I had known him since 6th grade. We were friends & sometimes sweethearts. We would lose touch, but always somehow found our way back to each other. He passed away last summer. A few weeks later, he appeared in my dream. In my dream, my current husband was gone. He had left, and my friend was at my front door, telling me to go with him. I did. I woke up when I shut the door.
Does this dream have any meaning? It seemed so real at the moment. I almost thought he was still alive.

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Skylar Scotch,
All dreams have meaning. Nature provided us with ability to dream as a tool to help resolve emotional conflicts/issues {just as the body has the immune system the psyche has the dream}. But dreams have a language of symbol and metaphor because the developing psyche of early man used symbols as a tool for communication {just as with the Egyptian Hieroglyphs}. Dream images are symbolic of emotional energies within the dreamer. What is in conflict or possesses emotional energy {good and bad, although most dreams address the negative energies} the dream attempts to inform the dreamer of the issue so they will take notice and find a way to resolve the conflict/issue {in the case of positive aspects, the dream uses those to re-enforce strengths within the dreamer}. All dreams are therapeutic in they automatically help with these emotional issues while we sleep {whether we pay attention to them or not}. We sleep not only to rest but also to dream {research shows when we miss sleep the next time we do sleep we dream more than normal to make up for dream time}.

As for your dream.
Dreams often have a stimulus that stem from waking experiences which have associations to that experience, and at the same time have relevance to deeper psyche energies that go to the core of personality and reasoning to why the waking experience caused you to dream about a person, thing or/and place to begin with. In your case it was your deceased friend who stirred emotional energies, to do with him as well as your own masculine qualities {what Jung calls the animus and/or foundation experiences to do with masculine aspects or actual male persons. All dreams, all dream images have at least two meanings/applications, one usually dealing with the waking experience that stimulated an emotional energy {in your case the male friend who passed away} and another that goes to why you had these emotions and the deeper issues that go with those emotional energies. In other words, in to your dream, your deceased friend would be focusing on aspects of that relationship while at the same time delving into your deeper self and using him as a symbolic reference to your masculine qualities {or referencing him to foundation experiences related to masculine qualities or other male experiences, often from childhood}. Normally one aspect {of the two or more applications} will have more relevance to your current waking life while the other aspect{s} are lesser intentions of the dream. Your dream seems to be addressing the emotional energies related to your strong feelings toward your deceased male friend with your husband being a related issue, and also your animus qualities that go to masculine strengths or weaknesses. The energies to your actual friend and that relationship {with your husband as a player} looks to be the primary focus of this dream.

The two meanings
Short dreams don't always convey everything a dream is trying to communicate. What you remember of the dream can be a summary of sorts. My analysis will attempt to interpret the summary using Jungian concepts as the tool to unravel the shortened puzzle that the dream is.

The dream begins with your husband gone. The few times dream images can be taken literal is when they involve close relationships such as spouses, family, intimate relationships, etc. Here, in one aspect, your husband being gone may suggest there is a place he occupied that is now empty. He would also represent a masculine quality within you or possibly your father {which begs the question, did your father 'leave' in some aspect related to your earlier life?}. The related earlier experience/influence in your life may determine your emotions and possibly your actions/reactions to experiences/situations in later life.

Your 'husband left' which presented an empty space, one that inherently needs to be filled {we inherently require companionship/marriage}. His leaving {in your dream} seems to be a 'wishful' statement because as soon as your husband leaves there is your friend telling you to go with him. The front door {all images have meaning and relevance to the dream} would represent conscious or unconscious barriers {door} with your male friend having associations to those conscious barriers and being there to fill the empty void {your husband left}. Your husband left and you are instructed to go with your male friend. These would be unconscious feelings which represent how you really feel {the unconscious self which is depicted in deams is always your true self, how you really feel}. You did {in your unconscious} go with him. But you also shut the door when you were ready to wake up, re-enter the conscious world.

My sense of the dream is you had very strong emotions toward your friend, emotions toward him that may have been as strong as those for your husband. Your male friend, in a world where you could be your true self, would be the person who filled a void, one that exists that your husband does not fill. Because you did retain a close relationship over the years does seem to re-enforce these emotions. But there are two things, two probabilities that 'shut the door' on these true emotions. One is you were married and could not have a closer relationship {being married prevented this}. Another is your friend's passing which of course ended any desire or wish for something more. This is likely the primary focus of the dream.


Other possible aspects to the dream interpretation would likely have to do with early life foundations, the building blocks of experiences and influences that make up who you are as an adult. It is possible the husband image could represent your father. If so look to that relationship to understand the grounding for your personality and who you are now. If you had very strong feelings for your male friend but did not act on them to the extend of leaving your husband {his leaving in the dream} it may because of your own early life experiences. Those experiences would be motivators for how you act/react as an adult. The male images {husband/male friend} could also be addressing masculine qualities with the husband being experiences related to commitments and the male friend a symbolic image related to those commitment issues but resisting {at least consciously} repeating what was not provided in earlier experiences {being strong, not leaving because of the early life experiences}. Look to your relationship with your father and you may see associations I have referenced in that which will fit with the dream.


A long analysis of a short dream. But all dreams have meaning{s} and to analyze the shortest dream properly is to take all the possibilities {that are good probabilities} and go over those so the dreamer can get a view of what the dream message might be. Hopefully my analysis will hit home and you will see associations that fit. You may find more to the simple dream that you realized/knew.

Jerry

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Thank you Jerry! This dream does go much deeper than I thought! My father left my mother before I was born. (I am the youngest of three) He passed away the summer before I met my friend.

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