Dreaming about an ex who hurt you is very common. It’s way more common than dreaming about an ex who didn’t hurt you and helped you get the closure required to accept the breakup and move on with your life. Pain causes obsession, so it’s one of the biggest reasons for dreaming about an ex.
The more your ex or the breakup hurt you, the more you can expect to think about your ex and dream about him or her.
If you have low self-esteem, anxiety disorders, poor coping mechanisms, or a lack of ways to distract yourself, your ex will be on your mind day and night and make it extremely difficult for you to focus on yourself and the people who deserve your attention.
You’ll contemplate the good and the bad times, relive the breakup hundreds of times a day, and think about ways you could have avoided breaking up.
The ghost of your ex will haunt you and make it beyond challenging for you to think positive thoughts and dream happy dreams. You won’t be able to do that for a while because you’ll first need to process the hurt caused by your ex and see that life gets better.
Dumpees dream about all kinds of ex-related matters after the breakup. Some dream about getting back together with their ex, kissing their ex, and sleeping with their ex, whereas others dream about seeing their ex with his or her new boyfriend or girlfriend.
Dreams that occur soon or right after the breakup indicate that their ex shocked or traumatized them and forced them to work on processing their pain wherever and whenever they are – even in their sleep.
Thinking and talking about an ex who hurt them can be stress-relieving, but it often comes with repercussions. Since they spend a significant amount of time thinking about their ex, they’re more likely to experience involuntary ex-related dreams.
They tend to dream about an ex who hurt them and wasn’t good for them.
Those dreams can leave them waking up sweating and anxious—and ruin their day or several days. Dreams can be very realistic and powerful. They can make anxious dumpees re-experience their ex’s closeness and cause them to obsess about their ex even more.
Some dumpees even look for spiritual meanings behind their ex-dreams.
They think there’s a secret message to decipher when, in reality, the message is that they’ve gotten hurt and need to detox from their ex. In other words, they need to get their ex out of their head and fall back in love with themselves.
When they do that, they stop or almost stop dreaming about the ex who hurt them. If they do dream about their ex, it doesn’t hurt them to the point where they become anxious or fall into depression.
So if you dreamed about a former partner who hurt you badly, bear in mind that most dumpees dream about their ex at least once. They tend to dream about their ex the most right after the breakup when anxiety and obsession are the highest.
During that time, dreams about their ex bother them the most and cause them the most pain.
Some turn to the internet for help and try to figure out why they dream about their ex every right or almost every night. The simplest explanation is that they’re still hurt and need time, self-love, healthy distractions, forgiveness, or self-forgiveness to let go of their ex and embrace their new life.
They aren’t ready to live without their ex, so they need to start following or keep following the rules of no contact.
They must remember that dreaming about their ex becomes less common and stressful when they come to terms with the breakup and see the light at the end of the tunnel. It becomes tolerable because they redevelop self-love and stop looking for meaning behind the words their ex has said and the things they’ve dreamed about.
Dumpees must simply stop caring about their ex. When they do, their ex-dreams either disappear or decrease and stop playing with their emotions.
If you can’t stop dreaming about an ex who hurt you, you must keep in mind that you won’t be able to force yourself to stop dreaming. If you spend a lot of time focusing on your dreams and despising your ex for causing them, you’ll dream about your ex even more and probably feel even worse.
That’s because the more you think about your ex and the stronger emotions you feel, the more answers you will need. And when you need answers, chances are you’ll involuntarily search for them in your sleep in the form of a dream.
Your brain will make you dream about your ex, whether it’s about something that happened in the past or a completely new experience.
No matter what you dream about, remember that you have no control over your dreams and that ignoring them is better than intentionally thinking about them and looking for reasonable explanations.
All you need to know about your ex-dreams is that you may be having them because you’re still in the process of working through some intrusive thoughts and unpleasant emotions.
As soon as you’ve processed the things you need to process, however, you can expect to feel better and have fewer/less intensive ex-dreams.
In today’s post, we shed some light on why you’re dreaming about an ex who hurt you. We also share some tips on dealing with them successfully.
Why am I dreaming about an ex who hurt me?
If the breakup just happened, you’re expected to dream about your ex and wake up feeling miserable. The breakup destroyed your self-love and identity and made you dependent on your ex. It made your ex look so attractive you became obsessed with your ex and lost without your ex.
Because you’re unhappy without your ex’s recognition and the happy hormones produced by the relationship, you’re convinced your ex is the best person you could be with and that you’ll never be happy unless you get back with your ex.
Such beliefs make you ruminate about how to reconnect with your ex and feel happy again. They want you to find happiness with your ex because reconciliation would get rid of pain instantly and make you feel validated.
So if you’re dreaming about an ex who hurt you, know that you still emotionally crave your ex. Whether you want an explanation, apology, money, personal belongings, or see your ex hurt, you’re not quite ready to move on from your ex.
You’re ready to move on only if the breakup happened some time ago, and you have random ex-dreams. Random ex-dreams (which most people have) don’t hold any special meaning. You experience them because you got to know your ex on a deeper level and probably felt close to him or her.
The time and emotions you invested in the relationship will be hard if not impossible to forget. You may forget the experiences, but your brain nonetheless subconsciously remembers the emotions and beliefs associated with them.
Dreams are a reminder that your ex was a part of your life for a while and that you’ll never completely forget about him or her.
If you can’t stop dreaming about an ex who hurt you recently, consider it normal and a part of your healing journey. You were with your ex for some time, so it’d be strange if you never remembered or dreamed about him or her.
You probably remember your ex from time to time and dream about him or her more often than you remember.
Most dreams you tend not to remember. You remember only the ones that impact you the most. And the ones that impact you usually make you feel scared, anxious, or uncomfortable.
If you dream about your ex more often than you’d like, you must ask yourself if you’re doing anything to keep your ex on your mind. Are you thinking or talking about your ex a lot or making breakup mistakes such as analyzing your ex’s social media and reaching out to your ex?
If you’re keeping your ex close to you on purpose, it’s perfectly normal that you’re dreaming about the person who hurt you. Your actions make you feel unwanted and rejected and force you to think about your ex more often than you’d like.
Every time you fail to get close to your ex, you suffer a shock and need to relieve the stress. And because human beings relieve stress by thinking and talking about it, you attempt to relieve it in your sleep.
Sadly, you usually don’t feel any better. Most of the time, it has the opposite effect; especially if you dream about hugging, kissing, or sleeping with your ex. Anything that creates strong emotions makes you miss your ex so much you feel sick when you wake up.
This means you’ll dream about your ex more if you’re depressed, lonely, and unhappy without your ex. Whether you know you were happier with your ex, you could dream about your ex because you subconsciously remember your life was busier, better, and more meaningful when your ex was a part of your everyday life.
General unhappiness tends to cause people to become nostalgic and dream about the times when life was simpler or easier. Unhappiness makes them seek meaning and help from people from the past.
Songs, movies, places, words, gifts, or items that remind you of your ex can also make you dream about your ex. They can bring out difficult emotions throughout the day and show up in your dreams during the night.
Something as simple as a necklace or photo album can make you nostalgic and eager for connection and love.
The same goes for mutual friends. If they update you on your ex’s new life, they could make you wonder about your ex and envy him or her. If your ex is dating someone else, you may also get jealous and feel like your life hasn’t progressed romantically.
Such comparisons can trigger feelings of regret and unwanted ex-dreams.
With that said, here’s why you’re dreaming about an ex who hurt you.
How to stop dreaming about an ex who hurt you?
To stop dreaming about an ex who hurt you, you must eliminate things that trigger your dreams. If you have a picture frame of your ex on your desk at work, you must throw it or box it away. You must get rid of constant reminders of your ex at all costs.
Removing all things that remind you of your ex may not be possible, but if you remove 80% of them, that’s 80% fewer nostalgic moments. You should especially get rid of personalized gifts, such as jewelry, wish cards, and things that used to make you feel loved, unique, and important.
Such things pose the biggest threat to you as they came from your ex’s heart.
Dumpees who throw away items they associate with their ex have fewer ex-dreams and also recover quicker. That’s because they avoid at least some emotional setbacks and self-questioning. They feel in control of their emotions longer than those who constantly see their ex and think their ex is a nice and caring person.
If you still love your ex, you must find a way to stop thinking highly of your ex. One of the techniques I recommend to the readers of this blog is journaling. Put down as many of your ex’s negative traits as you can and read them when you feel nostalgic, hurt, and desperate for love and reconciliation.
They’ll remind you that your ex wasn’t as perfect as you made him or her out to be and that your ex made mistakes too. The biggest one was losing sight of your importance and leaving you because of it.
Changing your opinion is important not only for your recovery but also for the prevention of ex-dreams.
Make sure to also accept your ex-dreams. Consider them a part of your healing journey and refuse to look for (spiritual) meanings behind them. Dreams are dreams.
You’re having them either because you’re not over your ex, happy with your life, because your ex traumatized you, because something reminded you of your ex, or because you had a close relationship with your ex.
You’ll stop dreaming about your ex quicker when you regain control over your thoughts and emotions and stop caring about the dreams. When you’re okay with them, you’ll have better things to think about and forget they even bothered you.
So for now, learn to deal with the dreams about an ex who hurt you and everything will fall into place.
Are you dreaming about an ex who hurt you? What do you usually dream about? Share your story with us in the comments below.
However, if you’d rather keep things private, feel free to reach out to us, and we can go through your story together.
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.
