Yeah, but he's my FIRST cousin

Stella Folk sent the following via email:

I've been having recurring dreams in which I forget that I have a boyfriend and date other men. Twice these other men have been my own cousins. When I remember that I'm already with someone, I feel incredibly guilty and decide I need to break up with the extra guy. Except when it's a cousin, then I just realize that's not done and get squicked out. What do these dreams mean?

You're reached a point in your relationship with a man where you've realized, subconsciously, that you're not getting what you actually want. You dream about having a lapse of memory and ending up being intimate with others and, not just random others, but your own cousins. While your cousins are male, what they represent is a taboo. In most Western countries, romantic/sexual relations between cousins is frowned upon. We don't have sex with our brothers or cousins, because it's incest: they're our kin. They're our own kind. This is the same taboo that exists around same-sex relationships: some people think a woman shouldn't be intimate with other women because there's this idea that human beings should not fall in love with or have sex with or even be attracted to their own gender, or their own kind.

In your dream, it's convenient that you forget your boyfriend : this allows you to pursue relationships that appeal to you. Your cousins represent women - either specific women or women in general (that's for you to determine) and this dream is about the fact that you feel a sense of loyalty and obligation to your current boyfriend, even though what you'd really like to pursue is intimacy with your own kind: women. That you're "squicked out" by the idea of intimacy with your male cousins is representational of the fact that, while you're clearly attracted to women, there's still a part of you that thinks lezzing out is icky. A lot of people take a while to get over the icky factor. Social taboos can be very difficult to move past, but it's worth the effort. Believe me - lesbians don't have cooties. And get used to it, because you are one.

Tastes Just Like Chicken

Kristine P.A., of Los Angeles, CA. writes:

I dreamed I was at work - not my work, but some weird place that became a sushi restaurant. Ellen DeGeneres was there eating. She was super, super slouchy in her seat and her eyes were closed. I thought she had left, didn't see her, and reached right over her to clear her place. I grabbed something half eaten, I couldn't tell if it was tuna or chicken, and right then noticed she was still there. I started to apologize profusely and she just looked at me with her eyes half closed and wouldn't really say anything to me. She didn't really sit up properly either.  In RL, I've been told a few times that I sound like her. She didn't seem to notice. I thought "there goes any chances of being her voice double."

This is about your hidden desire to taste forbidden fruit. Your dream starts out supposedly at your work place, but it's not REALLY your workplace - a feeling we're all familiar with, when it comes to dreaming. The language you use to describe it is important: you describe the setting as a "weird place that became a sushi restaurant." In your dream state, you're in a place that you think is yours, but which is actually odd and foreign to you: new territory. A sushi restaurant. Need I say more? Your subconscious is fairly screaming "I WANT VAGINA BUT I'M NOT GETTING ANY!!!"

You say that you've been told you sound like Ellen Degeneres. Having spoken to you, I can confirm this. You write, also, about being her voice double. Your subconscious mind is presenting Ellen Degeneres, America's Lesbian Sweetheart, as your alternate identity. The theory of parallel universes describes how alternate realities exist. Anyone who's watched Star Trek can tell you that our alt universe doppelgangers are, in many ways, our polar opposites. But what happens when a person meets her own alt universe lesbian double and decides she'd like to trade lives? 

In your dream, you're not too proud to pick at Ellen Degeneres' leftovers. Eating a lesbian's leftover sushi? Does that even need an interpretation? Although you identify as a heterosexual woman, you're drawn to the ultimate Celesbian and you want the life that she has.

For her part, Dream Ellen is indifferent, bored, even sleepy around you. She doesn't even bother to sit up properly in your presence.  She doesn't see you in any way as a threat, and her very attitude makes you doubt yourself further.

This dream illustrates your burning desire to have sex with women,  the mountain of self-doubt that keeps you from actually lezzing out, and your fear that you've missed the boat.  My advice: don't try to bang Portia de Rossi and I don't think Ellen Degeneres will give you much trouble.

Major Tom's a Junkie

Rachel K. of New York State writes:

I think this might be a totally gay dream:

I was catering a large banquet where David Bowie (in the thin white duke years) was a guest. He snatched a lipstick-smeared, partially-sipped cappuccino off my bus tray and floated a piece of Welsh rarebit made with a butter biscuit on top, waited for it to partially disintegrate, then followed me around slurping at it and trying to get me to taste it. I went to the end of a table to make more coffee, and found that I was actually grinding dead baby souls instead of coffee beans. They made a very weak brew while this song started playing throughout the hall: "And the babies were sad, sad, sad. And the coffee was bad, bad, bad."

Welsh Rarebit is, of course, quite a delicious, little snack of toast points smothered in a cheesy sauce. Who wouldn't want to eat this? I think you'd love to have a bite of this snack, which represents a woman's vagina, but you're also put off by the idea because of your deeply embedded ideas about gender roles and sexuality. So ingrained is your guilt over your lesbian tendencies, that you'd made Welsh Rarebit (vagina) into something repulsive in your dream: no longer is it just delicious bread and cheese, but covered with a cookie and dipped into some other woman's cup of coffee. You're telling yourself that Sapphic pleasure is for someone else, but not for you - even though you crave it.

Bowie's "white duke" period was, of course, that period of time when some of the world saw him as finally looking somewhat "normal," while the rest of us could spot his drug-induced emaciation from a mile away. The move to "normal" that some people thought they witnessed - and many HOPED they were witnessing - was a move away from his previous gender-bending, androgynous, glam public persona. You've, in effect, had a dream about the world's most famous drag queen pretending to be "normal,"  actually looking a hot mess, and trying to get you to sink your teeth into something disgusting.  

You've equated being a lesbian with abandoning per-ordained female roles, such as that of motherhood. Your grinding of all the babies is your dream-state interpretation of what it means to be a lesbian:  your own guilt over your latent homosexuality is telling you that a "real" woman has babies, while a sick and twisted lesbian is actually the destroyer of creation. Guilty much, Rachel? 

Your subconscious mind is rallying against your obvious sexual appetite for other women, and pulling out the big guns to try and keep you from embracing your true sexual identity. You're not just a dyke, you're a baby-killer! But, let's get real; the Thin, White Duke died a long time ago, and even David Bowie is Team Vagina, these days.  Also gone are the days when Welsh Rarebit was served as a meat substitute, on days  there was no luck on a hunt.  People order Welsh Rarebit off restaurant menus, these days - as a FIRST CHOICE. And lesbians openly opt for vagina. 

Totes gay. 

Take This Job and Shove It

 Lisa S., of Alabama writes:

I'm very organized in the morning, and I like to sleep until the last possible minute so everything is done the night before. Shower, lunch made, clothes laid out. In cold weather when the alarm goes off, I run outside and start the car, then get ready for work and by then the car is warm.

I had a dream where, instead of going back inside, I stayed in the car and started driving to work in my pajamas. It's a half-hour drive and I got about halfway there when I realized it and turned around to go home and get dressed.  When I got home, my husband said he needed a ride to work because his truck wouldn't start. I told him he'd have to take me to work because I was running late. We got in the car, I fell asleep, and when I woke up we were almost to his work, which is an hour away from mine. I started yelling at him because I was going to be really late to work, then I woke up. Interpretation?


This dream revolves around your real-life morning ritual, which goes off course. Rituals are often things we carry out not because we truly want to or are sincere, but because we're used to them, and their expected from us. You've clearly been going through the motions and going about business-as-usual for a long time, and have reached a point where that ritualistic behavior, and the business of doing what's expected of you, are no longer satisfying to you. This is scary to you, which is why, in the dream, you turn back to try and get your usual ritual back on track. Rituals, you see, offer us safety and stability - even when they're not good for us, they're familiar and safe, because they don't rock the boat.

In your dream, your effort to finally get to work on time is interrupted by your husband who suddenly needs a ride and, interestingly, does the driving, even though it's your car.


Let's cut to the chase: you're really gay.

It's not really your job you're worried about getting to, it's your sexual identity - that of a lesbian.  
For far too long, you've been putting on the costume of a good, heterosexual woman...but you've reached a point in life where you ask yourself if you're doing the right thing, and harboring a grudge against your husband who you perceive as putting his own needs before your own. Notice in the dream how he takes over the situation to such an extent  that he's driving your car? Not only does he take the wheel, but he lets you sleep past your destination. You lash out at your husband in the dream, and blame him for your lateness. But it's not really lateness to your work you're worried about. You're worried that you've waited this long to face your own lesbionic tendencies, and blaming your husband for keeping you in the heterosexual nightmare of a life you've been living.