Dear Dr Toby,

I  had a really weird dream the other week. My close friend Matt was in it and my brother-in-law Tom as well.

We were all going to see a new Star Wars that George Lucas had done, we’d got to the cinema, and as we were queuing Matt decided he didn’t want to go in, he said he knew it was going to be rubbish and stated that the prequels were shit, so ergo, this would be shit.

We tried to change his mind but he was adamant and refused to go in. Tom and Me decided to go in anyway and we left Matt outside having a drink.

When we went in the scene from Star Was that it was set on a train, and both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were played by Indians, and Tom told me that due to the economic crises Lucas had been forced to do this on the cheap, and went to Bollywood and also didn’t use any effects. So Darth Vader was just in normal clothes breathing heavily between sentences and Luke Skywalker was wearing a blond wig.

We were enjoying it right up until the finale which involved Luke and Vader in a dance off cheered on by two teams of break dancing Ewoks.

Then I woke up.

What does it mean, it’s been haunting me ever since?

Stuart

Dear Stuart,

Ah this old chestnut, you’d be surprised how common this dream is, especially amongst men who were aged between 5 and 10 when the original ‘Star Wars’ movie came out in 1977.

If we look at this dream and break it down into it’s individual components we can see that ‘Matt’ and ‘Tom’ represent the two sides to your personality. Matt is the adult, grown up you, the one that has taken on board responsibility and released infantile obsessions, where as Tom represents the immature, child-like impish side of your psyché, the one that will ultimately lead you to disappointment, making you chose to try to re-live your childhood rather than become an adult and have meaningful relationships with women instead of trying to complete your collection of ‘Star Wars Top Trumps’.

Matt has learnt from the disappointment of the first three Star Wars prequels and realised that George Lucas is nothing more than a talentless snake oil salesman who managed to strike it lucky with Star Wars and by handing over the directorial reigns for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’ was at least able to postpone turning his own creation into a pile of overblown horse manure until much later when he thought Jar Jar Binks was a good idea.

In the dream though you have forsaken Matt and suffered the disappointment of trying to recapture your inner child with Tom, this should serve as an example to you in your waking life, you are an adult and should eschew infantile interests, read a newspaper, a broadsheet if possible, watch ‘Newsnight’ and go to dinner parties, in short, grow the heck up.

Hope this helps,

Dr Toby

Hello Doctor Toby

Can you explain my dream to me please?

In my dream I am in the ocean, it is sunny and warm and peaceful. I feel safe and relaxed for the first time in ages.

Then a dolphin comes to see me. He is happy, and this makes me happy. And then his dolphin friends come and see me too and they form a circle around me, just below the water.

As I float effortlessly all I can see around me are their long noses above the gentle waves, glinting in the sun, occasionally spraying me with jets of water. This gives me an enormous sense of well-being and happiness.

What does it mean?

I see from your other letters that you like a little bit about the person, so I shall sum myself up as follows: I am a 42 year old divorced father of three teenage girls who I never see. Their mother left me ten years ago citing ‘irreconcilable differences’ and she moved back to Scotland taking the girls with her.

I’ve had a few relationships since, but nothing ever developed seriously as I tend to push people away if it gets too emotional.

Does my dream mean I need to swim with the dolphins in real-life to regain my happiness?

Brendan (London, NW3)

Hi Brendan, 

Thanks for contacting me with this dream, one which is not unusual amongst men in your situation, a divorcee who’s also separated from his children.

Firstly you are in the sea, a warm and comfortable place for you, this suggests a subliminal longing to return to the womb and the safety of your mother’s belly with all your needs catered for, this is not uncommon especially amongst men who’ve been used to an all female environment.

With your admission that your failed relationships have been because you’ve pushed people away when they get too close, it’s seems obvious to me that you have some Oedipal issues which may’ve affected your relationships with women, you associate women who are not your mother, with pain and unhappiness.

The fact that you are swimming with dolphins is, of course, highly significant. Dolphins are gregarious, friendly, playful creatures and they represent a desire to return to your childhood, to frolic with your pals in your bathing suits, a time when laughter and smiles were prevalent in your life.

Of course, when the dolphins spray you with water we are entering a whole new, and unseemly, part of the dream, a part where your subconscious has moved on from the playfulness and innocence of childhood to the more guilty pleasures of puberty and adulthood.

Freud would have a lot to say on this matter, but suffice to say I would suggest that this “spraying” by the dolphins indicates some dark, perverted sexual desires that you were unable to fulfill with your wife, do you sometimes have little ‘accidents’ in the night which actually give you a feeling of warmth and excitement?

If this is the case I would suggest a visit to Hamburg in Germany, where there are many clubs which cater for those who are curious about watersports, only by having a taste of these peccadilloes will you be able to satiate your curiousity and be able to sustain a fulfilling, loving relationship.

All the best, 

Dream Dr Toby

Dear Dream Doctor

I am a 32 year old man, I am married and have two lovely children, and am a serving police officer in the Greater Manchester Constabulary.

However recently I have been having erotic dreams about the tv actor David Tennant.

I am not gay. I know I am definitely not gay. But I am getting to the point where I can’t wait to go to sleep so I can begin to dream.

I am very conflicted by this.

MK (Disbury, Manchester)

Dear MK,

Thank you for contacting me about these very interesting dreams, I can appreciate that for most men these sort of nocturnal imaginings are very worrying and not something to be discussed.

Many men of your age and in your circumstances, happily married with kids, start to have these kind of thoughts especially when you are asleep and your subconscious is allowed to takeover from your waking brain, a time when your hidden desires can bubble to the surface like croutons in a bowl of soup that has been overheated in a microwave.

Of course to the layman, erotic dreams about another man, especially one as handsome and forceful as Doctor Who, might make you suspect that you are becoming a ‘Friend of Dorothy’ but thanks to advances in Neuroscience we know that our thoughts during our sleep are not as easily interpreted as we think, which is just as well for people like me!

Whilst it is well known that the BBC is attempting to promote homosexuality through programmes such as ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Touchwood’ and ‘The Sarah Jane Lesbian Adventures’, it doesn’t necessarily follow that if you enjoy such mindless pap that you are becoming a bit light on your feet and a fan of musical theatre.

Personally I wouldn’t worry too much unless your thoughts turn to John Barrowman, in which case you would be beyond help.

Hope this helps,

Dream Dr Toby

Dear Dream Doctor

Please help me understand this dream that I have been having for about a month now.

In it I am driving down a dark, dimly-lit city street.  I get the feeling I am going the wrong way, but the road is too narrow and the walls too high to turn myself around.

Eventually I see an opening in the wall up ahead. I manoeuvre myself in to it and turn the car around, facing the direction I feel I want to be heading in.

But every time I pull out and begin heading in that direction a massive juggernaught comes crashing in to me, and at this point I always wake up.

I wonder if it has anything to do with my work life? I have been doing the same boring job since I left university, but recently had the chance to leave and go and do something I’ve always wanted to do with the mentally handicapped, but I was persuaded to stay by a quite significant raise.

I wasn’t sure at the time, and now I regret it. Could this have a bearing on the dream?

I look forward to your comments

Charles (Andover, Wilts)

Hi Charles,  

Wow you sound like you are in a very conflicted place right now and it is weighing heavily on your subconscious. 

You have pointed to areas in your work life and career that you may be unhappy with, decisions that you have made which you regret, these would appear to correspond with the circumstances of your dream.

The fact that you are heading down a street where you have no room for manoeuvre  shows that you feel as though your life is headed in a direction over which you have no control and that even if you manage to head the right way your hopes and dreams will be crushed by the oncoming ‘Juggernaut’ of life’s pressures.

However, for me, this interpretation is too literal, sometimes dreams are not just simple allegories for problems in your waking life.

I believe that this dream may in fact be masking the real anxieties, anxieties that appear, at least to an expert such as myself, related to questions of sexuality.

The dim, dark, narrow passage, the feeling that at the moment you are ‘going the wrong way’ these all point to homosexual tendencies that you have suppressed for far too long.

I suggest that you quit your job and perhaps take a voluntary job working with other like minded men, maybe even traveling somewhere exotic like San Francisco or Sydney.

Hope this helps,

Dr Toby

 

Dear Dr toby,

I had a dream that I was crossing a rope bridge up high in the clouds and then I met an old school friend halfway.

I wanted to know what he was doing, and he said he was biting the toggles off the bridge so that it would break.

He started doing this with his teeth and the bridge came apart and I fell down through the sky, and then hit the floor with a thump (even though they say if you hit the ground you die – you don’t! You do wake up though slightly startled!).

What can this all mean?

Tom

Dear Tom,

Although the general theme of this dream, falling, is fairly common, the details of your own personal version reveal a complex and creative personality, I’m guessing that you are heavily involved in the Arts, you probably enjoy ballet and watching “Strictly Come Dancing”?

The rope bridge and it’s location, high in the clouds, suggests that you are highly strung, but have high hopes for your life, the bridge itself is a literal crossing point, your life is moving from one point to another with a potentially troublesome transition ahead.

Dreams involving old school friends are often a defence response, a longing for the “happiest days of your life”, perhaps a desire for the close companionship of a male friend who supported you during puberty and those confusing times when you were embracing the changes from child into adult with all those questions of ambitions, careers and sexuality that it brings.

The fact that your friend destroyed the bridge suggests conflict and possibly a response to rejection, did your friend ever make advances to you?

Perhaps he once stood slightly to close to you in the showers after PE and gazed longingly at your emerging manhood and you felt a stirring in your developing tumescence which made you feel simultaneously dirty, angry, confused but also excited?

You probably reacted by ostracizing him and you now feel guilty, even subconsciously suicidal for potentially rejecting the only person who ever loved you for who you truly are.

I suggest that you embrace this side of your sexuality and accept that you probably have a filthy desire to fellate sailors.

Hope this helps,

Dr Toby

Dear Dream Dr Toby

Last night I dreamt it was a bright sunny summer’s day.

I was sat watching a cricket match on an idyllic village green. On the other side of the green I saw my first ever girlfriend.

She waved to me so I got up and ran to the other side of the green but she wasn’t there. I looked for her and she was now where I’d just come from. So I ran back, but when I got there she was back over the other side again.

All the time the cricket match was taking place. I don’t like cricket and I don’t think I’ve ever been to this village before – please Dream Dr Tony, what does my dream mean?

Well Ross, this is a very interesting dream which is relatively common as it’s symptomatic of many of the concerns and anguishes that many of us have due to the pace of modern life.

 The bright sunny summer’s day, the typically English scene of a cricket match played on an idyllic village green, these all point to a longing for peace and quiet, a break from the pressure of work and the city and possibly an unfulfilled desire to participate in typical country pursuits such as Morris dancing, cheese rolling and shouting at asylum seekers.

The presence of your first girlfriend represents love and the constant search, throughout your life, for the ever elusive trinity of companionship, affection and poontang.

It may be that you are finally coming to terms with the fact that these are goals that you will never achieve not until you accept that which is all too clear from the messages being revealed to you from your subconscious.

In layman’s terms you are probably a latent homosexual and have an unnatural desire to fondle Kevin Pietersen’s middle stump, I suggest that you buy a copy of my latest book, “I Dream of Weenie”, and feel comfortable with what you are.

Hope this helps,

Dr Toby 

Dear Dream Dr Toby

I am a 29 year old unemployed man. I was made redundant last summer and am finding it hard to find employment in the current economic climate.

My best friend has been great and has let me sleep on his sofa. The only problem is he is getting married soon and I will need to move out.

This is obviously a stressful time for me and it has been troubling my dreams, perhaps you can help.

 I keep dreaming that I wake up in my best friend’s house on the day of his wedding and I panic. I try begging with him not to get married but he won’t listen.

The Rolls Royce turns up to pick him up followed by the dustcart to throw me out into the street. So I throw myself in front of his car but it misses me. So I run to the church and when I get there the vicar asks if anyone knows any reason why they can’t get married I shout “Me, what about me”.

Everyone turns, I get picked up and thrown in an open grave and when his bride-to-be is shovelling the earth on me I wake up.

 She is a lovely girl and I have nothing against her at all. I know I’m probably just worried about finding a place to live, but would appreciate an expert interpretation.

Dennis, Middlesbrough

Hi Dennis,

Let me just start by reassuring you that this sort of dream is becoming ever more common in these times of economic trouble and strife, especially for men of your age, approaching their thirties and with no discernible accomplishments in their life so far.

Dr Toby

Dear Dream Dr Toby

Recently I had a very strange dream, I hope you can help.

I am a 31 year old woman, I have a good career and I am getting married in the Summer so I assumed that all is good for me.

But I dreamt that I was at my place of work when my boss called me into his office. When I stepped inside there was everyone I know sitting around a table looking at me. I was then subjected to what seemed like an interrogation, which made me very upset and angry.

The only person who was nice to me was a little girl who I recognise as myself from old photos.

It has been playing on my mind for a few days now so I would really appreciate it if you can tell me what it means.

Thanks

Fiona, 31, Hampshire

Hello Fiona,

Well first of all you’ll be relieved to know that although this dream may seem very strange to you it is actually very common especially amongst women who are going through a stressful or pressurized period of their life.

A dream which involves your work place often means that you are career driven and ambitious, this is also emphasized by the presence of your boss.

Being called into his office and being surrounded by all your family, friends and colleagues suggests that you are being called to account to justify a major decision that you have recently made, most probably regarding your impending marriage.

All the people that you know, who were interrogating you, are a metaphor for your own subconscious, your doubts and fears, this shows that you are unsure as to whether you have made the right decision. This is further backed up by the presence of your younger self, the only one that you feel comfortable with.

This shows a longing for a better time in your life, a time when you were young, free and single, a time when boys probably played no part in your happiness, a time when you probably held hands with other girls and felt the first stirrings of your sexual awakenings as you practiced kissing with your best friend whilst comparing your blossoming breasts.

I would suggest that you really don’t want to go through with your impending matrimony, call it off, arrange with your boss to take a sabbatical and go traveling with one of the many all women adventure companies that can be found on the internet, experience the love and companionship that can only come from another woman’s touch and truly find yourelf.

Hope this helps,

Dr Toby