Are you a person who dreams much about sexual or romantic matters? And if so, have you ever found yourself developing an attraction to someone based almost solely on how they appeared to you one night in a dream?
One of the first times this happened to me was with the actor Donald Sutherland. I must have been about 16 when I had this experience, which is a bit odd because the guy is 57 years older than me… but then, I have always been into older men. I recall that he was caring and considerate and that I woke up 400% more attracted to him than I’d been when I went to sleep.
Another time, I had dream-sex with Jennifer Lopez. I know, I’m very fortunate. The thing is, as blazingly hot as J-Lo obviously is, curvy feminine women are not my usual “type” – so I wonder how much of this dream had to do with challenging internalized biphobia, or queer femme erasure, or my own worn-deep notions of what “my type” even is… or maybe I should stop analyzing it and just appreciate that I got to have dream-sex with Jennifer fucking Lopez.
I bring this up because last night I had a dream I moved into a large apartment, where 8-10 roommates already resided, and one of them was this boy I went to high school with (let’s call him Chris). Chris was exceedingly handsome, and a few years older than me, and vaguely popular in the way that a nerdy punk-rock kid can be popular at an arts school. I still remember, with unsettling immediacy, the time my mom was dropping me off at school one morning and Chris happened to saunter across the crosswalk in front of us as we waited at a traffic light. “WHO is THAT?!” my mom asked. “He’s so CUTE!” (Fear not: he would’ve been about 18-19 at the time, and my mom is not a cougar.) I had to agree with her, though I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I wasn’t and have never been the type of bubbly blonde brave boy-pursuer she was in her youth. Me hooking up with Chris was about as likely as a mouse hooking up with an eagle.