Dreaming about your ex coming back: what it usually reflects

Dreaming about your ex coming back: the short answer

Dream interpretation is not prediction and not diagnosis. This article separates what sleep research observes from what popular interpretation associates with the theme, always saying which is which.

Dreaming about your ex coming back is not a sign that the person is going to look for you, nor proof that there is still love on both sides. The scene tends to appear when the breakup is still being processed, when something brings back the relationship (a date, a song, a photo) or when your current love life is going through a moment of doubt. Sometimes it is longing; sometimes, a conversation that was left half finished.

It does not mean you want to get back together either. Many people dream about the reunion and wake up relieved. This text is the variation of dreaming about your ex with the scene of the return at the center.

Read also: Dreaming about separation or divorce and Dreaming about your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Why your ex comes back in your dreams, of all places

The continuity hypothesis, tested by Michael Schredl and Friedrich Hofmann in 2003, says that dreams follow what fills waking life, including what fills your thoughts without ever turning into action. A recent breakup, a piece of news on social media, a chance encounter: any of these can bring the person back at night.

Romantic relationships weigh heavily in dreams. In a 2014 study, Dylan Selterman and colleagues followed the dream diaries of people in relationships and found that dreams about their current partner, such as scenes of jealousy or infidelity, were linked to more conflict or less closeness the next day. The study did not deal with exes, but it shows that dreams and life as a couple talk to each other.

Sources: Schredl and Hofmann, Continuity between waking activities and dream activities, Consciousness and Cognition, 2003; Selterman and colleagues, Dreaming of You, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2014.

How the return of an ex usually appears

If the scene turned into an argument, read also dreaming about a fight or an argument; if it ended in a kiss, see dreaming about a kiss.

See also: Dreaming about Exu and Dreaming about a pastor.

When a dream about your ex deserves care

Dreaming about your ex coming back is common after a breakup. It deserves attention when the dream repeats night after night, leaves you sad all day or gets in the way of your sleep. If the relationship was marked by fear, threats or violence and the dream brings that person back with anguish, look for support: a health or mental health professional can help, and frequent nightmares can be treated. If you are dealing with domestic violence, a domestic violence hotline or a local support service can guide you. If you are in intense distress, reach out for help: in the US, you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). See also how to have fewer nightmares.

Source: Morgenthaler and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2018.

The ex who comes back according to Freud, Jung and faith

In Freud's psychoanalysis. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud tells the case of a patient who still cared for a man who, a long time before, had stopped visiting her family's home. She dreamed of a sad occasion at which he would certainly appear, as had happened once before. Freud read the dream as "her wish to see him once more", a wish she fought against while awake.

In Jung's psychology. Jung spoke of the anima and the animus, inner images of the feminine and the masculine that we tend to project onto the people we love. In Man and His Symbols, Marie-Louise von Franz describes how these figures appear in dreams. In this reading, the ex who comes back may carry qualities you are still looking for in yourself, and not only the real person.

In symbols and faith. In the Song of Songs, the beloved tells how, at night, on her bed, she sought the one her soul loves and did not find him (Song of Songs 3:1). In Greek myth, Orpheus goes down to the world of the dead to bring Eurydice back and loses her when he looks behind him. In A Dictionary of Symbols, Chevalier and Gheerbrant treat the knot and the tie as images of the bond between people, which can unite or trap.

Bringing both readings together. Research shows that the ex comes back because the relationship still takes up room in your thoughts. Psychology and faith ask what, exactly, you would like to have back: the person, the time or the part of you that lived it.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols; Chevalier and Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols.

The ex in dream books

O Livro dos Sonhos, a Brazilian dream book by L. P. Baçan, has no entry for an ex. The closest is boyfriend, read as social prestige in life and problems in love.

Freud saw in these books a decoding method, which swaps each image for a fixed meaning without listening to the dreamer. An ex from ten years ago and one from last week do not have the same meaning.

Sources: Freud, Die Traumdeutung, 1900; L. P. Baçan, O Livro dos Sonhos, 2014.

What folk belief says about an ex coming back

In Brazilian folk reading, dreaming about your ex coming back is a sign of an unresolved matter that will call for a conversation, or of someone from the past who is about to get in touch. A remorseful ex is read as the end of a hurt; an ex arriving with flowers, as a reconciliation with someone, not necessarily with them. These are traditional beliefs, not predictions, and none of them guarantees that anyone will come back. See what dream meanings look like according to science and culture.