Dreaming about your ex, this is what it means

You wake up from a delightful, romantic dream and suddenly realize that the knight in shining armour in your dream was your ex. How confusing! Is your subconsciousness trying to tell you that you want to get back together with your ex? Experts say: most definitely not.

What does a dream about your ex mean?

Your brain is continuously stimulated throughout the day. The only way to process this is while sleeping. Dreaming is a way to process all of the impressions and discover how they make you feel. On average, people have about two to six dreams per night and spend about two hours in total each night in dreamland.

“You don’t need to panic if you had a dream about your ex,” according to sexual therapist Lisa Etherson. “It doesn’t mean you want to be in a relationship with that person again or made a mistake by ending the relationship. It is also not a sign that you aren’t over your ex yet.” The dream is more about you than about the other person. Your ex has probably taken up enough of your time, don’t get worried and think the universe wants you two together again.

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Dreams can’t be interpreted literally

“A common mistake is that people often take their dreams literally. However, most of the time, a dream is symbolic, and the characters in your dreams represent something else,” says Etherson. Lauri Loewenberg, an author and professional dream interpreter, confirms this fact. “Dreaming about your ex doesn’t mean you want to get back together with them. Often, it’s a sign that there is something from that old relationship you want back in your life, like the passion, excitement, or the feeling that someone wants you.” Dreams are often a reflection on your life, for instance, about your career or romantic goals. Also, dreaming about your ex is entirely natural, even when you’re happy with a new partner.

Dreaming about your ex is also completely natural.

Then what do dreams about your ex mean?

So, how should you interpret your dreams then? Etherson explains: “If you dream about you and your ex getting back together and your happy with it, this still doesn’t mean that you want that to happen in real life. For instance, did you dream that the two of you were communicating brilliantly but this wasn’t how things really were during your relationship? It may just mean that you think open communication is crucial to a relationship.”

You’re not happy with where you are now

Dreams aren’t always fun. Do you ever wake up feeling bad because your dream was actually more of a nightmare? According to Etherson, this could mean you’re not happy with your life at the moment. “If you dream that your ex is rejecting you or that you’re arguing, it’s important to reflect on where you are in your life right now,” says Etherson. “It could be that you’re letting an important opportunity slip by even though you don’t want to, or maybe you’re not happy with the behaviour of someone around you.”

Context matters

A tip: the context of the dream helps you to interpret it better. For instance, many people have a recurring dream about a recent ex coming to their house and looking around or stealing something, or vice versa, that you’re looking around in your ex’s house or car. You shouldn’t take this literally either. “The house stands for your ex’s mindset,” says Etherson. “And looking around in there means you want to understand what went wrong at the end of your relationship.”

Dreaming about your ex: do they dream about you too?

When you dream about your ex, do they dream about you as well? We can answer that one definitively: no. Dreams are not telepathic. And that’s a good thing because your ex is not your ex for no reason. “When you dream about your ex-lover, it’s a sign that you are learning from your past relationship,” says Loewenberg. Don’t regard it as a sign from the universe that you should immediately text them and ask them out on a date. Look at it as a way to discover what qualities you want to see in a relationship and how to apply these in a healthy way.

These are the most common dreams about an ex

Loewenberg writes that there are some common dreams that people have about an ex. Here are a few of them:

1. Your ex as your first love

Your first love is unique. “If you dream about your first love years after your breakup, then it is mainly about what that person symbolizes. Your first love represents passion, feeling desired, and feeling that someone wants to be with you forever. Those butterflies in your stomach and the excitement can turn this dream into a recurring one.”

2. Dreams about an aggressive ex

If you’re dreaming about an ex that was verbally or physically aggressive during your relationship, this could mean a couple of things. On the one hand, it could mean you haven’t had time to properly process the distrust, fear, and anger yet. On the other hand, it could mean that you have processed things, especially if you had a romantic dream about that person. It’s an indication that you’re at peace with your past and have forgiven yourself for initially ignoring the red flags.

3. You’re pregnant with your ex’s child

Don’t regard a pregnancy dream (with your ex as the father) as something scary. You can interpret the dream in the following way: you’ve learned something from your relationship together, and that wisdom is now growing inside of you.

4. Your ex is in a new relationship

This is a dream she often hears, says Loewenberg: the dream in which your ex is in a new relationship. It can be a painful dream, especially if there is some truth to it. Are you stalking your ex on social media, and have you seen him or her with a lot of other people? If you then dream about it as well, chances are that your subconscious is trying to tell you that your ex has moved on, and it’s time for you to do the same.