What are boyfriend dreams about?

You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.

The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience boyfriends in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.

Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about boyfriends in dreams. See how you feel about boyfriends now, in your waking life.

A dream about your boyfriend can connect with some aspect of your relationship—the good, the bad, the ugly. Romantic relationships affect people deeply and will be the subject of dreams. However, avoid the common trap of automatically assuming the dream character represents the person. Usually, it doesn’t.

Of course, you can dream about having a boyfriend when in reality you don’t have one. It has to be symbolism, perhaps for something that makes you happy or excited, or something to which you’re committed. It can be a way of characterizing a relationship with a male friend. Your feelings for the dream character will connect with how you feel about something in your life and provide a trail of clues to follow.

You can dream about the dark side of a boyfriend relationship, too, so again, go by how you feel about the boyfriend in the dream. For example, dreaming that you are bound to an abusive boyfriend can symbolize being bound to a job or person that makes you miserable. After being abused by a boyfriend, it’s common to dream about being back together with your ex, unable to get away. It shows how you’re still bound to the relationship inside yourself. See: Former partners

A dream about a boyfriend can be a sort of dress rehearsal for finding one and thinking through what you want and what you’ll do when you get him. People can get very specific images in mind of what they want in a boyfriend and exclude other possibilities, then dream about a man who doesn’t look at all like what they expect, yet he still intrigues them. For example, instead of tall, dark and handsome, the man in your dream is kind of short and redheaded, but boy does he light your fire!

Be careful, though, because parts of yourself personify as dream characters and are made attractive to promote internal bonding, or the characters represent something attractive to you in another sense of the word. See: Animuses, Beauty

For people with a boyfriend, cheating is a commonly reported dream theme—him cheating, or cheating on him. These dreams can result from fears that it will happen again because it happened in the past, or from suspicion that he really is cheating. Oftentimes, though, cheating is symbolism. See: Infidelity

Another common dream theme is that you break up with your boyfriend. That can express fears that he’s going to find something undesirable about you, or it can relate to other fears and insecurities. You fear you aren’t good enough for him. You can’t compete with rivals. Or you are doing something that will drive him away, like being overly dependent or suspicious.

You can recognize that a breakup is inevitable. Perhaps something is amiss, and you have no future together, and you just know the end is near for whatever reason. Receiving balloons from your boyfriend is a strong sign that a breakup is inevitable, or that the relationship is kept aloft by false hope. See: Balloons

Dreaming about your boyfriend hurting you physically can relate to his hurting you for real, but probably not physically, or even advertently or consciously. Instead, he might hurt you emotionally or psychologically. He might not be doing anything at all; the hurt stems from your reaction to something he doesn’t do.

For example, maybe it hurts you to know that he doesn’t think you’re the prettiest girl in the world, or he’s not an animal lover like you are, or he has different aspirations for the future.

If he acts like a jerk in your dreams but that’s not how he really is, it can be an exaggeration of little annoyances or complaints you have about him. It’s also possible that you’re seeing the way you act in the relationship, projected onto a dream character. What you actually see in the character’s behavior is yourself and how you act toward him.

Dreaming about not being able to find your boyfriend can mean that an emotional or personal connection is missing. Maybe you feel that he is holding back something from the relationship, or part of his mind is elsewhere. Or maybe you are holding back, or your mind is elsewhere. It’s very important to remember that your boyfriend in a dream is a character, an actor playing a role. The role might be based on how he actually is, or it might not.

Dreaming about being unable to reach your boyfriend on the phone can indicate communication issues. In some way you aren’t “reaching him.” You express yourself but don’t get the result you want, or you aren’t able to express yourself the way you want. See: Phones

Dreaming that your boyfriend is arrested can be a way of saying that you want something to stop, such as a behavior or attitude. Might be something as simple as leaving his dirty socks laying around, or something more serious such as driving after drinking. Or something in the relationship needs to stop—or even something in yourself, like stopping needless bickering or complaining. Arrest can express fear that he will be taken away from you. See: Arresting

A dream involving your boyfriend seeing you naked can symbolize seeing past the surface or facade, seeing the real you. It can connect with feelings of exposure or shyness, or with body image or sexuality. It can be a way of saying you know what he really wants. See: Being naked

Dreaming that your boyfriend is blind can mean that he doesn’t really see you. He doesn’t know the person you really are. See: Blindness

To dream about wearing your boyfriend’s clothes can mean that you wrap yourself in his identity, or your personality is changing to match his, like a chameleon. It provides a sense of security. See: Clothing

Dreaming that you push your boyfriend out of bed can indicate you don’t want him in your life anymore, or don’t want to be intimate. See: Beds

Driving together in vehicle or flying together in a plane in a dream can symbolize the direction your relationship is headed. See: Planes, Cars

Dreaming about having sex with your boyfriend can connect with your sex life. Sometimes with dreams, what you see is what you get, and you don’t have to look any deeper. But sex can symbolize connection on other levels, such as emotional, intellectual, or spiritual. And sex is a creative process, so dreaming about it can mean you are integrating something new into your personality, perhaps showing how his influence is rubbing off on you. Or you are creating something with your boyfriend—something tangible, such as a baby, or intangible, such as a feeling of connectedness.

See also: Infidelity, Planes, Animuses, Arresting, Balloons, Beds, Blindness, Cars, Infidelity, Clothing, Former partners, Girlfriends, Love, Weddings, Being naked, Phones, Pregnancy, Sex

This interpretation is from ""The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings" and is provided by J.M. DeBord aka "RadOwl". He is the author of several acclaimed books about dreaming, the host of The Dreams That Shape Us podcast, and is a moderator of r/Dreams, one of the largest dream sharing communities on the internet.