Dreaming about
your ex

Few dreams send people to Google faster than an ex turning up in the night, especially one they haven't thought about in years. Dreaming about your ex rarely means you want them back, or that they're thinking about you. It usually means something from that relationship is still being sorted. That could be a hurt that never healed, a lesson you're about to need, or a version of yourself you left behind with them.

The way you felt in the dream is the best clue. Warmth, anger, longing and plain indifference all point to different unfinished business, and an ex who hurt you isn't the same dream as one you're getting back together with. What's going on in your love life right now matters just as much, so read the dream against your present as well as your past.

What dreaming about your ex means

An ex is someone who once knew you very well and then stopped being part of your life, which is an unusual combination. Dreams use that person for at least four different things, and the right one depends on where you are now.

Feelings that haven't finished

After a breakup, the relationship still takes up a lot of your waking thoughts, and our dreams pick up whatever fills the day.^[1] So dreaming about an ex in the first weeks and months is normal, even every night, and the dreams often replay arguments, rewrite the ending, or show the ex being kind in a way that makes waking up harder. They're a sign of processing, and they tend to fade as the feelings do.

A pattern repeating

An ex can stand for a type of relationship more than a person. Did they show up just as a new partner said something your ex used to say? Or as a boss started treating you the way your ex did? Then the dream is pointing at the pattern. Ask what the ex did in the dream and where that same thing is happening now. This is one of the most useful readings, because it's about your present, not your past.

Who you were back then

Sometimes the ex is a doorway to an old version of you. You might have been younger and freer then, more adventurous, or more in love with life. An ex from high school or college (the first love, the one from before you grew up) often stands for that age as much as for the person. If you wake up nostalgic and not for them exactly, the dream is about a part of yourself you'd like back.

A comparison with now

If you're in a relationship, dreaming of your ex can be about something missing in it, like passion, fun or a feeling of being understood. It isn't a sign you're with the wrong person. But it is a sign that one need isn't being met, and the ex is simply the last person who met it.

Why you keep dreaming about your ex

People search for this more than for any single ex dream, and the honest answer is usually ordinary. Dreams track what we spend our time on and worry about,^[2] and an ex is often still in the day more than you'd think. You might see their name online, pass the café where you met, or hear a song from that summer. Shared friends, a shared city or a child you raise together keep the memory warm without you noticing.

The other reason is emotional weight. Relationships are where most of us felt the strongest things we've ever felt, good and bad, and memories with that much feeling stay available to dreams for years. And recurring dreams tend to come when something stays unresolved. It could be a question you never asked, an apology that never came, or anger you were never allowed to show.

Dreaming about an ex you don't talk to anymore

When there's no contact at all, the dream is often the only place the relationship can still happen. It usually points to a conversation you never got to have. Maybe the breakup was sudden, or they blocked you, or you left without explaining. Pay attention to what was said. If the dream let you speak freely, it may be doing some of the work of closure for you. You can finish the rest on paper, with the letter you won't send.

Dreaming about your ex years later

An ex who returns ten or twenty years on is rarely about them. These dreams usually come at a turning point, like a new relationship, a divorce, a big birthday, or a move back to the town where you grew up and first met them. The old relationship is a reference point for who you were and how far you've come. And if the ex looked exactly as they did back then, the dream is about that period of your life more than the person.

Dreaming about getting back together with your ex

This is the one people most want explained, and it rarely predicts a reunion. Usually it means the relationship has settled in you, and you've kept what it taught you. Sometimes it's about a feeling you want back, not the person. But if the dream left you longing all day, and you'd take them back if they called, the dream is probably telling you something you already know. A dream where your ex wants you back and you say no is usually a good sign, since you've moved on further than you realized.

Dreaming about your ex with someone else

Seeing your ex with a new partner can sting even years after you've moved on. The dream often brings up comparison and the fear of being replaced, or of having been less than someone else. If you felt fine watching them, it's a dream of acceptance. If it hurt, ask where in your life you feel replaceable right now. When the dream is about your current partner with someone else, that's a different fear, and there's a full guide to dreams about a partner cheating.

Dreaming about an ex who hurt you

Dreams about an ex who lied to you, cheated or was cruel can feel like reliving it. They're often your mind going back over what happened, trying to make sense of it and to feel safe again. They tend to come when something today echoes the old hurt (a fight with a friend, a new partner raising their voice). If the dreams are frequent and frightening, especially after an abusive relationship, a therapist can help, and so can the techniques in the guide to having fewer nightmares.

Dreaming about kissing or sleeping with your ex

Sex dreams about an ex are common and usually mean less than they seem to at 7am, since they draw on desire in general and the ex is just the face your memory reaches for. Sometimes they point to missing physical closeness, or to a spark that's faded in your current relationship. A dream about kissing your ex can also be a dream of reconciliation with that part of your past. And none of it means you have to act on anything.

Dreaming about your ex-husband or ex-wife

A former spouse is a heavier presence than most exes, because a marriage ties in homes, money, families and sometimes children. Dreaming about an ex-husband or ex-wife often follows practical contact (a custody handover, a legal letter, a family event) and the feelings it stirs up. It can also come when you're about to commit again, as your mind checks the new promise against the old one. If you're still recovering from a divorce, the dreams are part of that, and they change as you do.

Dreaming about an ex who has died

Dreaming of an ex who has died is a particular kind of grief, often a private one, because you may not feel entitled to mourn someone you'd already lost. The dream gives that grief a place. It can also carry a goodbye you never got. These dreams are normal, and they're worth taking gently. If they feel like contact, that's your mind keeping the person close, which can be comforting.

How to stop dreaming about your ex

There's no switch for it, but a few things genuinely help. Write the dream down when you wake and name, in one sentence, what it was about (anger, missing them, missing yourself). Stop checking their social media in the evening, since that's the easiest way to hand your dreams fresh material. If something is unsaid, say it on paper. And for the painful ones, try rewriting the dream. As you fall asleep, run it again with an ending you choose (a calm goodbye, you closing the door and walking off) and stay with it until it feels true.

Most of all, give it time. Ex dreams follow the feelings, and they fade as the feelings do.

Dreaming about your ex according to Jung and Freud

A former partner is one of the clearest cases for each of their ideas, and the two lead to different questions.

Jung: the ex as an inner figure

In Jung's account the anima or animus is the inner figure of the other sex, and it turns up in dreams as a person.^[3] A former partner is a face such a figure could easily borrow, because you once saw them up close and they carried so much of what you wanted. Read this way, the dream asks what quality you found in that person (their ease, their boldness, their way of listening) that you haven't yet found in yourself. If your ex was the same sex as you, his idea of the shadow, a figure of your own sex who carries what you've disowned, is the closer fit.

Freud: the wish in the dream

An ex who says sorry, takes you back or just sits at your kitchen table as if nothing had happened is wish fulfilment in its plainest form, and Freud held that a dream is a disguised wish.^[4] The disguise is what makes it interesting here, because the wish may not be for the ex at all but for what they gave you, whether it was approval, ease or being known. Freud would look at the previous day too, and an ex is a very easy piece of day residue to pick up (a song, a street, a friend's remark, a photo on someone else's feed), which is why the dream can arrive years later with no wish behind it.

Other readings

Rosalind Cartwright, a Canadian-born American psychologist who studied dreams through divorce, followed 30 people going through one for five months, waking them in REM sleep to collect their dreams. The more they worried about their former spouse during the day, the more often the ex turned up as a character in their dreams.^[5] The people who had recovered from depression by the end had dreams of the ex that were fuller, with feeling in them and links to older memories, while the ex dreams of those still depressed were flat and cut off from those memories. The groups were small, and the finding is a link, not proof that the dreams helped anyone recover. It does match the first reading above, that an ex in your dream is a worry still being worked through.

Questions to ask about your ex dream

The same ex can mean different things in different dreams, so it helps to look at this one in detail.

• How did you feel in the dream: warm, angry, sad or indifferent?
• What did your ex do or say?
• Did anything remind you of them in the days before?
• Is anything in your current relationship, or your work, echoing that old one?
• What did you lose with that relationship that you'd like back?

Oniri puts this kind of question to you before any reading, so it starts from your story and not from a guess about theirs.