Our resident sexologist Jamie Bucirde answers your questions on love, sex and relationships each fortnight. This week, she delves (hesitantly) into the meanings behind our dreams.

Q: I quite often have dreams in which I am single and it is plainly obvious that I will never meet the right person for me. They most often involve past love interests, who are as unsatisfying in my dreams as they were in real life. They are often sexual in nature, but while the details slip away as I wake up, there is no mistaking how I am left feeling. These dreams are quite despairing in their tone. They transport me back to a time in my life where, following the end of a relationship that I thought was going to be ‘the one’, and the healing that was needed, I began anticipating (without excitement) having to begin the process of finding the right person for me all over again. I do remember feeling like it would be a Herculean task.

The irony is that, within about two weeks of feeling fully healed from the relationship break up, I met a man with whom everything so easily and quickly fell into place. Here we are many years later — deeply, happily married with three beautiful children, an intimate and supportive emotional relationship, a delicious and ever-improving sexual relationship and, honestly, not a doubt in my mind that this is the man I will die with.

 I find it bizarre that my dreams often take me back to this time of my life, and this feeling of despair and hopelessness in relation to finding the right relationship, when my waking life is full to bursting of the happy ending to that chapter!! Why do you think my mind keeps taking me back there?

A: Hey reader! Thank you so much for submitting such a thoughtful question. I’m not going to lie to you, this question made me think — and it took me a few days of sitting with it before I was able to answer it.

I’d firstly like to acknowledge that I’m not a trained psychologist. I’ve never trained professionally in psychoanalysis of either the mind or of dream interpretations. I have however, always had a fascination with both dreams and the meanings behind them.

To me, dreams can be seen as an emotional processing tool for our brains. What happens during the day, and what’s happened in our past, is processed by our brains while we sleep. They typically happen during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, although dreams can occur during other sleep stages as well. They often involve a mix of elements from one’s daily life, memories, emotions, and the subconscious mind. While some dreams may seem nonsensical or chaotic, others may carry symbolic meaning or reflect one’s unconscious thoughts and desires.

Coincidentally, my grandmother (who is a psychologist — and still practising at 86!), and I have spent hours talking about dreams and their interpretations.

Through these conversations, she introduced me to Dr Carl Yung. Dr Yung is a leading Swiss psychiatrist, specialising in dream analysis. He coined the term ‘Jungian dreamwork’ (or Jungian dream analysis) and believed dreams are a way for the unconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind. Basically, he believed that dreams are symbolic and can have multiple meanings. If you haven’t heard of him before, I highly recommend researching him and doing some more in depth reading.

He, alongside my grandmother, theorised that you should look at every single person and object in your dream as an interpretation of yourself. Once you start looking at these things in your dream as versions of you, your perspective on the dream may start to change.

Now, bringing this back to your personal experiences, I think it’s totally normal to be dreaming of the past. The brain works in weird and wonderful ways. I’d ask you to reflect on these dreams, now with the perspective of looking at every character, object and experience as a version of yourself.

My bet is that it has multiple meanings. It may be that you feel despair and disconnected to the old you (before the babies and the husband). You can have the most fulfilling life and still reflect on your ‘old’ self and grieve never having her again. It could also be about stress — the stresses of maintaining a happy relationship, as well as raising multiple children, upholding a career, on top of the chaos of the outside world (wars, a pandemic, the climate crisis). Research shows that stressful emotions and trauma during waking hours can impact the subject matter of your dreams. Maybe the stresses in your life are putting you back in a once stressful place of wanting to find the one?

Here’s your homework: When’s the last time you did something just for you? Take yourself out to a solo movie, get a facial or go sit at a bar and have a dirty martini whilst reading your old favourite book. Spend some time connecting back into yourself (the old you, before kids and husband). Try finding at least an hour a week for a month. I’d be curious to see if tapping back into yourself releases the stress of the dreams. I’d also recommend journaling. Free form journaling is a great way to get things out of your mind — both conscious and subconscious.

There’s no need for it to make any sense, or for you to read it back later — just scribble freely whatever comes out of your mind.

I’m curious to see if any of my suggestions help, so please write to me again in a month and let me know how you’re going!

Much love,

Jamie

Jamie Bucirde has a post graduate degree in sexology from Curtin University. Her advice is of a general nature and should be taken in the spirit of the column.