Okay, why do I continue to have dreams about an old crush. I am a happily married woman; however, this guy keeps entering my dreams. I must admit that I had a crush on him when I worked with him, but that was over a year and a half ago (and no, we didn't do anything). I don't work with him anymore, nor do I sit around and ponder on him. Just a little irritated because I feel that I shouldn't be dreaming about him. I want to know what this means.

The common theme in my dreams is my wanting him to tell me how he really feels about me. In these dreams, he comes in to talk to me with something clearly on his mind, but he never gets around to it. And then I had two different dreams. In one of the dreams, I was doing the expression of feelings. I gave him a gift with a card. The gift was a Scooby Doo movie (my son's favorite cartoon character), but the card was what I really wanted to give him because it told him how I felt about him. He refused the gift and the card and was very cold toward me, which is not really his character. He's usually very friendly and approachable. The other dream had his wife in it. I was observing them, and she seemed so cold and self-absorbed, and he seemed so unhappy and unfulfilled. I wanted to rescue him (in the dream, that is).

Can anyone tell me why I keep dreaming about this guy? What's the deal?!

Thanks so much,
Erryn

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 30; Williamsburg, VA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

Hi Erryn,

Generally, the image of a male in a woman’s dream often represents her inner masculine side that is also a psychological “complex” formed from early experiences of interactions with her father and other male figures. Frequently this inner man symbolizes issues related to the intellect, thinking, holding opinions in general, and such qualities as assertiveness etc. An equivalent feminine figure exists in the psychology of men.

Since you had a crush on the outer man, this means that he has some qualities or traits of your inner “ideal man” image, and these were unconsciously projected onto him. You can read more about the inner male figure on this site under “Animus”.

An idea that might be a little hard to grasp at first is that this image of your inner man also often represents the degree of commitment to yourself, to your own self development as an individual.

If for example the image is of a criminal as a boyfriend or husband, a woman may not be loyal enough to her own developing inner self. In your dreams, the inner man seems to want to have an important relationship with you (“something clearly on his mind”) but perhaps there’s been a tendency for you to be too unconscious of certain aspects of yourself that you should be working on and this is expressed by the “childish” gift of a Scooby Doo movie. “Words” (the card) aren’t enough to effect change.

His becoming cold might represent certain types of negative thinking that come along such as “You could never succeed at such-and-such so why bother trying?”, “Everybody tells you that you’re good at your job but you can guess what they really say behind your back”.

The image of the wife could be a little touchier to deal with because she may represent a part of your personality that’s called the “Shadow”. It consists of aspects of ourselves that we’re not too proud of, but also of various potentials that we may have tended to ignore since they didn’t fit in with our outer ambitions. It appears that possibly some aspect of you prevents a certain wider understanding from growing. You can also read more about the Shadow on this site.

Your wish to rescue the man is likely a positive one since it may point to a change of attitude towards this inner part of you. Although difficult and painstaking work is required to help him to grow, it has much more of a chance of success than the attempt to cure or transform an outer man which many women attempt to do, not knowing that the real problem is likely within themselves and is being projected outwardly.

Anyway these are just some general ideas and may not fit your personal situation (it’s always best to have some background information about the dreamer and recent events that have occurred before attempting to analyze the dreams of others). If you’d like to explore further this idea of an “inner man”, you might like “Conscious Femininity” as a brief and easy-to-read introduction to Marion Woodman’s extensive writings on the subject. An in depth view can be found in her book “The Ravaged Bridegroom: Masculinity in Women”.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 57, Canada

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} M

Thank you, CBS, for your insight. I prefer your interpretation of my dreams versus the psychic I spoke to. She said that he was thinking about me and that's why I dream about him all the time. With that information I became intrigued as to why he thinks about me. And my mind ran with it, and then I began to feel more guilty because I'm married.

As for background information, there's not much to tell. I was attracted to a guy at my old job. There was harmless flirting, but nothing more than that. Nothing was expressed, although, he did show some form of jealousy when he overheard a conversation that I was having with my friends about my husband and I trying to get pregnant with our second child. So I believe that the attraction may have been mutual.

Anyway, I am more at peace that these several dreams of him are nothing more than a reflection of how I see myself. He does have many admirable qualities, such his warm nature, sense of humor, and work ethic. So maybe I'm not seeing that enough in myself. Only thing is, my husband has just as many admirable qualities. I brag about my husband to people so much, so why don't I dream about him instead? I rarely have dreams about him. When he was deployed, I would pray that he enters my dreams so I could feel close to him. I can count only 2 times the whole 6 months he was gone. However, why do I dream more about a guy who has equally as many attractive qualities as my husband? I just don't get it! I would much rather dream about my husband, and get up the next morning without the guilt.

Sorry for dragging this one out, but if you have any insight please let me know.

Thanks,
Erryn

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 30; Williamsburg, VA

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Female

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes

The short answer is that dreams usually don’t deal with something that we already know. In this case, the friend at your old job was “less well known” than your husband, and on analogy probably represents “less well known” or developed parts of yourself.

Also, by showing him instead of your husband, the dreams are possibly trying to distance you from admiring certain traits in your husband too much instead of having them grow in yourself. This is very common of course in relationships where we leave certain things to the other person because they do them so well, but therefore these potentials tend to be too dormant in ourselves.

And perhaps not having him appear especially when he was deployed was the dreams’ way of saying something like “OK, you’re on your own, so get to it and work at becoming who you can be!”

Another factor may be that in reality no one person can reflect and help to bring out all of our own inner potentials. That’s why it’s probably best to be open to various relationships as long as all of the parties involved are aware of them. For example, a woman might like to speak with a knowledgeable older man about some hobby or business plan that her husband isn’t too thrilled about.

This can be touchy of course because jealousy often arises but usually jealousy is a sign of a certain immaturity. If someone is a genuinely secure and developed person, then his or her mate is usually similar in this regard as well, so that there should theoretically be little likelihood that problems will arrive on the scene.

So you’ll have to mull over a little just what specific talents and abilities should be brought out some more at this time even in a small way. Not too much might be possible because there isn’t much time available when raising a child, but perhaps the idea should be just to keep the light of something that you really want to accomplish alive and burning so that it can become much brighter later on.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 57, Canada

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} M