Dreaming about
dating

A date is two people trying to find out who the other one really is while showing their own best side, which is a strange thing to do over dinner. So dreaming about dating is usually about being seen. It can be about what you're looking for in someone, how you come across, or the part of yourself you'd like somebody to notice, and for anyone actively dating, it's also often plain rehearsal.

Your waking situation changes the reading more than for most dreams. A single person swiping every evening and someone married for twenty years can have the same date in a dream and need very different answers. Who you were with, how it went and whether you wanted it to go on are the details to start from.

What dreaming about dating means

Dating mixes hope, nerves and a fair amount of acting, and a dream about it usually brings out whichever of those you've been feeling most.

Rehearsal for the real thing

If you're dating right now, many of these dreams are your mind running through it again. Your dreams lean heavily on whatever fills your days and your worries,^[1] and a first date next week, a message you're waiting on or a bad date last weekend are easy material. The awkward silence, the forgotten name or the bill you can't pay are the nerves themselves, and they say little about how the real date will go.

How you want to be seen

On a date everyone edits themselves a little. If the dream was about what you wore, what you said or how the other person looked at you, it may be about how you present yourself at large, at work as much as in love. Did you feel like yourself on the date, or like you were playing a part?

Wanting something new

When you're not dating at all, a date in a dream is often about novelty and attention, wanting to be curious about someone and have them curious about you. It can point to a relationship that has settled into routine, or to a life that has gone quiet. The other person in the dream may matter less than the feeling of a first evening when anything could happen.

Dreaming about dating someone else while in a relationship

This one causes the most guilt, and it's very common. It rarely means you want to leave. More often it's about something the date gave you that you miss: excitement, being listened to, or simply being new to someone. If the person was a coworker or a friend, ask what they stand for in your life (ambition, fun, calm) before you ask what they mean to you. The post on dreaming that your partner cheats covers the reverse version, where it's your partner on the date.

Dreaming about dating a celebrity

Dating a famous person is about qualities more than the person. You've probably never met them, so the dream uses them as a picture of something, such as talent, confidence or the attention they get. What do you admire in them? That's often what you want more of, or want to be recognized for. If the dream was full of cameras and crowds, it may be about a wish to be seen, or the fear of it. The page on celebrities goes further.

Dreaming about dating your ex

Going on a date with an ex is usually about the beginning of that relationship, when everything was easy, rather than how it ended. It tends to come when you're comparing a new person with the old one, or when you're lonely enough to romanticize the past. If the date went badly in the dream, your mind may be reminding you why it ended.

Dreaming about a date going wrong

Being stood up, spilling a drink, turning up at the wrong place or watching your date walk out are all the anxious version. They usually come before an important meeting of any kind (a date, a job interview, a family dinner) and show a fear of being judged and found lacking. Most people have these the night before and then find the real thing goes fine.

Dreaming about dating according to Jung and Freud

Both men's ideas are about the gap between what you show and what you want, and a date is where that gap is widest.

Jung: the persona on a date

Persona was Jung's word for the face we show the world, the role and manners we put on to fit in.^[2] A date is the persona at full stretch, since you're picking your words and your clothes for one person's eyes. Read through that idea, a dating dream where you feel like an impostor, or where the mask keeps slipping, may be asking how much of the real you gets shown in your life. It's his idea applied, and most useful if you woke feeling exposed.

Freud: the story and the stand-in

Freud split the dream you remember from the wish behind it, and put your own free associations ahead of any fixed meaning.^[3] Applied to a date with a coworker, the story and the wish may not share a person. He would have you say whatever comes to mind about the coworker, and the quality that keeps coming up, their energy, their attention or their ease, is the closer guess at what the dream wanted.

Questions to ask about your dating dream

Go back over the date before you decide what it meant, since the small moments usually carry it.

• Who was the date with, and did you choose them?
• Did you feel like yourself, or like you were performing?
• How did it end?
• Are you dating, settled, or somewhere in between right now?
• What did the other person give you that you're missing?

A nervous single person and a restless married one can have the same dream date, which is why Oniri checks where you stand before it offers a reading.