Do Trannies Dream of Constructed Lives?

[LeaP]

Preface: Apologies to the author of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" for riffing on the title. The fact that his last name is Dick (Philip K. Dick), however, made it just too apropos and added to the temptation! Apologies also for "trannies" on the basis of literary license only!

I've been having a lot of trans dreams in the last few months and recently exchanged some correspondence where the other party was experiencing the same thing. I thought it would be interesting to toss it out as a topic.

Among my dreams are:

A variation of the common exposed in public dream, except that the underwear is female. Police were approaching with blue lights on.

An oddball dream of a load on the end of a plank. The load was covered with canvas and netting. On the canvas was written "Guilty," which changed to "Innocent." I understood this to refer to gender, though it makes no logical sense.

Another exposure dream, where my wife could find clothes to go out in and I could not. (i.e., I went without.)

A dream of working in a gender clinic, working with people in transition.

A flying dream. (I have lots of these. Only this one to-date as female.)

A dream of meeting crossdressers in a diner.

A dream where my youngest son was trans.

A dream of a family gathering where I felt compelled to tell people I was transsexual. One of them asked me if I was gay, which irritated the daylights out of me.

A dream of someone sliding their hands up the sides of my thighs under my dress.

These dreams started out disturbing my sense of self, particularly when I started having dreams as a female. I'm getting rather used to them, though.

The question is do you (or did you in the past) have such dreams? Do they disturb you? Interest you? Enlighten you?

Lea

[Bree-asaurus]

I dreamt of eating pizza last night.

My dreams usually reflect issues I am currently going through.

Like last night, my bf suggested we get pizza tonight :P

More specific to trans issues though, when I was struggling with my fears of how the public would react to me being myself, I would dream of being somewhere in public and getting stabbed to death.

[LeaP]

More specific to trans issues though, when I was struggling with my fears of how the public would react to me being myself, I would dream of being somewhere in public and getting stabbed to death.

Ummmm - I'll take mine over yours. :OMG:

Lea

[Anne2345]

I regularly dream that I am in a large group of people, including family, friends, co-workers and srtangers, in a social setting. All of a sudden it will occur to me that I am dressed completely as a woman. Invariably, I look for a place to hide. I am always surrounded by too many people, however, and there is nowhere to hide. After the initial panic, and there is always a panic, I look around at the faces around me a little more closely. Usually, I notice that nobody is staring at me, that no one thinks anything is amiss, that nothing is out of the ordinary. I blend in as any other woman would. At that point, I relax within my dream. I have had these dreams for years and years.

Lately, I have also dreamt that I am transitioning fully into a woman. During the dream, everything is as it should be. It feels right, it feels comfortable, it feels necessary, and I am happy. At some point during the dream, I seem to always wake up, and when I do, I am instantly filled with fear over what I have just dreamt. These dreams do disturb me. They scare the crap out of me a great deal, in fact. I consciously seek the middle road. Not this.

[Jorja]

I dreamt of eating pizza last night.

My dreams usually reflect issues I am currently going through.

Like last night, my bf suggested we get pizza tonight :P

More specific to trans issues though, when I was struggling with my fears of how the public would react to me being myself, I would dream of being somewhere in public and getting stabbed to death.

I once dreamt of eating pizza too. Half of my pillow was missing when I woke up.:eek::heehee:

I don't think it is dreaming of a constructed life as much as it is the desire to transition and finally live as you were meant to.

[Jessinthesprings]

I must be boreing because if I do dream I certantly don't remember doing so.

[Cherry Lynn]

I once dreamt of eating pizza too. Half of my pillow was missing when I woke up.:eek::heehee:

I don't think it is dreaming of a constructed life as much as it is the desire to transition and finally live as you were meant to.
Pillow and pizza both start with "p" which is a coincidence.

[Cherry Lynn]

I must be boreing because if I do dream I certantly don't remember doing so.
I wake up often remembering I had a good dream but cannot remember what it was about.

[LeaP]

I don't think it is dreaming of a constructed life as much as it is the desire to transition and finally live as you were meant to.

That bit ("constructed") was just for the fun of the title. The gist was whether people had such dreams during the period of figuring out where to take their gender ID issues and how they perceived them.

Lea

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Dreams can mean whatever you want them to mean.

Finding meaning in them is no different than finding meaning in yourc everyday conscious thought...

[Asako]

I have had several dreams affect me considerably to the point of literally spawning a story that I am writing off and on. Only one has been related to me being trans though.

I was surrounded by almost every member of the family that lives in the sleepy little town I call home. We had gathered for eating pizza at my work place just as we did every Friday until my great grandfather passed away. There were differences to what normally happened on those Friday afternoons. I was fully female. The sweetheart I had been corresponding with for roughly 1 1/2 years online was sitting next to me. We were carrying conversations with various family members of mine at the table. No one paid any mind at all to the fact that I was female. It was as if I had always been that way. At the end, my sweetheart and I held up our ring fingers to show a pair of matching rings. Everyone was shocked and happy for us. Then I woke up.

It was a vivid dream. Twas much more vivid than the vast majority of dreams I've had. When I woke up, I was crushed by the reality that it had only been a dream. Worst of all, I had to deal with work shortly after waking up when all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry. It was simply one of those "greenest possible grass" type dreams where you have everything you could possibly want that matters to you.

[LeaP]

Dreams can mean whatever you want them to mean.

Finding meaning in them is no different than finding meaning in yourc everyday conscious thought...

That's certainly common sense and several of these dreams carry evident meaning for me. The psych world has invested a lot of research and focus on the topic, though, so I'm a bit unsure. Also, my everyday, conscious mind hasn't exactly been my best guide lately.

In any event, my therapist asked me to track my dreams. Two things became apparent. I remember more of them in the morning, and recording them shows how many of these I have. I had forgotten most of those I listed. We're it not for the diary, the dream discussion with the therapist would be very brief!

Another last night. LBDs, body issues, and dark hallways. They keep on keeping on.

Lea

[EnglishRose]

My dreams are obvious. If I stay up too late playing computer games, I dream about them. Often I dream about meeting up with people in a bar - people I used to know - and that's my regrets at being so socially awkward. Also there's the being-back-at-school thing that I think everyone has :)

Biggest difference these days is that my dream self is transitioning or transitioned, it seems.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I agree lea...

To be clear, i had an interest in dream theory that i explored working at my college science library...
i think our dreams have a nature to them that is different than conscious thought..including that the physicality of sleep (such as the partial paralysis we have in deep sleep) impacts dreams in powerful ways
The implication being that the dreams we have about not being able to run away may simply be our body telling our dream brain "hey sister, you can't move" ...and that info goes into the dream...

also the instant we wake we start losing the ability to remember and our conscious mind highly influence our memory of dream...this is true no matter how strongly you think you remember the dream..

So i'm not against looking at dreams, but i'm pragmatic about putting alot into it.... i'd trust my conscious mind much more than my dream mind...

btw..i have never ever dreamed of myself as a woman until i transitioned...and i have had dreams since transition where i go back to my old work place, and for some reason all my clothes have fallen off...and i'm in the office trying to cover myself up..
Some dreams are so obvious !!! LOL

Looking at your dreams, all i can say for sure is that you think about gender problem quite alot, and those thoughts follow you into sleep at night. So to me, that informs us that your situation is very real and powerful and you are well served to deal with it(which i know you are doing)...kind of a check the box situation as opposed to a deeply analytical thing...

[Julia_in_Pa]

Dreams Are very subjective.
I personally believe that dreams are guideposts to a possible future if certain paths are taken to get there.
Dreams for me have been both harbingers of death and visions of life outside the human construct we call reality.
Overall dreams give us glimpses beyond what we currently exist in and for.


Julia

[Traci Elizabeth]

I dreamt of eating pizza last night.

My dreams usually reflect issues I am currently going through.

Like last night, my bf suggested we get pizza tonight :P

More specific to trans issues though, when I was struggling with my fears of how the public would react to me being myself, I would dream of being somewhere in public and getting stabbed to death.




Hey Bree, I had the same pizza dream last night. Want to take a guess as to what I am having for dinner tonight?

ALL of my dreams anymore are just about who I am, Traci - a woman. That was process was interesting in and of itself. Before Traci was in the womb,my dreams were mostly me as a man (yuck). As I was going through my development in the womb, in some of my dreams I was a man and others as a woman. The woman dreams grew in numbers as the male dreams lessened. I can not tell you the day but the male totally faded into obscurity. Now,I cant remember having any male dreams in the past. It's like my brain has deleted all memories of that person.

[Aprilrain]

Do Trannies Dream of Constructed Lives?

I don't know, those people are weird! They probably dream about being dressed in girl clothes and everybody being ok with it. They probably dream that they feel whole when they are a girl, normal even! They probably even have dreams where they become a series of 5 different woman the last one being a sassy secretary who doesn't take shit from anyone.
: P FREAKS!

I just dream about hot guys with BIG..................checking accounts!:heehee:

[Laurie Ann]

I believe dreams are a window into our unconscious mind. I have had a movie running in my head for as long as I can remember. The basic topic is probably the as we all have. I have used this as my guide to lead me to my ultimate goal. There are times it is bright and vivid almost like an all consuming fire which I am trying to quench other times it seems very serene and very rarely fades to black. The main issue is it can cause me to lose focus even when driving I have made several very long drives and gotten to my destination and not remember the trip but I do remember my movie it can also happen at work where hours go by without any memory of the time.