Falling for someone’s girlfriend. A burst of a waking dream. 28 February 2025
‘I’ve been up for nearly three hours writing ‘Wishful Thinking’. I woke because of the second ridiculous dream in as many days. Last night it was my falling for someone else’s girlfriend and beating the crap out of them. I woke when I had my foot pressed down on this other man’s face only to see it was my brother. While expressing my keenness for the girl, I also knew I had lost her in this act – I’d been provoked but had overreacted.’
KAI: That’s a powerful and unsettling dream that seems to carry a deep emotional charge. From a Jungian perspective, we could explore several layers:
1. The Shadow & Repressed Desires
The violence in the dream—particularly the moment of realisation that you were hurting your brother—suggests an encounter with your shadow. Jung saw the shadow as the repressed, darker aspects of the psyche, often manifesting in dreams as figures or acts that shock or disturb us.
- The fight for the girl may symbolise a deep longing for something (not necessarily romantic love) that you feel you must fight for or prove yourself worthy of.
- The overreaction suggests a fear of losing control, of being overtaken by an emotion or instinct.
2. The Brother as the Double
It is striking that your brother appears in the place of your opponent. In dreams, siblings often represent aspects of ourselves, particularly those we identify with or struggle against.
- Could this symbolise an internal conflict, where you’re battling a part of yourself?
- Was your brother someone who competed with you for attention or validation in the past?
If the dream had ended at the moment of violence, it would be one thing—but your realisation that you had harmed someone familiar adds a layer of remorse, perhaps reflecting an awareness that unchecked aggression (or passion) can have unintended consequences.
3. The Lost Girl & Anima Projection
The girl in the dream is also key. In Jungian terms, she might represent your anima—the inner feminine, the creative, intuitive side of yourself.
- Losing her after the fight suggests that this part of you withdraws when aggression takes over.
- Were you “provoked” in waking life recently—perhaps feeling frustrated, competitive, or needing to assert yourself?
- Or is this about overreaching for something and fearing self-sabotage?
Final Thought: A Call to Integrate?
This dream may clash between instinctive desire and a deeper ethical self-awareness. Your passion is intense, but you also realise how you pursue what you want matters. This could relate to your writing, creative ambitions, or subconscious tensions about your personal life.
You’ve been deep in creative work—perhaps this dream is a metaphor for the battle between different aspects of yourself:
- The part that wants to act on impulse (claim the prize, seize the moment).
- The part that cautions against recklessness (realising the cost too late).
It’s not necessarily a warning—it might be a nudge to find balance, so you don’t “lose” something precious (inspiration, connection, or momentum) through overexertion or misplaced energy.
Does that resonate with anything you’ve been feeling lately?
JV: That makes sense. When I burst into consciousness I had a revelatory moment regarding a story and been writing it doen without a break for the last 2 1/2 hours. From 1:45am.
KAI: That’s incredible—a true Jungian moment of the unconscious breaking through, where dream energy transforms directly into creativity. It’s as if the dream’s intensity had to disrupt sleep to force something important into awareness.
Was your revelatory moment connected to Wishful Thinking or something entirely new? The way this unfolded suggests a deep, instinctive urgency, as though your psyche had been grappling with something just out of reach, and the dream’s raw force unlocked it.
Perhaps the dream’s aggression and realisation symbolised the creative battle itself?
- Fighting for something (the girl/story/idea).
- The overreaction—a fear of pushing too hard or losing balance.
- The recognition of the brother—seeing yourself in the struggle, understanding the cost.
And instead of losing something (as in the dream’s ending), you woke up with something gained: a burst of pure, uninterrupted flow.
This dream recollection is the moment Jung might call a numinous experience—a direct encounter with the unconscious that forces action. It’s rare to get such an immediate translation from dream to creation. Do you think this story is something you’ve circled subconsciously for a while? Or did it arrive fully formed?
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