What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? Are they thinking of you? Are you supposed to get back together? It can feel so disconcerting, and you can wrack your brain trying to figure out what the dream means. Why are you dreaming about someone you used to love right now?

Dreaming is an essential part of your well-being. Dreams can bring insights about a current situation in your life and also help you process difficult emotions. Paying attention to your dreams helps you through challenging times in your life. But what does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love?

Instead of obsessing about the dream and wondering if it’s an omen, or if the two of you are supposed to get back together, using the tools of dream interpretation can bring you insights into your current situation and, hopefully, bring you peace of mind.

What Does It Mean When You Dream About Someone You Used To Love? Should You Get Back Together?

When you dream about someone you used to love you can obsess about whether you’re supposed to reconnect with your ex. The dream can inspire you to reach out to your ex, trigger a cycle of anxiety that has you rethinking the whole relationship, or wonder if you made a mistake in moving on.

But does dreaming about someone you used to love mean that the two of you are meant to be?

This common misunderstanding of dreams can drive you crazy trying to figure out what the dream is trying to tell you. Dreams are not prophecies or messages sent from the Universe. Your dreams are not a signal that your ex is sending you to give them a call. They don’t come from some outside force like fate or God trying to guide you to your destiny.

What Is The Purpose Of Dreaming?

If dreams aren’t sending you messages from the Universe (or from your ex), what is the purpose of dreaming?

Dreaming is how your mind processes what’s going on in your daily life. They’re a vital part of keeping your mind healthy and functioning. When you suffer from insomnia, you’ll experience issues with memory, thinking clearly, solving problems, and even the ability to reason.

Ideally, dreaming helps you deal with strong emotions. Your dreams can help you remember things by replaying them from your day. And they can help you find solutions to problems in your life. Sometimes your dreams can even attempt to predict the future.

Sleeping and dreaming are essential to keeping your mind and body functioning at an optimal level. Even if you don’t remember dreaming about someone, or dreaming at all, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t dreaming while you’re sleeping. Dreaming is a natural process that you experience every time you sleep, even when you take a short nap.

Your dreams are messages from your subconscious mind and reflect something going on inside of you. Your subconscious mind is working through a situation or an issue in your life, and your dream is the result of that process.

Essentially, your subconscious is trying to communicate with you, and dreaming is one of its most effective ways of getting a message to your conscious mind.

How Do Your Dreams Communicate With You?

The act of dreaming is something your subconscious mind does while your conscious mind is asleep. The process of dreaming is how your subconscious communicates with you.

The subconscious mind communicates through symbol, imagery, story, and metaphor rather than in a language like English, French, or Swahili. It also communicates through your physical body as physical sensation. Your feelings (whether physical or emotional) are signals from your subconscious to get your attention.

For example, the pain you’d feel in your ankle after an injury is a signal to pay attention; that you not to put weight on that foot until it has healed.

Another example is feeling angry at someone for cutting the line in front of you. The anger is an emotional reaction to a deeper story you have about being cheated or disrespected.

Your emotional response to events is your subconscious way of drawing attention to the underlying story and meaning you’ve assigned to these types of events.

In your dreams, your subconscious uses symbols and feelings to give you greater understanding of something going on in your life.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? It means that your subconscious wants to draw your attention to that situation in order to understand it more deeply, or as an attempt to resolve, or heal it.

Do Dreams Have Universal Symbols?

Many dream interpreters believe that symbols within a dream are universal. It makes sense that if you dream of your teeth falling out, or that you’re falling, you’re probably feeling anxious during your waking hours. However, dreaming of something like a snake can mean different things to different people. Are you afraid of snakes? Or maybe you’re fascinated by them? How you feel about snakes in general will change the message from your own mind.

But what does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? Is there a universal meaning behind these types of dreams?

This would only make sense if the circumstances in all break-ups were the same. Since the breakup with your ex is unique to you, then your dream is unique to you as well. Trying to find some universal meaning behind dreaming about your ex isn’t helpful because it won’t take into account the details of your specific relationship, your past experiences with love, or your upbringing.

Instead of looking for some universal meaning or wondering if your ex is sending you messages in your dreams, exploring the subconscious clues of your dream will bring you the insights you are looking for.

What Does It Mean When You Dream About Someone? The Answers Are Specific To You

The key to finding peace of mind when you dream about someone you used to love comes from looking at specific information within the dream itself. Your dream about your ex is specific to you and the meaning of it is specific to you as well.

Dreams are your mind’s way of processing what’s going on in your daily life. They’re a vital part of keeping your mind healthy and functioning. Instead of resisting the dream or obsessing about it, look for the clues in your dreams that reveal the specific message the dream has for you.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? Rather than being literal, your ex is a symbol for something your subconscious wants to draw your attention to in order to understand it more deeply. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your dream that will give you the insight you desire.

1. What Time Of Night Did You Have The Dream?

During an average night’s sleep, there are three stages of REM, and dreams that occur during each stage have different functions.

The first is the Wishful Thinking Stage. Your mind is organizing the information that you’ve collected over the past day. It’s like your mind is putting all that information into specific categories and filing it away.

You don’t usually remember these dreams because they occur shortly after you fall asleep. These are also the type of dreams you experience during a nap.

The second is the Precognitive Stage. Your mind is attempting to predict where you’re going based on the information it sorted during the Wishful Thinking Stage. For example, if you’re under a lot of pressure, you may have upsetting dreams about things falling apart or bad things happening.

This doesn’t mean that bad things are going to happen. It means that your mind is seeing where you are and is attempting to predict where the path you’re on will lead you. It sees the destination as something stressful occurring based on the direction you’re currently headed.

Dreams during this phase are rarely remembered unless they’re so powerful that they wake you up in the middle of the night.

The dreams you typically remember occur in the morning before waking up. This is the Venting Stage. Your mind is attempting to vent out or release something that’s no longer needed. These dreams can also be about integrating new information or learning.

Stage one is sorting information. Stage two is attempting to predict the future. And stage three is about letting go of or integrating new information or learning.

2. What Does It Mean When You Dream About Someone You Used To Love In Each Stage?

If your dream occurred during the Wishful Thinking Stage, you don’t have to put much thought into the dream. You most likely won’t remember it anyway. Something in your day triggered a thought of your ex and your subconscious is filing that information away.

If your dream occurred during the Precognitive Stage, you’ll want to examine the symbols of the dream. You probably only remember the dream because it woke you up. If that happened then you may feel strong emotions about what happened or your subconscious is seeing something similar in your current life that mirrors what happened with your ex.

Look over the next questions and you’ll get specific insight for you about the dream.

If your dream occurred during the Venting Stage, you’re attempting to release a similar dynamic in your current life or you’re integrating the learning from your break-up so you don’t repeat the pattern.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? It depends on the time of night you experienced the dream. Since you remember it, it most likely occurred during the Venting Stage in the morning before waking. It could mean that you are attempting to release that relationship or relationship dynamic.

3. What Do The Symbols In Your Dreams Mean?

Since your subconscious communicates to you through symbols and metaphors, the symbols in your dream mean something specific to you. However, they probably don’t mean what you think they mean.

Symbolic images represent something deeper than what appears on the surface. The symbol of your ex isn’t necessarily about your ex. Instead, your ex is a symbol of something inside of you.

You may find it helpful to write down the details of your dream when you first wake up. Keep a journal beside your bed and set the intention that you’ll remember your dreams when you wake up. This may take some practice to get good at.

Sort the details of your dream into two categories: common and unusual. The common details are not that important to your understanding of the dream. It’s the unusual details that your subconscious is highlighting for you.

Ask yourself how you feel about the unusual details. What emotions do they trigger? What is the primary emotion of the dream? The answers give you insight into what your subconscious mind is attempting to vent out or integrate.

Another important symbol in your dream is the Timing Cue. The timing cue is something in the dream that gives you insight into when this emotional story originated. For example, if you’re dreaming about an angry boss but you’re in your grade school classroom. The timing cue indicates that the emotional pattern in the dream originated during that time in your life.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? Examine your feelings about the symbols and the timing cue in the dream to guide your search for meaning.

4. What Does It Mean When You Dream About Someone You Used To Love? Putting It All Together

Putting all the pieces together…

• The time of night that the dream occurred
• The primary emotion of the dream
• The unusual symbols and how they make you feel
• The timing cue to reveal when the pattern originated

…will give you the insight you need to understand why you’ve been dreaming about your ex and will hopefully bring you peace of mind.

Discovering this insight will not only allow you to feel relieved about the nature of the dream. It will also allow you to integrate any learning you need to resolve the emotional pattern that your subconscious chose to highlight for you.

The dream about your ex isn’t trying to get you to reach out to him. It’s showing up to help you process some emotional pattern similar to the one you experienced with your ex.

What does it mean when you dream about someone you used to love? When you dream about your ex it can be tempting to reach out or fantasize about that relationship. Instead, allow yourself the freedom to let go of an emotional pattern and move into a healthier dynamic in your current or future relationship.

Are you struggling with thinking or dreaming about your ex and having trouble letting them go? If you can’t stop thinking about your ex, or find yourself ruminating on the past, you could be stuck in a loop that keeps you from moving forward in your love life. It’s time to free yourself from the past so that you can create the love you want. Join us for a complimentary Breakthrough Call, and we’ll give you a custom plan for creating the love you want.