[hheath541]

I'm not completely sure if this goes here, but I wasn't sure where else it would fit.



For the past year or more I've had several odd pregnancy dreams. In all of them, I'm very pregnant. Never once did I actually have the kid, and I was always alone. I knew who the father was, but I was going through the pregnancy on my own, and seemed to be hiding it from my friends and family.

In one, I was shopping for maternity clothes and hid when I saw someone I knew. In the others, I just got the impression that I was avoiding mentioning anything about it to my friends and family.

Now, the oddest thing, is that I haven't been in a relationship in about four years, and have been celibate for almost two. I've never been pregnant, or even really thought I was. No one close to me has been pregnant in that space of time, or thought they were (at least as far as I know). I haven't spent more than a few hours with a baby, total, in the past couple years.

The dreams are just confusing me, and doing the oddest things to my biological clock.

[joypulv]

Dreams are no more than what they mean to you --- so what do they mean to you?
I'll try to help by asking about the cryptic last sentence. Since you didn't say how old you are, what exactly are the dreams doing to your BC? Perhaps you answered your own question just with that one statement. It would make perfect sense. The dreams aren't 'doing' anything, you are creating the dreams as a way of dealing with no children. One thing you can do is think about your parents and when they had you and any siblings, or if you didn't have a father present or known, what that means to you. In other words, you are your own best sleuth.

[hheath541]

I'm almost 25. I don't really want kids. I'm nowhere even close to a situation where even thinking about having kids would be a good idea, and I honestly don't think I would be a good mother. I'm not sure I've ever really wanted to raise children.

I have about 15 years left for that change. It's not like I'm anywhere near too old to have kids.

for weeks or months after one of these dreams, I find myself constantly thinking about being pregnant. Not having kids. Just being pregnant. Hence, the odd things they're doing to my biological clock.

my mom was in her early to mid-twenties when she had me and my siblings. But, that's normal for her generation. I never knew my father, or had a father figure in my life, and it never really bothered me. It was simply the way things were. A different kind of family, just like many others. It's not like single-parent families were unusual where and when I was growing up.

I think what confuses me the most is that in those dreams I'm hiding the fact that I'm pregnant from everyone I know. I may not live anywhere near any of my family and friends, but I'd still think that something as big as ending up pregnant would be something I'd share. If, for no other reason, than to ask my sister for advice. It's not exactly something you can hide forever. Eventually, someone would come to visit and I think they would notice the random child running around my house.

the simple fact that I'm having dreams where I'm pregnant is strange enough, on it's own. The rest just adds to my confusion.

[joypulv]

I still wonder (not trying to dictate) if your dreams are the product of underlying thoughts. I wonder if you really are torn about motherhood. Despite the lack of advances in dream study science, most people agree that one function is to sort out events in our lives. (But who knows, maybe it's all just chemical interactions of serotonin and memory circuits. Schizophrenia, illegal and even many prescription drugs cause bizarre dreams that sort of take over consciousness. I took an antidepressant that not only gave me what seemed like tons of dreams but they were vivid all day long, so I stopped the drug and they stopped.)

Your dreams do coincide with your mother's life, right? Hiding the pregnancy in your dreams may go back to one tiny little memory, something she did or said or someone else said, about who the father was or a crack about it, that you don't recall consciously. It doesn't really matter. You are in control of all this. So again, if you are going to allow dreams to 'do things' to you, then maybe it's time to look for conflict in your own thoughts. I had them actively when I was in my 20s and 30s, and chose not to have kids. Doesn't mean I wasn't torn at times.