What does it mean when I dream about people I know?

I dreamt vividly that a friend was pregnant. I knew this friend definitely wasn’t intending to be pregnant, yet the dream was as real as day. I saw her that same evening in waking life and heard the words, “I have news!” come out of her mouth in a way that made my eyes open wide. To my relief, she followed up with, “I adopted a dog!”

How did it happen that, in Dreamland, she was so joyfully “pregnant” with this new fur-baby that it came through in my dream? This kind of cross-communication in dreaming happens all the time, and yet it's probably more common that our dreams of people we know have nothing to do with what’s happening in their lives; in those cases, it’s about ourselves. How can we tell the difference?

In the example above, my dream alerted me to how special, transformative, and meaningful the seemingly small life transition of dog adoption might be for my friend. It also affirmed my care and connection to her at this essential moment. The dream gave me the sense that either she, the Dreammaker, or both, wanted me to be extra-aware of the sacred and sensitive nature of this new development. In this sense, the dream was for me—waking me up to a deeper sensitivity—and it was for her, allowing her to feel my attunement to her experience.

But sometimes I have intense, powerful dreams, sometimes a series of dreams, about another person, and that person does not relate to the content at all. Similarly, clients often bring me series of dreams about former lovers, parents (living or deceased), or childhood friends that are profound for the client yet make no sense in the context of the dreamt-about person’s life.

Here’s how I make sense of this conundrum for myself and my clients:

1. I always work on the dream in a personal way first. I assume that the dream is either entirely about, or at least partially about, the dreamer, otherwise it wouldn’t have come to them. I work on what the dreamt-about person represents in my or my client’s life and subconscious. I ask what content of the dream has to say about the moment I or my client is in, in real time.
2. I consider the energy, feeling atmosphere, and location of the dream. In my own case, because of decades of personal dream study, I recognize certain signals in my dreams; if I appear to “wake up” in the same room I’m sleeping in, or in a highly familiar place, that’s a clue that the dream might be about the other person as well as myself. Similarly, if the dreamt-about person tells me something about themselves in the dream, that is often a clue that the dream is about them as well as myself. There’s also often a feeling of “magic” that comes over the dream, a sense of brighter colors and vivid scenery and strong emotion, all of which clue me into a connection beyond myself. When I work with clients, I observe patterns in their dreams and look for clues to their own style. You can track and observe your style as well.
3. If appropriate, I ask the dreamt-about person directly. I’ve had experiences of sharing a dream with someone and seeing their jaw drop at how accurate my dream information was about them, sometimes revealing things they’d never shared with anyone. I’ve also shared dream information with someone and seen their eyes glaze over, their head shake, and heard a clear message that they don’t relate to my dream at all. If I experience the former, I still consider how the dream is for or about me, but I also allow it to bring me closer to the other person and to support them in their process. If the later, I work on the dream as my own inner process. Only you know when or if it’s appropriate to check out a dream with another person—it isn’t always!—but this can be one way to tell the difference between a personal dream and a relational one.

It can be tempting to try to force a dream about another person to be about them, even if it’s not. This is especially dangerous with people who fulfill our longings, such as long-lost lovers or current crushes. It’s always best to default to assuming the dream is about you, and expand out from there based on context clues. We are never dreaming in a vacuum, and the more you work with your dreams the more you will have a sense of how to tell the difference between a personal dream and a relational one.

To get a good foundation in personal dreamwork, consider this introductory course.