Before I tell about my dream, you should probably know what’s going on in my life that’s been occupying my mind lately. I just graduated from FSU with a degree in Acting and I am planning to move to New York to jump right in and see where acting takes me. I’m not really nervous about that (yet). I’m fairly confident in my ability and I have a lot of connections up there already. What’s been bothering me is the fact that, because of the move, my girlfriend of over a year and I are forced to break up (she still has another year of college). It’s been a very secure relationship and we both love each other immensely (although we ARE young... I’m 22; she’s 20). I haven’t seen her in over a month due to her summer theatre work but we have talked about how we need to end things for now. I have planned a trip to see her next week for a few days, at which time we will put closure on the relationship with our friendship still intact and still very much in love.

Here’s my dream:

It has been a recurring one in which I show up to her house so we can mutually end the relationship, but every time I have the dream I show up with a missing body part or a hole of some sort somewhere on my body (the latest, most vivid dream involved a hole on the inside of my lower left leg that ran from my knee down to my ankle, and peering into the whole it was very clean... no blood or anything, but I could see my bone and it was very painful). I have had this dream many times, somtimes missing a hand, sometimes a whole arm, and the thing that gets me the most, the reason I am writing, is that she is very insensitive about whatever deformity I may have. She reacts coldly to my requests for help and avoids me. She won’t help “nurse” the hole or anything like that... She just says “Let’s get this thing over with,” referring to the break up, and sends me on my way with no affection at all, pushing me away when I try to hug or kiss her, or tell her I still love her.

I can make some obvious connections here, but overall I am confused as to what the holes in my body mean and why she is being so cold. That’s not like her.

Could you please help me out?

--Mike, Age 22, Clearwater, FLORIDA, USA

Hi Mike -

I think your dream is reflecting the feelings you hold for your girlfriend, and may also be foreshadowing the events of the near future.

The metaphor that keeps recurring in your dream involves “wholeness.” Your dreams are showing you that, by splitting up with your girlfriend, you are going to become incomplete. You will be incomplete physically, as you two no longer will be together as a couple, and you will be incomplete emotionally. The dreams represent this “lack of wholeness” by you not having a hand in one dream, an arm in another, and a “whole” in you leg in the most recent one.

It is clear from the strength of the dreams - their repetition - that your decision to split up is very much on your mind. I think the dream may also be anticipating your girlfriend’s reaction. You have told her that you want to split up, so she already is experiencing the pain of that decision. In the dream she is hurt - so she pushes you away.

Something that I suspect may be occurring here is as follows. You are, on the one hand, feeling upbeat and excited about your new career in acting. You want to go off to the big city and let the dice roll. You don’t know who you are going to meet, what good dramas await you (both on and off the stage), how you are going to make it, if you are going to make it... It’s all unknown. And for a young guy starting out, this is an exciting and challenging proposition. Your girlfriend, on the other hand, still has a year of college. She’s not going anywhere new, she’s not up there with you in New York, getting into the acting scene, meeting people, performing at auditions. You get the drift? She feels left behind. And as far as you and her staying in touch and being really good friends - you can’t blame her for not getting all excited about that. She’s being downgraded - from #1 importance in your life to something less. You want her to be concerned about the holes in your body - but you’re the one who’s putting them there.

You sound as though you have thought out your decision fairly carefully. I might suggest that your dreams are showing you how much you really do love this woman - how entwined your lives already are. In your excitement at leaving for New York, you may not be fully weighing the costs of the move. Perhaps your dreams are advising you to not sell your soul - just yet - for the bright lights of the big city. It sounds like advice that you might receive from a veteran actor.