The Man of My Dreams

Doncha love it when I indulge in Personal Confessions? Well, it's been awhile.

There’s this one guy I know who crops up in my dreams with remarkable frequency. I can understand when it happens at times when I've been actually interacting with him or thinking about him, but I really don’t get it when he shows up for no particular reason. This has been going on for some time now and I find it very curious.

These dreams have a recurring theme. They pretty much always boil down to the guy revealing by his actions that he cares for me. There's never anything overtly sexual, rarely anything even so intense as a kiss, but he'll embrace me or hold hands with me or otherwise demonstrate his desire to be physically close and affectionate. This revelation always fills me with joy (and often relief).

This morning's dream was really amazing, because in it I had a dream about this guy (a dream within the dream!) and then told him about it against my better judgment. At first he rolled his eyes and seemed to think it ridiculous, but as the scene went on, we talked and he became more and more warm towards me. Finally he took me in his arms and we held each other, and talked about how good it felt to be so close. Anyway, it was the first time I dreamed about dreaming about him! I guess it's become such a weird phenomenon to me that even my subconscious has taken note.

Well, I have to infer from the frequency of these dreams that my psyche is really curious as to how much this guy actually likes me. It's a question I sometime ask myself consciously, I will admit, but even during periods when I’m not concerned about it at all, the dreams recur. I must ask myself, therefore, what is the big deal here?

On the one hand, there's the obvious theory that it really matters to me how much he cares. I may put the question out of my mind, but my subconscious won't let it go. On the other hand, my psyche may be struggling with subtle hints that he cares more than he'll admit, and the puzzle of this preoccupies my mind like any unsolved mystery, regardless of how much it matters to me.

As for which of these theories is the correct one, I have no idea! He and I have been good friends over the years, but at this point in my life it's not that big a concern to me. I think. And although I admit his behavior often suggests some concealed affection, the mystery of that doesn't seem to be one that tortures me by day. I think. But maybe I'm fooling myself on one or both counts. Who knows?

Or maybe the figure of this guy in my dreams represents something that really has nothing to do with him personally; maybe the figure is only wearing his appearance as a costume. He could merely be the masculine ideal I pursue in my fantasies and in my writing, the animus figure if you will. That's just as possible as the other two theories.

I'm just not sure. Do any of you out there dream about the same fellow over and over? Is the content of the dreams variations on a theme, like mine?

Ah, the mysteries of the subconscious mind....