Breakups are mentally and emotionally exhausting predicaments. They affect both dumpees and dumpers, however, dumpees are much more likely to regret breaking up, blame themselves for the breakup, and dream about their ex. This is because they experience tons of intrusive thoughts and unwanted feelings such as anxiety, fear, pain, and depression.
The more hurt and emotional dumpees get, the bigger the chance that they dream about their ex and try to resolve their breakup problems and emotions in their sleep. Their brain is constantly thinking about the past and reminding them of their recent traumatic experience and the lack of hormones they feel as a result of the separation.
It’s trying to tell them they have problems to resolve (attachment and obsession) and that they must disconnect from their ex and find alternative ways to be emotionally fulfilled. Alternative ways include doing things that distract them from the breakup, make them happy, and give their life meaning.
Although ex-dreams usually differ from person to person, they indicate an obsession with an ex and a lack of happiness. They show that dumpees depend on their ex for answers and healing and that they aren’t yet ready to let go of their ex. To let go, they must first accept or process the rejection and increase their emotional independence.
Every dumpee has different things to work on. Some dumpees lack a good social life and need to make some new friends to feel complete. Others have low self-esteem and unprocessed issues from their childhood. They must dig up the past in order to understand themselves, permanently leave the past behind, and be happy with who they are.
It’s in your best interest to discover the source of your pain. The breakup may hurt a lot, but this may be due to over-reliability on your ex and a lack of independence. For example, if your ex was the only one working, you’ll need to find work and feel that you can rely on yourself for survival and basic human needs.
If you feel that you can’t count on yourself for such things, you have a big issue. You need (not just want) your ex to make you feel a certain way and give your life purpose. This makes you dream about your ex every night or as often as you can remember. Your dreams are a continuation of what you think about, fear, or neglect while you’re awake.
Unprocessed pain and suffering make you indirectly search for solutions to your personal problems even when you’re sleeping. You probably just haven’t noticed it because you’re focusing on reconciliation or other things.
So if you dream about your ex every night and wonder why your ex enters your mind during your sleep, bear in mind that it likely has something to do with the shortcomings the breakup exposed and the thoughts and feelings it triggered. The breakup affected you in such a way that it keeps reminding you of your ex’s role and importance in your life.
Now that your ex is gone, you’re struggling to replace your ex with different thoughts and feelings. You can’t do it because you aren’t emotionally ready to process the past and find joy and purpose outside of the relationship with your ex. You have unfulfilled expectations of your ex and need to either let go of those expectations or have them fulfilled by your ex.
Either way, something needs to change. Something that helps you regain control of your thoughts and emotions and allows you to leave the past behind.
Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming about your ex once in a while. Most people dream about their ex every now and then – even dumpees who are over their ex. This doesn’t mean they need their ex to function properly but that they remember their ex and the connection they had with that person.
Dreaming about an ex every night, however, may be a bit much. Consecutive dreams tell you that you suffered a huge shock and that something may be missing. Something your ex provided you with daily. Whether it’s love, support, validation, company, security, or purpose, your ex satisfied your wants and needs and made you feel important.
Because you no longer receive relationship feelings and benefits, you now have a craving for them. You wish to experience them and feel that you’re moving in the right direction.
As long as you have romantic cravings and/or need for validation, you’ll dream about your ex. You won’t remember all your dreams, but you will remember the ones that made you feel the strongest feelings. You should avoid analyzing ex-dreams because there’s nothing specific in them you need to be aware of.
Analyzing them will just make you remember them and have more of them.
I encourage you to learn more about yourself rather than your dreams. Figure out how your life’s been since the breakup and what you still need to work on and improve. This will hopefully motivate you to reflect on your life problems and shortcomings and help you make some necessary changes and improvements.
Although a few consecutive dreams about an ex could be random, they likely aren’t if the breakup happened recently and you haven’t been able to get over it. If you’re in pain, they likely indicate that you’re still in the process of figuring out what went wrong, accepting the breakup, reconstructing your life, and learning to live without your ex.
Consider your dreams a daily reminder that you’re still hurt and that you consider your ex someone who can validate you and ease your pain.
In this post, we discuss what it means if you dream about your ex every night. We also share some useful tips that will help you reduce the amount of ex-related dreams.
Every night I dream about my ex-partner
Dreams about an ex-partner can be very difficult to interpret and deal with emotionally. They can make you so nostalgic they trigger a painful emotional setback and ruin your whole day. If you obsess about them, they could also tempt you to check up on your ex online and contact your ex.
They could turn into a nightmare and force you to do emotional/impulsive things that lead to even more intense dreams.
Hence, your goal should be to stop dreaming about your ex every night or even every few nights. You should minimize reminders of your ex by doing things that help you detach and move forward with your life. In other words, you should find a way to get your ex out of your system and become emotionally independent.
A dream about an ex here and there is okay. But if it’s too frequent or if it triggers the desire to receive your ex’s attention and love, it’s probably not something you should be happy about. You should do something about it and guarantee the fastest recovery for yourself.
It’s important for you to understand why you dream about your ex every night. Understanding it will be the first step toward taking back control of your life and reducing the number of ex-related dreams and the effects those dreams have on your body and mind.
Many if not most dumpees dream about their ex from time to time. It happens involuntarily because of the rejection and pain they underwent. Rejection destroyed their self-esteem and made them put their ex high up on a pedestal. It gave their ex all the power and caused them to think of their ex as the only person who can make them feel loved and patch their wounds.
So start by identifying your reasons for dreaming about your ex. If the breakup just happened, you dream about your ex all the time because you haven’t had enough time to process the shock from the rejection. You need a bit longer to redevelop your self-esteem and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But if you broke up a while ago, then it could be something like issues in the family, fallouts with friends, unhappiness at work, health issues, depression, learning that your ex is doing great, or coming across old pictures and recordings of your ex. All these things can force you to get curious about your ex and want your ex to fulfill your needs and improve parts of your life that need improving.
You want to make sure your life is going well and that your emotional well-being is healthy. If you’re doing okay emotionally and feel fulfilled as a person, you’ll have way fewer ex-dreams than an ex who’s just been dumped and wants his or her dumper ex back urgently.
So use this time to figure out what or who is stressing you. If your ex is talking to you and causing you pain, you obviously shouldn’t be talking to your ex anymore. You should be following no contact and avoiding breakup mistakes.
If your ex’s behavior or the dumping itself is hurting you, you should be looking for ways to cope with breakup stress. You should be talking to friends, family, or a therapist who understands you and gives you healthy advice.
And if random things make you dream about your ex night after night, then you should do your best to avoid those things.
No matter who or what is making you dream about your ex every night, there’s always something you can do about it. You can either work on improving your stressors (the reasons you think about your ex and miss the times when you were happy or happier) or simply focus on ignoring them and distracting yourself.
The better you are at avoiding thinking about your ex-dreams, the less power you will give them and the less frequently you will have them.
Typically, dumpers who dream about their ex every night or very often:
- stalk their ex online (and discover things they’re not supposed to discover)
- communicate and hang out with their ex
- sleep with their ex
- and think they must impress their ex
They don’t understand that one of their most important jobs is to stop interacting with their ex and restore their relationship with themselves. Once they’ve done that, they won’t have many ex-back dreams. And if for some reason they do, they won’t affect them and disturb their focus and recovery.
So if you’re doing anything that deepens your obsession with your ex, stop doing it immediately. Remember that it’s affecting you emotionally and that your ex-dreams will stay if you keep giving yourself reasons to obsess.
To not dream about your ex every day, you’ll have to break your obsessive patterns and create a life independent of your ex. Basically, you’ll have to identify your reasons for dreaming about your ex and find healthy methods for eliminating or minimizing your ex-dreams.
Having said that, here’s why you’re dreaming about your ex every night.
How can I stop dreaming about my ex?
If you’re staying in no contact and moving on from your ex, you’re doing the most important thing necessary to stop dreaming about your ex. You’re leaving your ex alone and keeping your ex out of your mind.
But if you’re reaching out to your ex, asking for another chance, and letting your ex reject you, you’re indeliberately causing yourself to stay attached to your ex and dream about your ex. In that case, you’ll have to initiate no contact with your ex and get your power and self-respect back.
You’ll have to do what it takes to focus on yourself and let go of your ex. The best way to stop obsessing about an ex who left you is to find new people and interests to obsess about. Take up new hobbies and make some new friends. Do anything that keeps you busy and entertained.
That way, you’ll slowly distance yourself from your ex and stop thinking about your ex, missing your ex, and dreaming about your ex. It’s not a matter of if but when. If you take the breakup seriously and move forward with your life (possibly with someone new), your ex will stop haunting you throughout the day and at night.
It might take some time to detox from your ex and enjoy life to the fullest, but breakups take time. They require dumpees to process the breakup at their own rate and get over the rejection and abandonment.
All in all, putting an end to unwanted ex-dreams will take some time. How long it takes depends on your coping mechanisms, what your reason for dreaming about your ex is, and how far into the breakup you are. The more recent the breakup is, the longer you can expect to dream about your ex.
It probably won’t take you longer than a few weeks to stop dreaming every day. But when that finally happens, you’ll care less about your ex and more about yourself. You’ll stop looking for spiritual meaning behind your ex-dreams and consider them a matter of the past.
Do you dream about your ex every night and wonder why it keeps happening to you? Why do you think you dream about someone you’re no longer with? Share your thoughts below.
And if you’d like to talk to us about your ex-dreams or anything related to breakups, get in touch with us by subscribing to coaching.
My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
