Dreaming about
your girlfriend

How sure you feel about a relationship is hard to say out loud, even to yourself, and dreams tend to say it for you. Dreaming about your girlfriend usually reflects where you think the relationship is going and how secure you feel in it. Sweet dreams about her are often just affection replayed, while the strange or painful ones (she leaves, she cheats, she turns into someone else) usually show a doubt or a pressure you've been carrying quietly.

Those bad dreams are what most people look up, and on waking they can feel like news, which they aren't. Whether you've just met or been together for years makes a big difference. So does what's coming up between you, a move, a holiday, a proposal or a difficult conversation, because that's often the real subject of the dream.

What dreaming about your girlfriend means

A girlfriend in a dream is usually the real person, seen through whatever is on your mind about the two of you, though sometimes she stands for something larger. Four readings come up again and again.

Where the relationship is going

Plenty of girlfriend dreams come around a step in the relationship. Moving in, meeting her family, talking about marriage or children, or one of you taking a job in another city all put a question mark over the future. Dreams of missing her at a station, losing her in a crowd or arriving at a wedding without knowing whose it is often come from that question. They show uncertainty, which is normal before a step, and they say nothing about the answer.

Whether you feel enough

Many men dream of a girlfriend who seems more interested in someone else, someone richer, taller, funnier or more sure of himself. Those dreams are usually about feeling you don't measure up, and they come at times when your confidence is low for other reasons (a setback at work, a friend's big success). The rival in the dream is often a picture of what you think you're missing.

Your own feeling side

A girlfriend in a dream can carry something of yours as well as being herself. One who appears distant or angry can reflect a feeling you've kept out of sight, and if she was crying and you couldn't reach her, you might ask what you've been refusing to feel.

Just her

Sometimes the dream is simply about her, nothing hidden. Dreams track the people and worries we spend our waking time on,^[1] so a girlfriend you see every day, or miss every day, shows up a lot.

Dreaming about an ex-girlfriend years later

An ex-girlfriend is by far the most searched girlfriend dream, and many people are surprised that she appears years later, often when they're happily with someone else. But it rarely means you want her back. She tends to stand for who you were with her, and for a feeling (first love, freedom, failure) that something now has stirred up. An ex who turns up at a wedding, a new job or a move is often a marker of how far you've come since. There's more on these dreams on the page about your ex.

Dreaming about your girlfriend cheating

Dreaming that your girlfriend is cheating is upsetting, and it isn't evidence of anything. It usually means you feel insecure, about the relationship or about yourself, and the dream gives that feeling a story. Who she was with often matters, especially if it was a friend or someone you already feel threatened by. The guide to dreams about a partner cheating goes into this one in depth.

Dreaming about cheating on your girlfriend

Being the one who cheats in a dream often leaves a heavy guilt that lasts through breakfast. But a dream affair is seldom about another woman, and far more often about something missing, like excitement, freedom or the sense of being new to someone, or about feeling trapped by expectations. Ask what the other person in the dream gave you that you felt you were short of.

Dreaming about your girlfriend leaving you

A girlfriend packing her things or walking out in a dream is about the fear of being left. It's common after small signs of distance, and in people who have been left before. If she left calmly and you felt relieved, look at what part of the relationship feels heavy, since the dream may be giving you a taste of freedom. And if you begged her to stay, the dream may be showing how much you value what you have. The page on breaking up covers breakup dreams more broadly.

Dreaming about your girlfriend being pregnant

A pregnancy dream wakes many men up fast, and it isn't a sign she's pregnant. It usually reflects thoughts about commitment and the future, a "where is this going?" made visible, and sometimes a fear of being tied down before you're ready. How you felt in the dream is the answer to what you think about that future. Pure joy, panic and a mix of both all happen, and all are useful to know.

Dreaming about your girlfriend as someone else

She's your girlfriend in the dream, but she has someone else's face, or she looks right and acts like a stranger. These dreams can be unsettling, but they're common. And they usually come when the relationship is changing and you're getting to know a side of her you hadn't seen. They can also come when you're projecting someone else onto her, perhaps an ex or a parent, and the dream is mixing them up the way your expectations do.

Dreaming about your girlfriend according to Jung and Freud

Jung and Freud give two different ways into the dreams where she doesn't behave like herself.

Jung: the anima behind her

Jung described the anima, the inner female figure in a man's dreams who carries his feelings, moods and intuition, the side he tends to keep out of sight.^[2] Read his way (our application), a girlfriend who goes cold or wanders off in a dream can be about your own neglected inner life as much as about her. The question works whoever you are, and it asks what this figure carries that you haven't claimed.

Freud: the worry on top of a wish

Freud's method gives a way to separate the worry from the wish. A dream holds a wish in disguise, he argued, and the face it wears needn't match what it grants.^[3] So the dream where she leaves can be a fear of being left sitting on top of a wish to be chosen, or on a wish to be free of the step that's coming. The dream where you cheat has the same split. The reading above says something is missing, and his question would be what the other person gave you and whether you'd say it out loud awake. He traced a dream's material to the days just behind it, so look for the dinner with her parents or the apartment listing before you look for a symbol.

Questions to ask about your girlfriend dream

Before you read the dream as a verdict on the relationship, read it as a picture of your own state of mind, starting with these questions.

• How long have you been together, and is a step coming up?
• Was she the girlfriend you know, or did she act like someone else?
• Who else was in the dream, and what do they mean to you?
• How did you feel on waking: jealous, guilty, relieved, tender?
• What would you like to say to her that you haven't?

Oniri asks how the relationship is going and what's coming up for you both before reading a dream like this, since a step you're dreading is often the real subject.