I don't think there is any mystical meaning attached to a dream, but I think they are immensely valuable in understanding oneself. And so in light of a very difficult personal situation I've been dealing with recently, I believe the vivid dream I had last night is trying to tell me something. Or rather, I am trying to tell me something, and I'm using my dreams to coach myself, apparently.

The dream I describe below has erotic portions to it, but I will not divulge lewd details; the erotic portions are only incidental to the point. I think Freud, (or his contemporaries), suggested that while seemingly-innocent dreams are just thinly-veiled expressions of eroticism, overt expression of the erotic is probably a thinly-veiled expression of something else! And well, if nobody has ever suggested that on record, let me be the first.


The Dream

I remember lying on top of my bed in daylight with an onlooker -- some sort of authority, but a friendly one. A therapist, teacher, maybe. Not sure.

Then a girl I know shows up. She's my ex-girlfriend, Danielle. And she's even more beautiful than she was when we dated, two years ago. But she's angry; she begins to scold me, using acidic language. Now, as is often the case in dreams, the precise words are long lost, and in fact, I believe that often actual words are not even used in dreams. That is, you can remember the gist of what someone says when you wake up, but maybe all there is is a 'gist.' Since it's you communicating with yourself, telling yourself a story internally, there's really no need for a conventional 'language'. Sometimes there are exceptions, though -- you could dream about the words someone is saying, and wake up remembering some profound quotable maxim, (or more often, a profoundly funny one).

Anyway, Danielle was mad at me, and so I ignored the onlooker seated to my side, and tried to apologize to Danielle. Of course, as has often been the case when I have pissed off females I've dated, my apology was perfunctory and insincere. And apparently, Danielle knew that.

Strangely, even though she was angry, she then began to behave seductively, and I remember something that I think is very important because along with a subtle change in the dream which I'll reveal in a minute, came a dramatic change in my feelings in the dream. Danielle was angry at me and tried to seduce me, climbing on top of me and kissing me; she was rather aggressive about it, too, and I was confused, because I couldn't make sense of her doing that while she was mad at me.

Throughout this dream we both were fully clothed, by the way.

As Danielle was on top of me, kissing me, I remember that I began to slowly roll to my left side, moving her with me. I continued to do this until I was on top of her, still kissing her. I remember a dramatic change in my feelings at that moment. I went from being scared and ashamed when she was angry at me and on top of me, to triumphant and in-control when we switched places.

At that moment, the onlooker broke in as a referee would, declaring me the winner of the 'fight'.

My dream-self has profound insight: Sexuality can be about power. And it's been playing that role in my life lately. Both the sexuality of other people, and my own sexuality domineering me into sabotaging my relationships with others.