Human beings are social animals, and relationships are important to us both in our waking lives and in our dreams. Our dreams can provide us with a clearer picture of how we relate to other people, how we perceive our relationships, and how we can improve them.
When examining relationships in dreams, it is important to remember that dreams use symbols to tell us things. A person in a dream is not always the same person in waking life. The man in your dream may look, sound and act like your husband. However, he may represent someone or something else. He could symbolize an aspect of your own personality. Your father can represent an authority figure in your waking life, such as a domineering boss. On the other hand, an animal or an inanimate object in your dream may represent a person you know in waking a life.
Dreams of present and past lovers are quite frequent. They often cause us concern. You may feel worried if you have an unpleasant dream about your current partner. However, this may only be your unconscious mind’s way of checking that your relationship is still alright. It could also be a way for you to experiment with different possible scenarios in your mind. You don’t have to take any action in your waking life that might have negative consequences.
It is possible that dreaming of a former partner can mean that you wish to be a couple again. However, the dream may simply be your unconscious mind cataloguing and sorting old memories. You may need to think about why the relationship ended so you avoid repeating the same mistakes again with someone else.
Dreaming of having another lover can be upsetting, especially if you are enjoying a happy marriage or other good relationship with a partner. Such a dream may indeed be a message to you to look closely at your current relationship. Is there is anything about it that you have been ignoring that is making you unhappy? However, it might only be a way of experimenting in your mind without your having to do anything in waking life that would hurt you or your partner.
Dreams are an opportunity for you to imagine doing things that you would not do in real life. You can have lovers you would consider unusual or even inappropriate. You could dream about a relationship with your boss or with someone who is married. You can break taboos in your dreams, perhaps even having sex with a family member or an animal. This does not mean that you would ever do any of these things in your waking life. Taking a taboo lover in a dream may be a way for you to learn to deal with other people’s judgments or to understand how you judge yourself. The taboo lover may also represent a quality that you would like to have yourself.
It is understandably common for family members to appear in our dreams. They are so important to us throughout our lives. Our relationships with family members can be full of joy, but also full of stress and conflict. We may feel extremely close to the members of our family, or we may feel very distant from them.
It is through our families that we learn our roles in society. We learn how to give and receive love, how to provide companionship and how to respond to authority. Dreaming about your parents can be a way for you to work out unresolved issues from your childhood. In dreams, your siblings may represent qualities that you see in yourself or qualities that you wish to have. Siblings may also symbolize buried resentments. Dreaming of your adult children can represent an attempt for you to go back and change something from your past.
Friends are important in both or waking and dreaming lives. We share our deepest, most personal thoughts with our friends. Because you can choose your friends, we may feel closer to your friends than to the members of our family.
You may dream of your friends in an attempt to resolve conflicts with them, or out of guilt or love. You may be examining a quality that your friend represents. If you associate the friend who appears in your dream with a sport or a hobby, you may be examining some aspect of that activity, rather than your friend.
Because relationship dreams can be tricky to figure out, it is important to take some time to think about what they mean before acting on them. You might want to ask a friend or a member of your family what they think.