Dreams of the Young, Dreams about Confrontation

"this past January I had a crush on a guy in my class, his name was Chris. Before I went to bed that night I was instant messaging Chris and he told me he liked me back. One night I had a dream that I was sitting alone in the cafeteria playing solitaire on my iPod. Chris walked out of the gym sat next to me on my right and turned to me. For some reason I wasn't surprised that he did so. He opened his mouth and said " Penny can't see us dating" then I put down my iPod turned to him and said "well I can I mean I’m starting to" then I woke up. I felt calm like I knew he had come and sat by me to talk many time before and like we dating just letting everyone to get use to it. When he came and sat by me he was calm cool and collected, he was also wearing a red t-shirt and a pair of blackish gray baggy jeans which is like his favorite outfit. The thing of it is in real life we are not dating he said he liked me but didn't want to date and that was it.

So the other night I had a dream I was at a drive in movie during the day. I was sitting in a red old fashion convertible with a few of my class mates. I was paying extra attention to Chris, I mean to say I was flirting with him. I remember that where we where watching the movie was in a dirt parking lot with tall buildings on either side. The sun was high in the sky. We where all sitting around the inside edges of the car with the top down and not really paying attention to the movie. We were laughing and talking just having fun.

After what seemed like a few minutes I told Chris his hair was getting as long as mine and it is and I pulled his head to my stomach and shook his hair. That’s when I started walking to the makeshift concession stand. I walked in and started talking to some girl whom I have never seen before. She was tall and skinny had brown eyes and red hair and wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans. I don't know if this means anything because we didn't talk long. After talking with her for a short moment I walked past what looked like a rotating cake cooled I stopped at a glass counter. There was no one there so I lifted the glass lid and took the unsalted soft pretzel with a side of cheese. I turned around and saw Chris and some of our friends walking towards me. I turned back around because of a feeling of anger. when I turned I saw my friend, Amelie, standing there smiling and we talked for a short moment when Chris stood right next to me as if to make me angry and it didn't. The rest of the people joined in we just stood there and kept on talking. Then I woke up.

Ok I really need your help. I need to know how I should feel about Chris if it can be interpreted from these dreams. If it means anything I’m 13 yrs old and in 8th grade. I really need to know. I hope this is enough. Through out the dream, except when I mention otherwise, I felt nothing. In the real world I am VERY mad at Chris because he broke my heart and is going out with another girl. He keeps asking me why I'm mad but I refuse to tell him. He used to be a good friend but slowly I noticed he was a huge flirt and never really cared about me." - Anonymous

Thank you for sending me this very interesting dream. In the instance of a dream like this, that springs from an emotionally complex situation, and an emotionally intense period of time as adolescence is, our brains will create situations in our dream life that reflect our waking life. In dreams of this kind, situations are typically simplified, and our actions, since they have no consequences, are generally based entirely on how we feel about these situations. I believe that your dream is a manifestation of the way you'd like things to be, and the way that you feel about how things actually are.

So in this first dream, you're sitting by yourself at school during nutrition or lunch or whatever. Chris comes over to you, and you both feel calm, and like things are right and as they should be. This is simply because this is what you want or have wanted to happen. What he says to you, that a friend or acquaintance of yours doesn't think the two of you should date, that is the excuse that he may have actually used, or the thing you were left to assume was the case. The fact that he's wearing his favorite outfit in your dream suggests to me that the version of Chris that you're crushing on so hard is an idealized version, that is, you like the person that you think Chris is. What it seems you're realizing later is that he is not exactly who you thought he was.

The second dream is interesting as well. The setting and your attention to the setting says a lot- you're in a cool old car, at a place without adults or supervision where you can all hang out and be yourselves. You're in a somewhat isolated spot, a dirt lot surrounded by buildings, forgotten, undeveloped and it seems to belong to your group alone. Teenagers often feel a sense of isolation from the larger society, and I think that this isolated setting reflects that. I remember thinking, as a teenager, that no one could ever understand the world that I lived in. There are codes of conduct among teens that are as complex as those in the adult politics of the workplace, or among groups of neighbors etc, if not more complex. Your dream exists within the context of your reality, and for that reason, you are the last word on what it means- but I do think that this dream reflects the isolation of living in a microcosm of a larger society. Rather than being tortured by this isolation, though, you relish it. You're laughing, you're joking, you're flirting.

So next there is this somewhat intimate moment with Chris, you're pulling his hair, kinda cuddling with him. All this is stuff you're initiating, by the way. I suspect that you have spent some time holding back, not doing things with him that you'd like to do, either because you suspect he wouldn't like it or it just doesn't seem appropriate. But here, in your dream, you can do these things without reproach- so you do.

Then you want a snack. You go to find one, and you find this random girl, and apparently no one working at the concession stand. You have a decent interaction with this girl, in that you have a conversation that's somewhat memorable but not really. You don't seem to love her or hate her, she's just another girl that shares a little space with you. She might signify the perpetual presence of other women as competition for men, an idea you're likely becoming increasingly aware of!

When there's no one to serve you a pretzel, you take one. I think that point is important- you're taking what you want yet again, as you were doing when flirting with Chris in the car. You're very specific about what you want (no salt, with a side of cheese) and after you've taken it, you are confronted by your class. You turn away from this confrontation, inexplicably angry.

This feeling, I suspect, comes from the anger you feel over the situation with Chris. On some level, you feel open to the scrutiny of your peer group over this situation. In the dream, he brings your peer group to you, placing all their eyes on you, and it makes you mad. Further, he's done something to make you angry- he's acted like a jerk, leading you on and then dating another girl, and you haven't told him to go f*#k himself. I suspect that you want to! When you turn away from him, you turn to your good friend, and she acts as a system of support. You talk to her and things go back to normal again, Chris just comes up beside you and everything's ok again.

So what does it all mean? Well, it means you're learning some hard lessons about men. You can write off half the species and say that guys suck, but that's pretty short-sighted. Everyone has their own set of motivations, and reasons for doing what they do. Sometimes people can be really hurtful without realizing they've done anything to you at all. We all exist in separate spheres and separate realities, and the only way for one person to know the motivations, feelings, hopes and dreams of another person is through an exchange of honest information. There are many reasons NOT to tell someone how you feel about them, or why you're doing the things you're doing- but in this instance, I would tell Chris what he did. Tell him you're mad because you ARE mad, even if the emotion doesn't make sense to you completely, you still have a right to be angry or frustrated- and if he cares about you as a friend, he'll listen and apologize.

I hope this was helpful. Please feel free to email me your dreams at Rachel.Beezy88@gmail.com for a free dream reading at any time! Also feel free to leave comments here, publicly, or by email. I've really enjoyed interpreting your dream, hope you enjoyed reading it.