Dreams About Kissing: The symbolic integration of our personality

Dreams about kissing are usually about the psychological integration of two parts of your personality.  Symbolically speaking, you and whomever you are kissing in the dream need to come together as one. 

Even if you dream of your partner kissing someone else, it is still symbolic of two parts of yourself that should be integrated.  (You can read more about what it means to dream about cheating in this post.)

We don’t just have dreams about kissing lovers. We dream of kissing all kinds of things.  So, you have to look at who or what is kissing in your dream and then figure out what that means symbolically to you.

Sometimes our dreams about kissing are gross, strange, or awkward.  For instance, the kiss may be awful or you might have something in your mouth that is preventing you from a good kiss.  All of the details around the kiss are important.

Note your feelings about the kiss, but don’t pass any judgment.  These are dream images, i.e. symbolic imagery.

Always remember that your dreams are aiming at your psychological wholeness.  By psychological wholeness, I mean the integration of your personality, which includes you becoming aware of the unconscious aspects of your personality.

For Jung, personality was equivalent to soul.  Jung’s operational definition of personality is really important to keep in mind when you are doing dream interpretation and analyzing dream meaning.

Dreams about Kissing:  An Introduction to Kissing

In this post, we’ll explore some of the various manifestations of people’s dreams about kissing, but first let’s take a brief look at the various meanings of kissing in general.

The meaning of kissing depends on culture and context.  It can indicate love and passion, romance and attraction, and in a more ritualistic context, kissing can indicate devotion, respect, or reverence.

In a spiritual context, kissing means the “joining together of spirit to spirit”, the significance being that sacred breath is exchanged through the mouth.  You can read more about the idea of the sacred breath here, but here’s a synopsis:

It is no wonder that the word breath and spirit or lifeforce are the same in many languages:  pneuma, spiritus, prana, and ruah to name a few.  Whether you view breath in the spiritual metaphor of art, as in the image to the left, scripture, as in the quote above, or in the spiritual metaphor of science – ultimately it is all the same. It is just a matter of which perspective you revere more.

Kissing in fairy tales and mythology is associated with bringing someone back to life or with breaking a curse, as we see in the stories of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and in the myth of Baldr and the mistletoe.  In relationship to the latter, note that kissing under the mistletoe is a tradition associated with the Christian celebration of (re)birth and eventually, resurrection.

And finally, in terms of an instinctual expression, kissing is associated with kiss feeding, which is an exchange of nutrients between mother and baby.  In terms of dream imagery, we would speak of feeding symbolically – as in spiritual food.

Dreams About Kissing: My boyfriend was kissing his ex-girlfriend

You can take what I am about to say regarding the following dream and apply it to your partner kissing any other woman, whether it be your sister, a friend, enemy, or even a strange woman.

Guys, I think you can extract what this  might mean for you as well, as you will see from the quote below, which includes a comment from a man.

A young woman recently told me a dream that she had about her boyfriend kissing his ex-girlfriend.  The most common response to this kind of dream imagery is that the woman must be feeling threatened or insecure about her boyfriend’s ex.

Not true.  Maybe she does feel threatened or insecure in general, but this dream about kissing is not about her jealousy or insecurity.

Kissing means a very close and intimate acquaintance, and it means also a certain assimilation…C.G. Jung, Visions Seminars, page 275

As I have said many times, to say that the dream shows her insecurity would be a literal interpretation of a dream about kissing – not a symbolic interpretation.  Don’t fall into that trap.  It isn’t real dream interpretation.

Follow this guide on Discovering Dream Meaning in order to work out the type of dream you are having, then amplify the symbolism.  In every post about dreams, I show you how to extract dream meaning and amplify symbolism.

Here are some basics for working with dreams about kissing from a psychological (symbolic) perspective:

The most important thing to remember is that a dream is a symbolic psychic image.  The dream represents something going on below the surface of your consciousness.  It shows you something that you don’t already know about yourself.  (Please forgive me for repeating myself, but I have to say this in every post.)  

A dream about kissing, in this case, a dream about your partner kissing someone else is not a literal statement about the objective world.  And as I have already said, neither is the dream a statement of your insecurity or jealousy.

If you are jealous or insecure about your partner stepping out with another person, then you already know that.  A dream  such as this one has no reason to show you an image of  that.

Dreams tell you what you do not know. If such a dream about kissing constellates your jealousy or insecurity, then you can use the dream to help you discover how to alleviate that tension in yourself.   In my experience, jealousy and insecurity about another person have more to do with us not recognizing our own value.  Generally, we can see that value in others, but not in ourselves.

When we feel jealousy over a person in our dream, then something within us longs to be fulfilled or realized.  The person of whom we are jealous appears to have it.  The idea is that you want to realize it in yourself, not take it away from another person.

Dreams About Kissing: Exploring the qualities of the kissers

In the dream we are looking at, it would seem that the key to what that unconscious something is has to do with the ex-girlfriend’s qualities.

For the most part, the people in our dreams are symbolic representations of different aspects of our personalities. They show something we don’t recognize.  Those aspects can be positive or negative (although negative is a loaded word). 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.

Here’s a comment from a man who was trying to figure out why he dreamed of his girlfriend running off with a douche bag:

THANK YOU! I had a dream last night that my woman was running away to be with someone who would best be described under the umbrella term of a “douche,” and I couldn’t for the life of me decipher what qualities of him I needed to implement into my waking life.

Your mention of the masculine [see below for what he’s referring to] unearthed the reason behind my dream, as well. I’ve been devoting an unbalanced amount of energy to my feminine side lately and the masculine has, of course, dwindled as a result. It seems this dream was reminding me to be comfortable taking action in the world, as you said. Being okay with taking the reigns once in a while.

Anyway, thanks. That’s a load off my back 😀

Below is part of my official answer to the woman about whose dream we are speaking.  Though it’s not about kissing in dreams, it’s another example about what I mean regarding dreams showing us what we don’t know about ourselves.

For another extreme example, a very “prim and proper woman” who actually believed that she was that had a recurring dream of a drunken, foul-mouthed prostitute who followed her everywhere. She of course was absolutely appalled.

Now, this woman was unbearable to be around because she was simply not an authentic person. She was very self-righteous and opinionated. This dream is the unconscious is saying something like, “You are not better than this. Stop pretending that you are so righteous”.

Obviously the dream isn’t saying that she is literally a drunken, foul-mouthed prostitute, but it used an extreme image in order to get her to come down. She needed to let loose and integrate her shadow side, something she had yet to discover for herself.

A person with a dream such as this needs to do some serious self-reflection and discover the many ways in which she is not better, and perhaps, even worse. One has to find the attitude to which such dream imagery points.

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.

Dreams About Kissing:  Exploring the Dream Characters

The two characters in the dream, the ex-girlfriend and the boyfriend, are unconscious parts of this woman’s psyche, in particular her shadow and her inner masculine.

The Shadow

Shadow figures represent our unconsciousness. And by unconsciousness, I mean REALLY unconscious. You cannot see it until it’s projected onto someone else. Your shadow is not necessarily negative qualities. It is also positive qualities that you cannot see.  In fact, it’s harder to see a positive shadow.

The Inner Masculine of a Woman

The boyfriend is an image for her inner masculine. In the lexicon of C.G. Jung, it’s called animus.  All women have something to learn from their relationships with and to men.  Try to see what you project onto the men in your life, as well as onto men in general.

What values, traits, or power do you give to men?  Always remember they are your own traits as well.

All of this is an image for your relationship with your inner masculine. A woman’s inner masculine represents how she sees the world and her ability to make something concrete happen in reality.  He is also a representation of how she thinks about the world.

Very generally speaking:  when a woman has a positive animus, she will have her own thoughts about life – unbiased by convention or outside authority.

When a woman has a negative animus, she will have an inner persecutor that drives her mad.  In addition, she will be hyper-judgmental, -opinionated, and -conventional.

Just watch a clip of a television show such as The View and you’ll see exactly what I mean.  At least one or two of those women are what we call animus-possessed.  It comes out as that sharp, overbearing, and cutting tone.

Dreams About Kissing:  Reflecting on the Characters in Your Dream

In order to interpret the ex-girlfriend’s image in the dream, the woman has to reflect on this other woman.

If you dream of your partner with another woman, then you do the same.  I told her to write down everything that she thought or felt about this woman.

You need to explore this other woman’s qualities and the feelings that the woman constellates in you.

I also wanted to know how she pictured the relationship of her boyfriend to his ex-girlfriend.  This gives the dreamer an image of her relationship (or possible relationship) to her inner masculine, which you can see in the example below, which  I share from one of my own dreams.

Whenever we are reflecting on dream characters, it can be a brutal exercise in self-honesty.  I can’t tell you how many times I have been slapped in the face by the naked truth of my dream imagery.

We have to include everything, both positive and negative.  Never forget that your gold is also in shadow.

Dreams About Kissing: A Dream Interpretation

As I keep repeating, as a dream figure, the ex-girlfriend is an aspect of the dreamer’s personal shadow. Something about her needs to be realized in the dreamer herself.

The boyfriend and the ex-girlfriend kissing symbolizes a psychological dynamic in the dreamer.  It indicates that some kind of connection between those two aspects of the dreamer has been made in the unconscious, but now the dreamer must make that connection conscious.

Every time our inner masculine shows up in a dream with another woman, there is something to be learned.  Many women confuse those dream images with statements about reality and then take them as betrayal.  Some women even wake up angry at their partners!   That is really missing the meaning of dreams.

In my full-length post on dreams about cheating, I share a dream about my husband being with another woman:

In the dream, I see this woman and how my husband thrives with this woman. When I reflect on this consciously, I know my inner masculine would thrive if only I can integrate the qualities of this other woman. I ask myself something like, “how can I be better related and more giving to my life’s passion?” (life’s passion is the symbolic meaning of many male figures)

As I find more ways to integrate the qualities of this other woman into my conscious life, my inner masculine continues to develop. Suddenly, I have creative energy to put into the projects that I want to bring into the world. I feel completed by my work and confident in my path, and thus, change the way I walk in the world. Consequently, now I am better to my husband because I feel better about myself.

Dreams About Kissing the Inner Masculine

Let’s just continue with the theme of the inner masculine because most of the questions regarding dreams about kissing come from women.  (Men, I am here for you too.  Please leave me a comment about your dreams so we can include them in this post.)

When soul rises into lips, you feel the kiss you have wantedRumi

 We have many dreams in which we experience the perfect kiss with the perfect man.  He is everything we ever wanted.  We feel a sense of connection and oneness. It feels as if we have known this man forever.  I don’t think we need to give an example here because most women are familiar with this dream.

These dreams can be very difficult dreams to wake up from because they can leave us feeling lonely.

Where is this dream man in our lives?  Why can’t we find him?

These are the most common questions amongst women who have dreams of kissing the perfect man.  The real answer is that he is the one who lives within you.

As Rumi says, “when the soul rises [from within] into the lips, you will feel the kiss you have wanted. ” Again, to quote from my other post:

That is the real meaning of finding our knight in shining armor. He is the longed-for soul mate so many women dream of. When we are related to that inner image, then we are really tapped into our fullest potential. It is when we are at our best, just being who we are.

For many of the women with whom I have worked, accepting that her soul mate is within her is one of the most difficult challenges.  A lot of women really want to be saved by some kind of prince charming.  I understand this desire because I used to feel it.  Sometimes, I still feel that way.

But I can tell you this: when you find your true passion in life, it feels exactly falling in love. You will feel that sense of wholeness from within and not from being with another person. Until you make this connection from within yourself, the sleeping beauty within you will not awaken.

Dreams About Kissing:  an example

Now whenever I dream of this inner man, I know he’s trying to reach me.  Something in me wants to become conscious.  He represents yet another piece of my life calling.

Here’s an example, again from my own dreams.  I had this one while I was at a Jungian conference, where I had met a man with whom I felt a strong connection.

I am standing in a crowd of men. The man from the conference is standing there below me. He reaches up and takes me in his arms and we kiss passionately. The connection is intense. Someone asks what he is doing to which he replies, looking at me: I am acknowledging that you and I are in relationship.

This dream had a very potent effect on my psyche. I felt completely at one with this figure. What I realized is that the feeling of belonging and connection to him is how I feel when I am strong in myself.  I can project with confidence, exactly who I am.  I realized upon waking that the intensity I seek is within me.  Now, I could have easily gotten wrapped up in thinking that I needed him for that.  This dos not invalidate the connection that I had to the man, it only puts it in perspective.

Dreams About Kissing Women

Women’s Dreams About Kissing Other Women

Let’s start with women’s dreams about kissing other women.  Again, this dream theme is common enough that we don’t have to cover specific dreams.

The first questions I get from straight women is:  am I a lesbian?  Again, ladies – too literal of an interpretation.

For women, these dreams are about coming into close contact with an unconscious aspect of your own femininity.

The women in our dreams  (not including mother figures) are almost always a shadow figure, a representation of something about yourself you have not recognized.

If you have a dreams about kissing another woman, then reflect on the qualities of this woman, both her light and dark aspects. What can she add to your personality, not in a way that is disingenuous, but in a real way?

I was having a love affair with this beautiful young woman.  It was like I knew the affair was just that:  an affair of experience.  I was kissing her, making out with her, and making love with her.  At one point, we were on a baseball field.  At the end, I realized what my issues with men were.  She asked me what I had learned.  I told her to be careful in her relationships with men.  Don’t move too quickly.  Become friends first.

Dreams About Kissing Women: A Real Dream Interpretation

Here’s what is interesting about working with the unconscious: not only can it teach us something, but we too can teach it something.  This is something I learned from C.G. Jung.  In order to integrate these new aspects of our personality, we have to teach it how to be in this world.

So, I told this new part of my being to be careful with men.  And this advice applied both in terms of how I related to them in the external world and how I related to my own inner masculine.  At the time, I was finding myself attracted to all kinds of different men.  I had to work out why that was so. Each one represented something in me that was coming to life.

So, you see, even though my dream was about kissing women, there was also a message for my inner masculine.

Women’s Dreams About Kissing Women:  Exploring the Feeling Tone of the Dream

If you too have had a similar dream as the one above, explore the feelings you have about the woman and about being with her in the dream.

Next, see if you notice similar feelings come up for you, perhaps around exploring new dimensions of yourself.

If you felt uncomfortable about kissing this women, then where else in your life do you feel that discomfort – most especially around your own femininity?

For example, do you associate these same feelings associated with becoming a new woman or wanting to step into a new phase of life?   These are just examples, but hopefully, you get what I am suggesting you do.

If you loved the experience, then what new experiences are you just stepping into?  You might be ready to embrace a new life.

Men’s Dreams About Kissing Women

For the most part, you can take everything I have said and apply it the inner feminine of men.

When men dream of kissing the unknown or other woman, they are dreaming about their relationship to their inner feminine.

In an attempt to clarify what is meant by that, I’ll quote from an answer that I gave a man on Quora:

Generally speaking, when men dream of females, they get a glimpse of their own inner feminine, i.e., the contra-sexual –and often unconscious – side of his personality. In the lexicon of C.G. Jung, a man’s inner feminine is called the anima.

I realize that the term inner feminine could sound abstract, especially if you don’t have any idea of what I mean here. When you read what I say below, keep in mind that I am speaking here only in terms of “gender energy” and not in terms of men and women per se. It’s just a way to describe the differences in the way in which psychic energy expresses itself and how that energy typically manifests in dreams.

As I have said, in general, what the pure anima represents in a man are the feminine components of his personality. She would embody the personality traits which are typically associated with the nature of the feminine: receptivity versus activity, intuition versus rationality, emotion and feeling versus logic and reason.

In addition, the instinctual woman tends to be conditioned by the principle of union and relationship versus separation and discrimination.

We could also say that the anima represents all of the aspects of the man’s unredeemed or undeveloped self. By unredeemed or undeveloped I mean, the anima is everything which he has left behind during the development of his masculinity. (To be sure, some men can be unconsciously over-identified with the feminine, and thus, need to develop their masculinity.)

So, when men have dreams of kissing this inner woman, they can come close to understanding how the inner feminine is affecting his life and what she means in his life. The anima appears in many forms, from the playful girl and the tempting seductress, to the spiritual guide.  In her essay from Jung’s book, Man and Symbols, Marie-Louise von Franz writes about how a man’s anima manifests as “vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and –last but least–his relation to the unconscious.

Dreams About Kissing:  The Terrible, Gross, and Awkward Kisses in our Dreams

Now, we can take everything that I have just said and turn it upside down. Many times we dream about kissing and it’s not at all pleasant.  There are times when we are kissing someone out of the ordinary, such as a really gross old man or woman.

One woman had a dream where a mother figure who greeted her by sticking her tongue down her throat. And sometimes, our dreams about kissing someone are disappointing, meaning the kiss is just downright terrible.

When we are kissing someone we judge as gross, then we have to ask ourselves, “Is there something about myself which I am denying?  Should I try to integrate this part of myself?”  Or perhaps it is the opposite.  The dream could be saying, you are too close to this unappealing figure.

If a mother figure kisses us in the way she did in the above woman’s dream, then we should consider what that means in our lives.  Are we too closely identified with the mother-complex, or, is the mother-figure offering us some kind of symbolic food?

Whenever  a kiss disappoints us in a dream, then we try to see how that feeling of awkwardness plays itself out in our lives.  Are we disconnected or unrelated to some precious part of ourselves?  Do we need to educate it or does it need to educate us?

As I repeat throughout this site, the dream offers you added insight to your conscious situation. It’s best to determine the type of dream before you work with analyzing the symbols.

I started this post thinking that I would cover some of the more ritualistic aspects of kissing, but to do that now seems to take this post beyond readability!  I’ll try and do an addendum, but in the  meantime, please share your dreams or questions in the comment section.