HUSBAND

Example: ‘My recurring dream—some disaster is happen­ing. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep’ (Mrs GS).

The husband here depicts Mrs S’s feelings of not being able to get through’ to her man. This is a common female dream theme, possibly arising from the husband not daring to express emotion or meet his panner with his own feelings.

For Mrs S this is an emergency. Although the dream dramatises it, there is still real frustration, anger, and a break in marital communica­tions.

Example: There were three of us. My husband, a male friend and 1, all nding small white enamel bikes. My husband proceeded slowly, first, with his back to us. Then my friend followed. Suddenly my friend ahead of me turned and gazed fully at me. He gave a glonous smile which lit up the whole of his face. I felt a great sense of well-being surge through me’ (Joan B).

The triangle: the example shows typical flow of feeling towards another male.

The other male here depicts

Joan’s desire to be attractive to other men. This is a danger signal unless one fully acknowledges ihe impulse.

Example: ‘I was with my husband and our three children. About 2 or 3 yards to our right stood my husband’s first wife —she died about a year before I first met him. I remember feeling she no longer minded me being with him, so I put my arms around him from the back, and felt more secure and comfortable with him’ (Mrs NS).

The first wife: the dreamer is now feeling easier about her husband’s first relationship.

The first wife represents her sense of competing for her husband’s affections, even though his ‘first woman’ was dead.

Example: ‘My dead husband came into my bedroom and got into bed with me to make love to me. I was not afraid. But owing to his sexual appetites during my married life with him I was horrified, and resisted him with all my might. On wak­ing I felt weak and exhausted.

The last time he came to me I responded to him and he never came back again. This hap­pened three times.

The last time I don’t think it was a dream. I was not asleep. I think it was his ghost’ (GL). Dead hus­band: in any experience of an apparently psychic nature, we must always remember the unconscious is a great dramatist. It can create the drama of a dream in moments. In doing so it makes our inner feelings into apparently real people and ob­jects outside us. While asleep we lightly dismiss this amazing process as a dream’. When it happens while our eyes are open or we are near waking, for some reason we call it a ghost or psychic event. Yet the dream process is obviously capable of creating total body sensations, emotions, full visual impres­sions, vocalisation—what else is a dream? On the other hand, the dream process is not dealing in pointless imaginations. Many women tend to believe they have little sexual drive, so it is easier for GL to see her drive in the form of her husband. But of course, her husband may also depict how she felt about sex in connection with his ‘sexual appetites’.

It is a general rule, however, that our dream process will dramatise into a past life, or a psychic’ experience, emotions linked with trauma or sexual drive which we find difficult to meet in the present.

Example: ‘I dreamt many times I lost my husband, such as not being able to find the car park where he was waiting, and seeing him go off in the distance. I wake in a panic to find him next to me in bed. These dreams persisted, and then he died quite suddenly. He was perfectly healthy at the time of the dreams and I wonder if it was a premonition of me really losing him’ (Mrs AD). Cannot find husband: many middle aged women dream of ‘losing’ their husband while out with him, perhaps shopping, or walking in a town somewhere. Sometimes the dream ponrays him actually killed. Mrs AD wonders if her dream was a premonition.

It is more likely a form of practising the loss, so it does not come as such a shock.

The greatest shocks occur when we have never even considered the event—such as a young child losing its mother, an event it has never practised, not even in fantasy, so has no inbuilt shock absorbers. As most of us know, men tend to die before women, and this information is in the mind of middle-aged married women. Mrs AD may have uncon­sciously observed slight changes in her husband’s body and behaviour, and therefore readied herself.

Other woman’s husband: one’s own husband, feelings about that man, desire for a non-committed relationship with less responsibility.

If he mistreats and upbraids you for unfaithfulness, you will hold his regard and confidence, but other worries will ensue and you are warned to be more discreet in receiving attention from men.

If you see him dead, disappointment and sorrow will envelop you.

To see him pale and careworn, sickness will tax you heavily, as some of the family will linger in bed for a time.

To see him gay and handsome, your home will be filled with happiness and bright prospects will be yours.

If he is sick, you will be mistreated by him and he will be unfaithful.

To dream that he is in love with another woman, he will soon tire of his present surroundings and seek pleasure elsewhere.

To be in love with another woman’s husband in your dreams, denotes that you are not happily married, or that you are not happy unmarried, but the chances for happiness are doubtful.

For an unmarried woman to dream that she has a husband, denotes that she is wanting in the graces which men most admire.

To see your husband depart from you, and as he recedes from you he grows larger, inharmonious surroundings will prevent immediate congeniality.

If disagreeable conclusions are avoided, harmony will be reinstated.

For a woman to dream she sees her husband in a compromising position with an unsuspected party, denotes she will have trouble through the indiscretion of friends.

If she dreams that he is killed while with another woman, and a scandal ensues, she will be in danger of separating from her husband or losing property. Unfavorable conditions follow this dream, though the evil is often exaggerated.

If doubts about validity and intimacy are not properly resolved in her waking life, they will appear in dreams about the loss or death of her husband. They may also be projected onto other women’s husbands in dreams.

If your husband goes missing in your dream or you can’t find him while out with him, your unconscious may be referring to the well-known statistic that most men die before women.

If your husband is dead in both your dream and in your waking life, this refers to the memories you have shared with him.

If another woman’s husband appears, this may refer to a desire for a relationship outside your current one.

If you are having sex with your husband in your dream, this can be a wonderful indicator of how you are feeling about your sexual and emotional relationship with him.

If your first husband appears in your dreams, this represents nostalgia for the past, or more obliquely, competition for your current husband.

See also Gay relationships in RELATIONSHIPS.