As my dream starts I am looking at an apartment alone. The apartment is halfway underground, and the windows that are above ground have bars on them. Also, there is no door. I bring my boyfriend to look at it with me.

We decide to take the apartment, and then it comes about that whenever my boyfriend gets sexually aroused he starts to turn into a werewolf. It happens a couple times at this apartment and I cannot find anywhere to hide or escape from him (seeing there are bars on all the windows). I finally escape through a small hidden window I never saw before (this one does not have bars on it) and I manage to get free.

I am in a field running away from this apartment. I turn to see if he is following and when I turn back around I am not in the field anymore. It seems to be a city. I am not familiar with this city, but I am running through it like I am. I keep looking behind to see if the werewolf is behind me. When I realize he stopped chasing me I stop, and then suddenly my boyfriend is there. We start acting like nothing has happened.

We go to a party, and I recognize a lot of people I work with. Then this girl with long black hair walks in with just a pair of tan pants, a light blue bra, a sheer white top unbuttoned, and black boots. Also with sunglasses on. I remember feeling scared because I did not want my boyfriend to see her, because he would get aroused and turn into a werewolf.

Well he did, and he started ripping people’s faces off. That is the way he killed them. He turned around and saw me, and then he started chasing me again. He chased me thorough the streets, thorough an ice hockey rink, an amusement park with Halloween decorations, and a convention center. I remember anyone he killed would come back as a werewolf, so I would not know who was one and who wasn’t.

I remember that outside the convention center I stopped and saw a man running away with a teenage girl, trying to save her. (I work with this man and he also wants me to leave my boyfriend). This all seemed to be taking place in slow motion. Then I turned around and saw this huge, hairy and bloody claw coming right towards my face. All of the sudden I woke up scared to death. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I remember I had to close all the blinds and turn on the lights. I kept looking over my shoulder when I was doing this.

—Letta, Age 28, Female, Single

Hi Letta—

This is not a nice way to wake up, and your dream is sending you a very important message about the future: It’s time to think twice about increasing your commitment to your boyfriend!

When we are looking for a new place to live in a dream, it is a metaphor that we are anticipating a transition in our lives. In the context of your dream, your decision to move in to a new apartment together reflects your intention to build a committed relationship with him.

Even before you move in, however, this “dream apartment” begins to feel like a trap! There are no doors, and it is buried half-underground—a symbol that hidden, subconscious feelings reside there. Combined with the bars on the windows, the apartment soon begins to remind you of a prison—from which there is no escape.

Soon your boyfriend becomes sexually aroused, and turns into a savage, dangerous, animal—a werewolf! Werewolves in dreams are common metaphors for people we know who “change their personality” suddenly. Translation? You have noticed that your boyfriend acts like a different person (becomes a werewolf) whenever he is sexually aroused.

Your dream also reveals that your boyfriend’s sexuality has violent roots. In the dream you fear that he will attack you, and he savagely kills several of your office workers. His attacks of your coworkers reflect his desire to make them “go away” (murder them) and stop talking badly about him. (He wants to rip their faces off.) Does your boyfriend know that your co-worker (the man rescuing the girl in the dream) has advised you to leave him?

After the werewolf turns back into your boyfriend, you both pretend “like nothing had happened.” This sequence of the dream lets us know you have been disturbed by his sexual behavior before. When he treats you poorly, do you try to ignore it, or hope it will “just go away”?

Your dream shows that you are confused by your boyfriend’s behavior, because he acts normally most of the time, but “becomes another person” at others. What’s the meaning? Until your boyfriend demonstrates that he can maintain a stable personality, you do not feel comfortable proceeding in your relationship with him. Intimate relationships require consistent levels of trust, communication, and respect. Today, this is one dream you do not want to come true.