Whenever we have dreams about ex lovers or partners – or any ex somebodies – the first place that we should look for meaning is within ourselves. There is a reason for these dreams – and that reason has something to do with what C.G. Jung said about dreams:
One should never forget that one dreams in the first place, and almost to the exclusion of all else, of oneself. Any exceptions are governed by quite definite rules. If we acknowledge this truth we shall sometimes find ourselves faced with very interesting problems. I remember two instructive cases: one of my patients dreamed of a drunken tramp who lay in a ditch, and another of a drunken prostitute who rolled about in the gutter. The first patient was a theologian, the second a distinguished lady in high society. Both of them were outraged and horrified, and absolutely refused to admit that they had dreamed of themselves.
I gave them both the well-meant advice that they should spend an hour in self-reflection, diligently and devoutly considering in what ways they were not much better than their drunken brother in the ditch and their drunken sister in the gutter. The subtle process of self-knowledge often begins with a bomb-shell like this. The “other” person we dream of is not our friend and neighbour, but the other in us …
~ C.G. Jung, The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man
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That’s what real dream interpretation is: consciously facing something about ourselves.
It’s not always a bad thing to face ourselves; sometimes we have to accept something positive. I say this even though words such as good, bad, positive and negative are totally loaded.
One of the most common questions I get when people dream about ex lovers (or friends or enemies) is:
I understand this question. Dreams about ex people in our lives can cause confusion about our current relationships, rip open wounds which never really healed, or even remind us of a painful longing for a love unfulfilled.
Dreams of a love unfulfilled can be really difficult for us to work with because lost love can leave us with the feeling that we missed out on something that should have been. Believing that something in your life should have been anything other than what it was is psychologically dangerous. Should haves are poison for your soul.
But for now, back to that burning question which so many of you ask …
The answer to this question may come as bad news, but don’t be too quick to judge: I don’t know if we ever stop dreaming about ex people in our lives, most especially if these people have made a profound impact on us.
Furthermore, in terms of the depth of the impact someone makes on us, the length of time we have spent or been with another person doesn’t matter at all. Sometimes, people who have been in our lives for only a short time can leave much deeper psychological imprints on us than people we have known far longer.
Keeping in mind what Jung has said about dreaming mostly of ourselves …
Vampire by Edward Munch
I remember one woman who dreamed that she was hugging an ex, wanting to get back with him (in the dream). She said that she woke up with her heart racing in anger because she’d “never get back with him” in real life.
Waking up with this kind of emotion is a good thing! The intensity of the emotion is where you start your dream interpretation.
If you have had a similar dream about wanting to get back with a dreaded ex, then again you have to ask yourself the question:
That’s always our first point of reflection regarding a dream about an ex. First, because the people in your dreams are reflections of you. Second, because your dream is the unconscious response to your conscious situation.
In terms of your conscious situation, you have to ask yourself whether the dream is a warning. Are you unconsciously falling into an old pattern?
Examine your current life and see if you are getting yourself into trouble. If this is the case, then listen to the dream and back off from this loving embrace.
You really have to shift your perspective whenever you work with dreams.
So first of all, instead of looking your ex in the dream as himself, you have to try to see him as part of yourself – just as Jung said in the quote above.
This does not necessarily mean blindly accepting his bad qualities as a part of yourself. It could be that those bad qualities about him are part of the real guy and not the dream guy.
Assuming those bad qualities are not hers, then who or what is the dreamer embracing in this dream? As I told her, she could be hugging her original impression of him.
Many times our immediate impression of people is intermingled with our unconscious projections. Projection is the unconscious transfer of our own qualities onto another person. Projection is behind that instant spark we sometimes feel when we meet another person.
In essence, we see in another what we cannot see in ourselves.
In this dream, hugging an ex could mean that the woman is really embracing an unconscious part of herself. In order to get to that unconscious part of herself, she has to go back in time and re-experience the way she felt when she first met the guy.
For example, did the original encounter with this man awaken something in her?
As I have just said, whenever we dream of reconnecting with ex partners that wake us shuddering in disbelief, we have to go back to that time when we first met the person. We should try to let go of any animosity or resentment about how the relationship ended.
See if you can put yourself back in time and feel what attracted you in the first place. That feeling represents something in you.
When we meet someone for the first time, we can often see all kinds of wonderful character traits, only to find out later that the person is nothing like the person we had imagined.
This is what I mean by projection.
Watch this clip on Jung’s concept of the inner masculine. It’s from an old PBS documentary called a World of Dreams.
And incidentally, projection doesn’t only happen with lovers. It also happens with friends. Eventually though, reality takes over and our projections begin to fall away. When a person can no longer hold your projections, then the idealized relationship falls apart, giving you the real picture.
From there, we can either recollect that part of ourselves which we unconsciously projected or move on to the next person and go through the process again – and again – until we realize what is happening. I give good examples of this in the post What Does it Mean When We Dream About Someone.
By PinkCat
Staying with the above dream about hugging an ex: in the dream, the woman hugged her ex and then found herself wanting a relationship with him again.
Whenever we have these kinds of dreams about ex lovers – where we are locked in a loving embrace of some kind – we have to translate that loving embrace into psychological language.
You have to realize that you are embracing, or reconnecting with, an unrecognized aspect of yourself, not with the actual person.
If such a dream elicits longing, then consider that what you really long for is a connection with this unknown aspect of yourself. And you should also keep in mind that it’s not only your longing. The unconscious also longs to be connected to consciousness.
Even if the dream evokes revulsion, check in with yourself and figure out what that means. As Jung said, spend an hour with yourself, reflecting on the possible aspects of yourself which the ex in your dream symbolizes.
In this dream of an ex, we have the images of money and the ex-boyfriend. Let’s first look at the meaning of money, and after that, we’ll look at the ex boyfriend.
Simply speaking, money is a form of energy; and, the exchange of money is an exchange of energy. In psychological terms, energy is a measure of our vitality, i.e., the available energy we have for engaging life. Sometimes Jung called this a psychological value.
… psychological value is something that has an effect, hence it can be considered from the energetic standpoint without any pretense of exact measurement.
~C.G. Jung, “On Psychological Understanding“
Now let’s look at the ex boyfriend in a woman’s dream:
We know from Carl Jung that a man in a woman’s dream is often symbolic of her inner masculine. Integrating the qualities of our inner masculine makes us more whole.
I often say that integrating the qualities of our inner masculine can help us find our unique purpose life.
Finding that kind of purpose in your life is just like finding true love; it completes you – only it completes you from within yourself.
If you watched the video clip above, remember that your inner masculine represents your own thoughts and ideas about life and how you want to carry them out in this world.
This kind of wholeness is something which will carry you through the course of your life, no matter who or what comes or goes.
In this dream about an ex, the old boyfriend giving money to the dreamer is likely symbolic of him giving back the energy of her projections. If you realize what is being passed on from the unconscious, then you will feel an uncanny sense of revitalization.
If you don’t feel that sense of vitality, then you haven’t gotten the message of the dream. You’d have to keep working with it.
Remember that the dream and your associations about your ex should show you something about yourself that you do not already know.
If you can see the part of yourself that have projected onto this person, then try to realize and embody those qualities as an aspect of yourself. For example:
The anima contains all those common human qualities which the conscious attitude lacks. The tyrant tormented by bad dreams, gloomy forebodings, and inner fears is a typical figure. Outwardly ruthless, harsh, and unapproachable, he jumps inwardly at every shadow, is at the mercy of every mood, as though he were the feeblest and most impressionable of men.
Thus his anima contains all those fallible human qualities his persona lacks. If the persona is intellectual, the anima will quite certainly be sentimental.
C.G. Jung, Psychological Types
Here’s a clip from C.G. Jung’s essay, Approaching the Unconscious, from Man and His Symbols (highly recommend this book for anyone – at any level).
The man had accepted what happened and he wanted to move on, but the dreams of his ex were disrupting that process.
Keeping in mind what Jung said about the anima being a part of yourself, if you are a man in this situation of constantly dreaming about an ex, then you should understand that the dream is using the image of your ex in order to get you to see something about yourself.
As I said, many times we fall in love with someone, or are attracted to someone, because we see something in that person which we do not see in ourselves.Again, the word for that is projection. The unconscious always projects unrecognized qualities of ourselves onto others.
We do not do this consciously; projection is an autonomous dynamic of the unconscious.
The aim of a recurring dream about your ex is for you to see that projected psychological value in yourself. Remember, that value, doesn’t necessarily mean desirability or benefit. It simply means a measurable quantity or quality.
As I said earlier, you have to go back in time to when you first met your ex. What was it about the woman that first attracted you?
Sometimes, the dream woman can be symbolic of an artistic endeavor which wants to come to life through you. This is where the concept of the muse came from. Though a woman in the real world could constellate your muse, your muse is ultimately an inner figure.
A woman once shared a dream about her boyfriend’s ex girlfriend kissing him. Now, with a dream such as this one, we’re really descending into the depths of unconscious, psychological associations. Again we have to explore why the unconscious would choose the image of the ex girlfriend of her current boyfriend.
Here we see the dreamer’s inner masculine coming together with an unconscious part of the dreamers’ femininity. So, the ex girlfriend is likely a shadow figure of some kind.
Again, if you dreamed this dream, you have to ask yourself, “what is it about this ex girlfriend that could be like myself?”
You can start working with a dream like this immediately upon waking by registering how the dream made you feel.
The most important thing to remember is that it’s a symbolic psychic image of a psychological process. It is an image for something within you, and most likely, not a literal statement. And it is especially a NOT commentary about you “thinking about” or “being jealous” of your partner’s ex.
Always keep in mind that your dreams reveal something about yourself – something of which you are unconscious. Psyche uses the objective world and the people in it in order to build bridges between your consciousness and the unconscious.
By koyash07
As I have said in another post, kissing indicates a very close or intimate relationship. When we look at that symbolically in a dream, it can mean psychological integration.
If you have this kind of dream, one where you see your partner’s ex up close and personal with your partner, then you have to take a close look at what each of these dream figures mean to you. Only then can you begin to understand what it means for them to come together.
Sometimes, it’s easy to recognize that a particular person in a dream is a reference to ourselves. Other times, it’s not so easy.
The dream is an attempt at psychic balance. If we can find the place in our lives where the dream tries to fill in what’s missing, then we become more whole. This wholeness is actually the aim of all dreams.
To become more whole is not about becoming a better person, it’s just about being real with who and what you are.
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Recently I saw my ex in my dream two times on the same day. First, I woke up in the morning and I was very much in the energy of this dream. It really got me. In the dream I was seeing him in a distance we were cleaning the table in a kitchen kinda place and although we were in the same environment I felt very disconnected from him I only said something to him related to the work we were doing and I woke up with the feeling like I am not loved and not cared by him. (I am also an anxiously attached person and maybe even in my dream I interpreted the lack of communication as I am not loved.)
And strangely I was very much in the influence of the dream later on in my day I find myself again thinking about him and this time I realized that I was actually judging and shaming myself for not getting over him already and as I realized this attitude and gave some grace and compassion to my self. I had a nap afterward. This time in my dream we were close to each other and I was playfully approaching to him and he was accepting me. I was on his lap and we were hugging and talking then I call him the name of my other ex-boyfriend then I realized he was pissed off and was about to tell me something really important but then I woke up.
My thinking after these two dreams was that when I was harsh on myself I was also actually unconsciously believing that I am unlovable and creating the narrative around our break-up as he left me because he doesn't love me etc. and then I was having dreams making me feel even more burdened but as soon as I got compassionate about my pain I could feel the love of him again.
NOTE: I am (26 female) and broke up with my partner (33) we had a long-distance relationship.
Thank you!
Recently, me and my boyfriend broke up. It actually happened 5 days ago, so it is no surprise that he was in my dreams.
Just to give you the context, it was a long distance relationship, he is American and I am Romanian. We met almost two years ago when I was working there and kept in touch, that meaning we talked almost everyday, except the breaks we took when things got out of hand. Last summer, after I got my exams and got into the masters program I went to America to see him and stayed there for 3 weeks. I got to meet his friends and family, and had a good time although we argued a lot (pur relationship status was pretty unclear at that point). Despite our differences in communication and how we receive love, we still decided to be in a relationship. The thing is, I am a lot more emotional and feel things more in depth, while he is more rational and doesn’t like to get too emotional, although I know that deep down he is a sensitive guy. I got back home, and the fact that he wasn’t providing the emotional stability that I needed and that the deeper connection I was seeking wasn’t manifesting, we’ve had plenty of arguments and decided to stop talking at some point too. I also have some personal issues that he saw as unwarranted and never fully understood. The thing is, I told him that I wasn’t trying to change him and that I was only communicating my needs, not attacking him. I just wanted to get that deeper connection because with the distance and not being seen for who I really am became unbearable and made me act in way I normally wouldn’t. Even after we broke up, or breaking up I was still trying to get some compassion from him, but he said that I am selfish and demanding and don’t deserve compassion. I stayed with him because of love, argued with him because I was seeking love and because I saw in him before all these things, and he always told me that he was trying, and it’s not like me to gove up on the people I love. My emotions got out of hand, and although I approached him with calm, love and admitted all my faults in this, he reacted with anger and told me that he is done for good.
In my dream I kept searching for his name on Facebook and Instagram (the fact that we stopped talking has a big impact on me). The thing is, it seemed like I was struggling to find him, his name wouldn’t show up or I kept forgetting his name. Another thing that really got me thinking is that I couldn’t remember his last name. His last name starts with M, and I kept searching for him using the word “mirror”. It seemed as if I was right and that was his name when I kept remembering it. But it’s not his name, and I got the feeling that he disappeared or blocked me.
It’s curious that the word mirror came up, and after reading this post, things started to make sense to me. It could also be the fact that through him I learned a lot about my needs and about myself. Could it also mean something else?
Thank you!
Hi Nico, thanks for sharing this. As I said in the post, many of our relationships are about projection. We see in others, aspects of ourselves that we cannot see. Sometimes, the other person has those qualities, and other times, they don't. The idea that the dream emphasizes "mirror" would seem to indicate that you need to look at the psychological values you projected. I can't say much about whether the dream indicates your needs. You seem to know what your needs are. To say, "I learned a lot about my own needs" ... is that revelational for you?
The dream shows you what you can't see, not what you already know. You are going to have to take a deep look at this guy. What did you first see? Those are usually the qualities of yourself which you have projected. Whatever you demand of this guy is what you should give to yourself. For example, you say that you want a deeper connection - translated psychologically: you need a deeper connection to your own depths, not to someone else.
Thank you, Jesamine!
Your insight really helped. You are right, I’ve always known what my needs are, more or less. My demands weren’t met all the time because I probably projected onto him some of my values. There’s a lot to this story but I should be able to meet my own needs.
very happy to hear that, Nico. Thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate that.
I broke up with my boyfriend 1 year and 3 months ago. I’ll call him “D”. We have been together for 2 years. It was a pretty toxic relationship, I learned alot from it and never regreted it.
My first impression of him was the following: his dad died one month before i got into knowing him better. So i think my subconscious was searching for someone to take care of. Someone with issues to solve. Someone sensitive and deep. And that was kind of if. I took care of him. I loved him. I did not actually received the same love back, but its not the point. I eventually broke up with him because i realized i do have the power to choose for myself. The hard thing was “leaving him alone”, feeling alot of pity and compassion for him. So i didnt act when i realised it. It took when 2 or 3 moths (probably more but i wasnt ready to be honest with myself) to really break up with “D”,even tho deep down i knew i had to leave.
Last night i dreamt we were together. In the dream i was already in love with “O”, another man,my actual boyfriend.
After a trip in another country i came back to see D. I knew once again that i have to leave this relationship. At the start of our meeting i did not knew i was going to suddenly decide to break up with him because i loved “O” with all my heart and things will not work out this way. The same feelings i had when i broke up with him in real life one year ago, but back then it wasnt about another man.
In this dream i think its not about another man either. I think its about the concept of truly loving myself and choosing for my best self, witch would be “O”.
The same feelings came back. I felt bad for him, i didnt want him to be hurt. D’s reaction is an okay one. He is sad, but somehow understanding and leaves me be. I feel bad for him and realized i bought in my trip a fridge magnet for my mum(as i do every time i go somewhere) and i give it to him. The magnet was a scooter. Like the red ones you see in Rome, (i actually have a red one home), but this was black. I found this detail interesting
I have some questions if you would find any time to answer i would be grateful.
Is my dream showing me im on a good path because i broke a pattern i once falled in, i choose myself, and choose the right love?
Or
My ex shows a side of me i turn my back to? A sensitive one and deep one that needs taking care of?
Or
Im in a situation in my life i should not compromise anymore because i gave too much of myself and its time to choose for me?
Does the scooter means something? Time to go maybe? A part of me that dies?
Thank you for all the effort you are doing. You are doing a wonderful work.
Hello Sophie, thank you for sharing you dream and your thoughtful reflections. It's always difficult to give an answer because the dream may not be about any of the above questions. Best to look at the dream with a completely open mind. It has affected you deeply, so you should hold this imagery close and reflect more. Your insights are great, but they don't end there. Now you must reconstruct what has just been deconstructed.
Our dreams are responses to our current situation, so the first thing to do would be to reflect on everything that has been happening in your life - particularly on the days before the dream. If your associations to the imagery of "D" are linked through an emotion of "pity, compassion, or helping" - at the risk of your soul's path - then you have to look for anything in your life that fits that dynamic. That it occurs in them masculine dimension is significant. I would suggest searching for the meaning of "inner masculine" on my site. I have written a lot about this.
A trip in another country could suggest that "visited" a new realm of being - but perhaps have not yet settled there. You have been drawn back into an old pattern - hence, returning to D. This time, however, you have more awareness.
If your unconscious is attracted to such people, then you must try to see that as projection. Something in your unconscious - some part of yourself - needs this care. Withdraw it from these men and work on your inner masculine. He is the one who needs this attention. So, your insight about this was spot on.
That you had this dream would likely say that somewhere you are at risk of falling into the pattern again - not necessarily that you have broken it. Dreams show us what we don't know.
Yes, of course the scooter has meaning. Every image is symbolic of an unknown process. Somehow this D in you still needs your attention, but is okay with a new relationship. You would need to make associations to: fridge magnets, Rome, scooters, your scooter - and yes, the blackness of the scooter in the dream. Black usually indicates unconsciousness, but unconsciousness that has reached the first stage of transformation. Scooters are a very specific mode of transportation - a means of moving through life, but only for short distances or touring ...
hope this helps
Thank you for your answer, Jesamine.
It helped.
I will have to switch perspectives and stay on it a little more until I find what I'm missing.