good things – and the bad things you have received from him.
    You can do this by thinking about the dreams about your experience and drawing on all you got from him. Try doing this by taking the dream images of your experience and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from you inner world onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what we learned, bad or good, from the relationship. Think of it like digesting something. In a relationship, whether a feeling relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person or event. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in and it will be helpful to sort out what you want to keep and what you want to let go of because it does not resonate with your inner being.
    See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/
    Anna 🙂

-lupita 2015-07-21 16:37:13

I had a dream that my boyfriend was im my room and he didn’t wanted to talk to me even to be in the room woth him

-Sharon harper 2015-06-04 21:58:19

Reoccuring dream of ex boyfriend. Always in this room and discussing changing items.

Welcome comments as to why have this dream.

We’re together nine years and he accused me of cheating out of the blue with no reason as I was not. Was very happy with him and our home together

-Alexandra 2015-05-19 15:46:27

Hi,
I have been having these weird dreams where I am pregnant in one and my boyfriend is leaving me for his ex in another? What are my dreams trying to tell me? The pregnant dream I am at my house and wakeup with a swollen belly and I cant find my boyfriend and when I acknowledge that I am with child I wake up in a sweat. What is my body trying to tell me? The next dream I have had several times throughout my year and half relationship with my boyfriend. The dream starts out with me and my boyfriend mother talking at his house, we are having a good time when we hear the doorbell ring and she is there at the door asking for my boyfriend and I say that he is not here can I help her and she is demanding to know where he is so I say he is at work. the next thing you know I say that she has no business asking where he is. He comes home and he tells me she shows up at his business but he didn’t look like he was talking to me but repeating the situation to himself. I try to get his attention by talking to his kissing his cheek but I don’t get a reply just a look of grief and sadness. I wake up crying at first then I feel horrible and depressed. This is the longest relationship I have been in me and my boyfriend where cheated on and we really click and have a connection from the way he acts around me I can just tell. But he was in a three year relationship with his previous ex who cheated on him multiple times. What do I do and how do I perceive these bizarre dreams?
Thank you !

-suu 2015-04-19 19:35:46

I dream my ex boyfriend was drunk and telling me not to leave his side. When i left his apartment, He couldn’t calm himself in my dream he was going crazy. His friends were trying ti calm him down and he kept looking for me. When I reached the parking lot. He was running finding me. I found him and he grab mY hand and begged me not to leave his side..I wonder what that means worried

-Eli 2015-04-09 15:51:01

I had a dream about my ex bf. I was with a very close friend that helped me a lot when it came to my ex and I… So I was with her and we couldn’t find a parking anywhere so when she finally found a parking it was by my exes new house and he is was in the kitchen with his curtains open and my friend saw that and asked if I wanted to take the long way to where ever we were going and I said no cause his thought or presence didn’t bother no more and when I walked by and saw him it hurt but to the point where I would cry and break down and say I miss him. I told her that my new bf has thought me that I deserve to be treated like a queen and not second best but that my ex was my first love and that would never change but that I could live now without him.

-maria 2015-04-06 16:00:42

I dreamed of my ex boyfriend even though we’re not together anymore we still see each other and have a thing going on right now and last night I dreamed I was with him and he was carrying a newborn baby that wasn’t ours but we were both together enjoying carrying the New born he looked so happy and he was carrying the baby as if it was his child. I would really love to know what does that mean ?

    -Anna 2015-04-07 11:16:09

    Dear Maria – I see this new born child as the result of “a thing going on right now” between you and your boyfriend.
    As I perceive it, you are still together and you merely changed the form of the relationship.
    It doesn’t matter that perhaps the baby in your dream is not yours; it is still the baby of your dream. Like any baby, it is something new and vulnerable that has come to life – come to your life. The important question is, what is it that is new and growing in your love, in your work, or in yourself? Or perhaps it is about vulnerability.
    There is a list of questions in this feature which will help you explore what your dream baby is about: http://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/the-baby-in-your-dream/
    My guess is that this new form of “being together even though you are not together anymore” gives each of you more space to grow and learn from each other.
    Anna 🙂

-Hilda 2015-04-03 23:34:12

Hi. I have deeams about an ex boyfriend. Every now and then. I havent spoken to him or dated him over 12 yrs. Now thw last time I spoke to him. I told him it was great meeting him and that he will alway be in a small part of my heart.
Well last night my dream was located in a garage parking lot. Arguing with him telling him that If he wanted to be with me to let me know but that I can not be his midnight call anymore. Also he had a baby girl in his arms. And I don’t know if it was mine. But for sure it was his.

    -Anna 2015-04-06 7:42:56

    Hilda – In your dream life it would be a wise decision to hear and respond to “the midnight call” from your ex.
    Both your ex and what was born inside you from this relationship, are trying to connect with you and these are all parts of your inner world and they are waiting for you to integrate them.
    So if you are troubled by dreams of your ex, the best way to deal with them is to work on integrating the influence left in you from the relationship. You can do this by thinking about the dreams about your ex and drawing on all you got from him or her. So I would suggest you integrate all the good and bad things. Try doing this by taking the dream images of your ex and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from you inner world onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what we learned, bad or good, from the relationship. Think of it like digesting something. In a relationship, whether a feeling relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
    To understand the symbol of the baby girl, I would also like you to read http://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/the-baby-in-your-dream/
    Anna 🙂

-Andrea lee 2015-04-03 13:54:20

I have a dream of my ex husband every night most like he is around but not really that we interact I am not sure I am pregnant and I always dream I am pregnant in my dreams it is not his. But last night I dreamed I was very jealous in my dream I even made a scence at a party also still pregnant in the dream he didn’t seem to care like usual in other dreams I have tried emailing him a few times with no response back I know he is moved on why can’t I it’s been a few years I already got pregnant even though I can’t stand my baby’s father I would do anything for another chance with him or someone like him because even though we were struggling I know he was always there for me. Thanks andrea

-Amy Clark 2015-04-03 12:29:40

Hiya, I recently had a dream regarding my ex boyfriend.
Just a little back story our break up was very sudden I saw no signs that he wanted to end things but got a message from him saying ” so I guess were done” didn’t say you was dumped and giving no explanation.

So my dream was me contacting him to get my stuff back from his house but I somehow went straight to this house instead of the meeting point. We started chatting and he explained to me that he thought I cheated on him but wouldn’t tell me who told him.

Not sure what this means but I know I was 100% loyal to him so do you think its a sign that he may have cheated? or he might just think I cheated? I don’t know and I doubt I will ever find out.

What do you think?

Thanks

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